A tale of a novice trader

Sounds like you've got the discipline to make a go of it.

An InteractiveBrokers account might give you some options -
they call their sim Paper Trader, and they've got all the products to trade.

Trading around job hours is tough (I've only managed it a little);
I used to wait hours for a forex setup and by then it would be 4 in the morning.

Futures may provide more setups in a given time period than forex;
for unusual trading hours you could try 1 contract of the ESTX50 from Germany
(it moves "smoother" than the DAX).

But money management to insure survival is key (without setting stops so close as to guarantee whipsaws).
 
Quote from n00b7r4d3r:

do you have to transfer your money to them and set up a real account to access the paper trade account usually?
More...

No you usually have to register & just put your info in kind of like you were pretending you were gunna open an account.
Then play with the demo data will probaly be delayed so attempt to trade like it was real as frank said have a plan so u can play realisticaly.
 
i used to paper trade (kind of) with tradefreedom's demo account and it sucked... when you would enter a stop loss it would only work some of the time ( i think it got triggered by live price instead of simulator price and this does not work when data is delayed) and there was never any short inventory
 
I personally think paper trading is for the birds!

I started out paper trading and everything was peachy. I had ice running through my veins and was killing it!

Then I started trading with real money and realized that bad fills can change your profitability in an instant. Worse than bad fills was the emotions that were absent in the paper trades came roaring to life when it was my money on the line.

A couple of books I have read suggest that the first bunch of money you put in the market should be looked at as your learning fund. So if you have 4k - don't worry about losing it. Use that 4k to learn all you can about the market, about execution, about cycles, breakouts, support and resistance. Most importantly use this learning time to figure out your trading style and edge. Think of it as the tuition you have to pay in order to learn how to be a good trader.

I went to a lawyers once to see about getting 120k that a business had took from me. The lawyer looked over my docs and told me - you got a good case, but its not worth it to pursue over 120k. Chalk it up as a learning experience and come back and see me when you have 1.2 million.

So, use that 4k for learning. Make detailed observations and keep a journal detailing every trade.

It might take some time, but you'll figure out how to get more money.

Good luck!
 
Quote from enochbenjamin:

I personally think paper trading is for the birds!

I started out paper trading and everything was peachy. I had ice running through my veins and was killing it!

Then I started trading with real money and realized that bad fills can change your profitability in an instant. Worse than bad fills was the emotions that were absent in the paper trades came roaring to life when it was my money on the line.

A couple of books I have read suggest that the first bunch of money you put in the market should be looked at as your learning fund. So if you have 4k - don't worry about losing it. Use that 4k to learn all you can about the market, about execution, about cycles, breakouts, support and resistance. Most importantly use this learning time to figure out your trading style and edge. Think of it as the tuition you have to pay in order to learn how to be a good trader.

I went to a lawyers once to see about getting 120k that a business had took from me. The lawyer looked over my docs and told me - you got a good case, but its not worth it to pursue over 120k. Chalk it up as a learning experience and come back and see me when you have 1.2 million.

So, use that 4k for learning. Make detailed observations and keep a journal detailing every trade.

It might take some time, but you'll figure out how to get more money.

Good luck!
More...

These were my thoughts exactly. But as time progressed I thought to myself that it must be foolish to trade a live account first and that my wish to stay trading live must be the mindset of a gambler. Altho I am having second thoughts for several reasons: 1) your post 2)Im not loosing huge amounts of money (mabie 100$ a month) and I am learning alot 3) finding a good paper trading account is difficult 4) I think I am close to getting my edge (but I always have tho). It seems that I can see all the good setups but I only take the bad ones. Last night I was watching the aud trade against the usd and i saw a setup that I almost took but decided not to because of the volatility. It turned out that I could have placed an unreasonably tight stop and got 150 pips (which would put my account all the way back at where it started)
 
Quote from n00b7r4d3r:

[If you only want to see how much money I lost please skip to the end]

Back in about september of last year was when I started getting really into this thing called the stock market. It was around that time that I decided trading was what I wanted to do for a living (or at least as a hobby until i could do it really good). I began to study everything I could find about trading and I would test myself to see if i could make accurate predictions and analysis. I had some luck but it was mainly hit and miss.

It was about Janruary was when i got my brokerage account open. I had 4k to trade with and being an expert at the time I felt prety confident and was ready to make money. I actually made money on my first few trades but gradually realized that in order to statistically make money I would have to expose myself to more risk to make commissions negligible. I then looked for the best stock that looked like it would go up and settled on one that had gone up about 130% in the past few days. This was going to be awesome; I was going to make so much money on this trade! I saw someone put a bid up for 100 000 shares (the average daily volume was about 100 000 shares) There is no way this is going down! So i bought some but unfortunately right after i got involved someone sold 200 000 shares. It started droping like a rock. I saw stars. I decided to get out before I lost an unreasonable amount. In 9 minutes I lost 86 $. I actually would have made money had i stayed in the trade long enough but i would have had to endure a loss of well over 100$ for quite a while. Lesson learned: do not trade things that gone up 130% over the last 3 days.

Needless to say at this point I did not think to much about stops or risk reward ratio's or targets I was just trying to get some of the free money the stock market was giving out.

