An Attempt to Learn How to Trade Consistently and Profitably

01/04/2010:
SIMULATED TRADING SESSION
TRADES: 3(LONG) + 0(SHORT)
Winners: 0
Losers: 3

01-04-2010.PNG

LEGEND: BLUE IS LONG & PINK IS SHORT

Trade #1, honestly was scared out before it even hit my stop, attempted to redeem myself on my next two trades by following my planned stops.

Trade #2, stopped out

Trade #3, stopped out, was expecting a large move in either direction, but more so in the long direction, although when the move failed I should have possibly exited?

2010, was quite different than these days also 3x speed is crazy fast. Honestly talking to you guys, I think it is because I do not stick to one type of trading. The decision I have to account for are.
  1. Do I exit early base on price, or do I let it hit my stop?
  2. Do I take profits now or do I let the winner ride?
I will think about it while doing homework, but honestly maybe I am leaning towards sticking to an black and white plan, but I dislike it because it depends, but who am I to say I can read the markets.
 
attempt said:
No I do not, that is what I am trying to do, I do have some basic plans. Maybe I am too greedy and that is why I do not try following them. Now that I think about it I might be searching to be correct or a holy grail, I know that is not possible and I cannot be correct all the time. Maybe I am impatient. I know I can either change the market(switch to different instruments or similarly trading multiple instruments) or adapt to the market conditions(trade /es, spy, etc). I do not know which one is better. In all I am not making a excuse to not have a plan, but whenever I put on a trade I do have a exit and potential target.
More...

You trading part-time as in do you have another job or you feeling pressure to trade right now because you do not have a job ???

wrbtrader
 
attempt said:
School is my other job, other than that I do not have a job.
More...

You trading in between classes or you do not trade on days you have school ?

The reason why I'm asking questions like this is to see if you're trading while "distracted" from other things that may be impacting your trade decisions without you knowing it.

Simply, I'm a strong believer that the psychology in our environment impacts the cognitive decision making process of a trader.

wrbtrader
 
wrbtrader said:
You trading in between classes or you do not trade on days you have school ?

The reason why I'm asking questions like this is to see if you're trading while "distracted" from other things that may be impacting your trade decisions without you knowing it.

Simply, I'm a strong believer that the psychology in our environment impacts the cognitive decision making process of a trader.

wrbtrader
More...

All classes online, exceptions are test dates in which I will not trade. I do strongly have that view also.

Edit: Online meaning I do not have a conflict of time when I trade, because they are asynchronous classes.
 
attempt said:
No I do not, that is what I am trying to do, I do have some basic plans.
More...
I suggest you write your plan down. This way you can determine if you actually follow your own well thought out plan. At least you'll determine if the problem is the plan or the trader.

A basic plan should answer the questions
What to trade?
When to trade?
How much to trade?
When & where to exit the trade?
 
MrMuppet said:
First of all:
There are only three ways to make money: you're faster, you're smarter or you cheat.
Cheating and being faster is out of the question, so being smarter is the only thing you've working for you.

This leads to the following:

- STOP TRADING GIANT LIQUID MARKETS! Why on earth would you trade the SPY? The entire world watches it and when it's out of whack you 100% won't be the guy to make the trade first.

- Find a niche market that you can thrive in and you are the expert. Take less liquid ones nobody trades. No momentum microcaps, no blue chips, in short stay away from the crap the streamers and youtubers promote plus the shit that is talked about in the trading books.

- Learn to price things in relation to other assets to find good trades and to get an understanding of what's going on. Is GDX too expensive or too cheap? Well I don't know but it looks like getting long GDX and short GLD might be a good swing.

- Find other ways to structure trades. Getting into a trade with a stop attached isn't the only way. There are spreads and pairstrades.

- Look for cheap convexity instead of maximising win%. Derivatives wont hurt...and always remember: A futures contract is not a delta1 product.

