beginner prop strategies

Kris · Sep 11, 2008

Today was my first day of live trading at the prop firm. Didn't do particularly well lol

I'm wondering if you guys could give me some basic strategy ideas to get going. At one point today I saw a flurry of activity on the stock I was trading, and had I been quicker could of jumped on the bandwagon and made some money. Is this the essence of it? Should I wait for activity and then enter aggressively (market buys)?

Thanks for the help

ChaosNSX · Sep 11, 2008

Stock goes up buy, stock goes down sell.. as simple as it sounds it will put you ahead of the learning curve.

twtrader · Sep 11, 2008

Shouldn't your trainer be helping you with this ?

Or when you say 'prop firm', you mean levered broker ?

caementarius · Sep 11, 2008

Don't trade much money until you have an idea that you know what you're doing. Don't try to 'get back' your losses from today. I think in the beginning it's about survival and finding some edge or style that works for you. I'm still in this survival stage..

In the meantime, you can work on improving your capacity to process information: reading news, watching indices, using a market scanner/screener kind of tool, etc. You've got to be paying attention.

Kris · Sep 11, 2008

Quote from caementarius:

Don't trade much money until you have an idea that you know what you're doing. Don't try to 'get back' your losses from today. I think in the beginning it's about survival and finding some edge or style that works for you. I'm still in this survival stage..

In the meantime, you can work on improving your capacity to process information: reading news, watching indices, using a market scanner/screener kind of tool, etc. You've got to be paying attention.

Thanks for your response - I agree on the survival aspect. The guy who did the best in our training class traded a slower moving stock, which I think I'm going to do tomorrow. Going to focus on disciplined stops as well.

The prop firm has some methods that are working for a number of traders, but it'll take some time before we get into those. One thing they did make clear is that they did not want us using charts and TA while learning Level 2.

lpchad · Sep 11, 2008

Spend as much time as possible on ET and soak up the wealth of knowledge here

baggerlord · Sep 11, 2008

Look for stocks that have broken out of yesterdays range, keep trending. KISS.

vingbel · Sep 11, 2008

If I may ask, what prop firm are you trading with? And did you trade before on your own?

ksonsinc · Sep 11, 2008

Why dont you ollow 1 sector
Like i follow Financials and i have each and very financial stock in my portfolio
I see what is strong and what is weak against the futures and i make a trade or 2
Cabt go worng when you follow the same stock or trade the same stock day in and day out

PatrickQ · Sep 11, 2008

welcome to the journey! 1) capital preservation 2) emotional self-awareness & analysis in those inital few years 3) you will bounce around trying everything (all these recommended approaches and more) ... those intial years ... regardless - so see points 1 & 2 when in doubt. until finally, you will learn which type of trading suits your personality, and risk profile. 4) then focus on consistency. 5) find a fellow trader at your level of experience - network NOT for trading ideas BUT for someone to motivate from, listen to, and turn to ... sure can help! happy trading!