Am I doing something wrong? Making money can't be this easy...

Quote from tycoonman:

couple more weeks. and when i go live, i will not be posting here.

Good riddance. This forum is for Elite Traders, not demo traders. Maybe Yahoo forums might be better for you.
 
Quote from tycoonman:

Hey guys,

Novice trader here. I am using OEC's demo platfrom and trading the ES mini in demo account. All im doing is finding trends (which are very easy to see) and just riding them for about an hour to two hours at a time for 1 contract. Anyhow, i'm making $200-$300/contract. Then I tried it with a live account and started losing money... wtf???
It can't be this difficult trading live, what am I missing? Is there something very different when you go live that demo accounts don't give you? This is not meant as some 'handout your strategy' thread. I am really confused/concerned so I don't blow up in 15 minutes whats left of my $5,000 account.

Thanks in advance for the help guys...

tycoonman, your not alone, virtually every retail trader I know (myself included) has failed to trade ES profitably over time.
 
Quote from stock777:

I'm the one who called attn to the fact that your perdictioin was correct.

Making a perdictioin is one thing, for the perdictioin to be accurate is another.

You mistook my hi-5 for something else. That's ok.

PS I looked up perdictioin but the dixionery didn't have it.



.
In the last few weeks, when Japan was hit by the quake , international markets took quite a beating, Once they and the bot traders realized that this was a natural incident and therefore should not have affected world markets the way it did, markets in the west began to recover just as dramatically as it tanked.

Right now , the Wall St. is still in that 5th gear mode , and anyone, even a dart thrower would have been able to make easy money .

To the OP......good luck with your trading , but use your ears a little more than you use your mouth . :)
 
Quote from Medveshonok:

tycoonman, you said that you are trading trends.

So why did you sold 1333 if there were higher highs and higher lows all the road before ? -)


Maybe he was trading the R10 signal from 1323


:)
 
Making money can't be this easy?

Well without sounding too harsh- it isn't that easy because you aren't making any money.

As others have said go live and you will see it is much harder when real money is on the line, especially large amounts!

Go live, make plenty of mistakes and learn from them.. then you will be on your way to becoming a trader. Demo account is just practice before the big game.. what really counts is that matchday performance :D
 
following up on what Brownsfan said below, and as an alternative with regard to the ES, I think if you subtract two ticks from every winning trade and make each losing trade worse by two ticks and then are still satisfied with your paper trading after a few months (you need to experience both up and down, slow and fast markets) you should do OK with real money.

Keep accurate track of the number of winning and losing trades and the average win and average loss.

Good luck.

P.S. I would not use mental stops, if I were you. In fact I would get in the habit of knowing exactly were I'm going to place my stop before I enter the trade, and then get that stop in quickly.


Quote from brownsfan019:

OEC's demo is very realistic.

With that said, any demo has limitations. OEC's is nice b/c it does not fill your limit orders if just touched, there is some delay mimicking the queue.

Someone on TL asked a similar question awhile back and I did a test on the Russell.

Click here to see it.

If you want to guarantee a fill on a limit order, place your entry/exit 1 tick above/below where you want to be filled in real-time.

Example: you want to buy the ES @ 1310.00 with a limit order. Place your buy on OEC @ 1309.75. If price touches 1309.75, your 1310 limit order is guaranteed to be filled.

This only applies to limit orders. If you enter via buy/sell stops then price just has to touch your level to trigger your order if using a standard buy/sell stop market order.
 
Quote from tycoonman:

cool man, thanks for that -- really informative and to the point. what does "chop and churn" mean?

I only put it at 5% because $250 sound like something i wouldn't be devistated about losing. Then again, I haven't lost more than two trades in a row since I started so I might react differently. I think ill stick on demo for another month and work all the kinks out.

here is a quick question for you guys: do you think its good to also do fundamental analysis and be abreast of the news or keep it simple and technical? and why?

thanks for the responses thus far


Fundamentals mean nothing in ES. You best plan is to keep a calender of all economic and earnings releases as this is when you will get most of the unpredictable action in ES.



How many contracts do you plan to trade with 5k ?



One problem I see if you are targeting 1 to 3 points on these trades but you are using a mental stop of 5 points. When you hit a drawdown and make 3 losing trades in a row it will take more winners to get you back to breakeven. I would say use no more than 3% of total account for your stop. Mental stop also leave you with a deer in the headlights look when you get caught offgaurd. You should use a hard stop on every trade and enter it as a bracket order so it is valid as soon as you get in the trade.
 
Quote from Spiker:

.
In the last few weeks, when Japan was hit by the quake , international markets took quite a beating, Once they and the bot traders realized that this was a natural incident and therefore should not have affected world markets the way it did, markets in the west began to recover just as dramatically as it tanked.

Right now , the Wall St. is still in that 5th gear mode , and anyone, even a dart thrower would have been able to make easy money .

To the OP......good luck with your trading , but use your ears a little more than you use your mouth . :)

but it looks like im throwing darts that land exactly to the +/-10minutes

its luck though for sure.
 
Quote from tycoonman:

hey guys...

1329.00 and about 3hrs after I said it would...

I went through this exact things some years ago. It's not as easy as it seems. You just have not experienced a different cycle yet.
 
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