- Do not scalp or daytrade on a retail commission structure, you'll bleed to death.

- with your account size, mid term risk arbs are the way to go until you hit the liquidity ceiling. Look into DeFi, there is tons of opportunity each day for small accounts

-
More...
Best advice for any one starting out as a trader instead of a buy and hold investor. In investing you go with the herd, trading you move away from the herd, get off the beaten path.

Hope OP listens and adjust his/her strategy to what you said. I didn't turn profitable in trading options until I seek out thinly traded underlying and gave up day trading.

Best to you.
 
Here is my small piece of advice:
-day trading commissions will eat any profits you make with your small account
-intraday SPY is basically trading noise
-use lower time frame like days or weeks - trends are visible there
-search for trending market with low noise
-research basic trend system
-check out recommended books on ET
-practice on demo account
Good luck.
 
attempt said:
Who is to say when the market will make a juicy move? I don't know if it will be when I make my first trade of the day or my 5th. I try to swing for large leg day trades(who doesn't), but I don't get them most of the time. I know the morning period is when trends are created but it is just as easy for a trend to reverse, I tried many times to catch volatile trends but it causes me to over trade, I am now just trying to lower the amount of trades I make because of overtrading is a real problem for me. I know I also chase, which is quite bad sometimes, but when I chase I exit when the market isn't doing what I think it should be doing like trade #2 where I expected explosive moves, but it got stunted easily twice. But maybe you do have a point, now that I think about it maybe large moves might have certain characteristics and I could possible trade them with a tight stop like how I do with my chasers. Thanks for the feedback.
More...

very good question.
when is the market going to make a good juicy move?
We ( or rather I ) can't predict when it is going to happen.

However, on 15 Jan during the US session,

US ES, Russell 2000, NQ
Europe Dax, stoxx50, omx, ftse MIB
Asian Nikkei, hangseng, Taiwan index

all went down at the same time.
Very important not to miss such an opportunity.
If you see such a positive correlation, the move is going to be very strong and decisive.
 
deaddog said:
I suggest you write your plan down. This way you can determine if you actually follow your own well thought out plan. At least you'll determine if the problem is the plan or the trader.

A basic plan should answer the questions
What to trade?
When to trade?
How much to trade?
When & where to exit the trade?
More...
ironchef said:
Best advice for any one starting out as a trader instead of a buy and hold investor. In investing you go with the herd, trading you move away from the herd, get off the beaten path.

Hope OP listens and adjust his/her strategy to what you said. I didn't turn profitable in trading options until I seek out thinly traded underlying and gave up day trading.

Best to you.
More...
Poljot said:
Here is my small piece of advice:
-day trading commissions will eat any profits you make with your small account
-intraday SPY is basically trading noise
-use lower time frame like days or weeks - trends are visible there
-search for trending market with low noise
-research basic trend system
-check out recommended books on ET
-practice on demo account
Good luck.
More...
maxinger said:
very good question.
when is the market going to make a good juicy move?
We ( or rather I ) can't predict when it is going to happen.

However, on 15 Jan during the US session,

US ES, Russell 2000, NQ
Europe Dax, stoxx50, omx, ftse MIB
Asian Nikkei, hangseng, Taiwan index

all went down at the same time.
Very important not to miss such an opportunity.
If you see such a positive correlation, the move is going to be very strong and decisive.
More...

I appreciate all the constructive criticism and feedback. Honestly it is quite helpful. I plan to make a written plan now, before I start to branch out intensively into other types of trading and maybe spread my time to thinly. Although many say intraday scalping on the SPY may not be possible I'll attempt this path first, for it is the one I feel most comfortable with. Although I know I shouldn't be too comfortable and stay on this path, if it doesn't work I will attempt another. For now I have accumulated all comments and have thought of them for a while and plan to write down a basic plan to build on. I just had a thought on what I may do. Thanks all for questioning. I will still do backtrades everyday if I have time just to get more experience.
 
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