Since at this point I had just moved out of my parents house I thought instead of getting a job ill just suppourt myself daytrading.. why not? I had a realistic target of about 50$ a day only 1.2%. Shortly after i lowered this to 30$ .. then 200 a month .. then anything a month... then not lose money.. then I got a job.

Unfortunately I work every second that the market is open except for mondays and I have kept up my trading ever since and also opened up a forex account so i can trade when in the evening. I have gotten better but I still have not turned a profit. I have always justified my trading by saying that my prior losses were lack of knowledge and now I know what I am doing... well on monday i hit my breaking point. 4 forex trades in a row each with a setup looking more perfect than the last that all stop me out almost immeaditly as if to mock me and not give me any hope of success at all. I do not belong to the elite class who can just start trading and make money right away. I suck. Thats all there is to it. My losses are not result of bad luck. There is no statistical anomaly here. Every time I re-refine my ideas I just lose more money.


Since Janruary in about 50 rt trades in stocks i took my account from 4k to 3.465k

Since July in about 30 rt trades in forex i took my account from 465$ to 300

commissions were about 10 $ rt and 3-4 pips rt

I have decided to not trade again until i can double my money in a sim account which brings me to my question: where can i find a sim account that actually works (when you use stops they must actually trigger) and can do thing like shorting without just saying they have no short inventory all the time. I would also be interested in sim accounts for forex and futures.
More...

You're on the right way:
currently, your commissions are way too high, and you should probably trade less or with a broker, that really doesn't have minimum lots. I think IB offers both.

Furthermore, you should study Andrew's Pitchfork and FIbonacci Retracements. There's no way around, if you want to make money in the forex.

Right now, stop trading altogether (or better yet, trade very tiny size) and print yourself this article out, and read it again and again for the next couple of weeks:
http://www.gaincapital.com/files/traders-04-12-01.pdf
 
Quote from n00b7r4d3r:

[If you only want to see how much money I lost please skip to the end]

Back in about september of last year was when I started getting really into this thing called the stock market. It was around that time that I decided trading was what I wanted to do for a living (or at least as a hobby until i could do it really good). I began to study everything I could find about trading and I would test myself to see if i could make accurate predictions and analysis. I had some luck but it was mainly hit and miss.

It was about Janruary was when i got my brokerage account open. I had 4k to trade with and being an expert at the time I felt prety confident and was ready to make money. I actually made money on my first few trades but gradually realized that in order to statistically make money I would have to expose myself to more risk to make commissions negligible. I then looked for the best stock that looked like it would go up and settled on one that had gone up about 130% in the past few days. This was going to be awesome; I was going to make so much money on this trade! I saw someone put a bid up for 100 000 shares (the average daily volume was about 100 000 shares) There is no way this is going down! So i bought some but unfortunately right after i got involved someone sold 200 000 shares. It started droping like a rock. I saw stars. I decided to get out before I lost an unreasonable amount. In 9 minutes I lost 86 $. I actually would have made money had i stayed in the trade long enough but i would have had to endure a loss of well over 100$ for quite a while. Lesson learned: do not trade things that gone up 130% over the last 3 days.

Needless to say at this point I did not think to much about stops or risk reward ratio's or targets I was just trying to get some of the free money the stock market was giving out.

Since at this point I had just moved out of my parents house I thought instead of getting a job ill just suppourt myself daytrading.. why not? I had a realistic target of about 50$ a day only 1.2%. Shortly after i lowered this to 30$ .. then 200 a month .. then anything a month... then not lose money.. then I got a job.

Unfortunately I work every second that the market is open except for mondays and I have kept up my trading ever since and also opened up a forex account so i can trade when in the evening. I have gotten better but I still have not turned a profit. I have always justified my trading by saying that my prior losses were lack of knowledge and now I know what I am doing... well on monday i hit my breaking point. 4 forex trades in a row each with a setup looking more perfect than the last that all stop me out almost immeaditly as if to mock me and not give me any hope of success at all. I do not belong to the elite class who can just start trading and make money right away. I suck. Thats all there is to it. My losses are not result of bad luck. There is no statistical anomaly here. Every time I re-refine my ideas I just lose more money.


Since Janruary in about 50 rt trades in stocks i took my account from 4k to 3.465k

Since July in about 30 rt trades in forex i took my account from 465$ to 300

commissions were about 10 $ rt and 3-4 pips rt

I have decided to not trade again until i can double my money in a sim account which brings me to my question: where can i find a sim account that actually works (when you use stops they must actually trigger) and can do thing like shorting without just saying they have no short inventory all the time. I would also be interested in sim accounts for forex and futures.
More...

IB has an awesome sim account. It updates in real time. It's almost like the real thing. But you have to realize that trading a sim account with fake money is not like trading even with small positions. There's no emotion involved. Sim accounts do have some use, but don't overestimate their value.

Just a word about trading. I just want to warn you that trading stocks and especially daytrading is very risky. Most traders fail. Trading takes years and years of experience and smarts. If you could succeed, GREAT. I wish you all the success in the world. But I wish I had someone there to tell me how hard it was to trade.

Trading looks easy, but is very hard. It gets easier with years of experience. It's like a never ending puzzle.
 
Quote from n00b7r4d3r:

I would be with ib already but I have 6 months till im 21
More...

Well then just wait till you're 21. Patience is a virtue, especially in trading.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top