May be the best thing you can do as a beginner is to avoid that kind of trading BS from day one...
beginner technical analysis
- Thread starter Votke2310
- Start date
I would love to take the opportunity to say how brilliant you are! The more you indirectly call me an idiot the more I realize I have to learn! Google is an incredible tool that I use pretty often so I guess I'm on the right path (check). I actually get excited for your responses because when you point things out I'm doing wrong or not doing I get to incorporate or change things I am doing (hence I'm indirectly learning and growing and getting better)! If I didn't have to post these questions that are seemingly above you trust me I wouldn't but I don't have the answers so I will continue until i figure it out and don't have to ask questions on a forum! I've been going over all my trades this weekend (because of you) and am coming up with percentages and actual numbers. SO far I have a success rate of 27%, now I'm incorporating my numbers into the strategies to see whats working and not and growing from there so thank you for that because it was you that said I didn't have more specific numbers and made me look over everything and see how bad I actually am and can learn from my mistakes! I didn't know looking and chart formations was part of a strategy but thought it was the norm and people used these basic formations in their strategies> I didn't know that it WAS a strategy. So, I guess from you last response I still have to come up with even more specific things and actually maybe just pick one build it up piece by piece instead of all at once and than take my winning percentages and incorporate it that way! thanks for taking the time to enlighten me and helping me out have a successful trading day!
what would you recommend
im still learning so thank you! i will just use the highs from now on! I do understand what you mean about the bias form fitting than what is actually there! thanks for the advice
I don't think he was calling you an idiot either directly or indirectly.
Personal statistics can be very valuable, especially when you are losing money.
Lately I just started re reading my favorite books (again, one more time!) on day trading stocks, this time armed with sticky notes and a highlighter. I am going to go through three or four, then extract the important points to file cards and also into a spreadsheet. The more you handle the important information, the more it sinks in. Plus it will give me a quick reference for scanning, strategies, etc. Write stuff out longhand or type it, and it isn't just words buzzing by your eyeballs. It is something you had to think about. Critical reading is a skill that most of us just have never developed very well. Sometimes you have to bludgeon it into your skull to retain it. Maybe you can try something similar. The more you know, the better questions you can ask and the better answers you will get.
Picking just one strategy at first is a very good plan! I would almost say essential to having any chance of success. Even if you can't trade it every day because you never get the right setup, it is still good. I am a newbie myself and I can tell you that the proper goal at this point is surviving with your account, not making a living from it. If you are already counting on this for income you are pushing for too much too soon. So yeah, getting good at just one strategy will cost you less and maybe soon you will get your stats up to something you can feel good about. Then pick another strat to learn. No retail trader really needs more than three or four separate strategies, IMHO. Any day you are not trading is at least another day you are not losing. Any day that you are trading a great setup with YOUR ONE strategy, following your rules and not freestyling, you have a realistic if small chance of actually making a profit.
My suggestion is pick your strategy and learn it by heart. Put it to the test by paper trading. No, it is not the same as live trading. But it can develop your skill at using that strategy with that platform. Ride with the training wheels for a bit. You are gonna make a lot of mistakes starting out with the new plan. The more of them you can make in a cost free environment, the better. After a couple of weeks maybe try a live trade with a small position, following your rules perfectly, like a machine. The better you can do that, the better you will do.
Trading is a lot of fun once your account stops hemorrhaging and your losses are just beer money or you start seeing a modest buildup. It must be punishing to go through what you are going through, but it is the norm so don't let it get you down too much. Think of it as a series of expensive lessons, most of them repeats. Those repeats are the ones that really need your attention.
The most important subject to master early on is risk management. You got to make your losing trades not cost you so much. The ratio between win amounts and loss amounts has to be strong, and your win rate needs to get up at least very near 50%. Some guys routinely have win rates at 40% or even lower but this is with a very high average win amount for a very low average loss amount. Much easier if you can get your trades to be around 50%. Then if profit to risk is say 3:1 you have a lot more gravy. 2:1 is really about the minimum you should shoot for. If looking at the chart and determining how far support and resistance levels are to your buyin price do not give you that ratio or better, you have no business in that trade. That is the kind of stuff nearly any good book on day trading will teach you. Youtube is a little weak on that sort of stuff though general trading knowledge and strategies can be found easily enough. Get some books and read them. If you have already read them, read them again and take some notes. Bend some pages. Annotate some margins. Highlight. Underscore. Bludgeon the gray matter with it. This might or might not be a lost cause, but you haven't given yourself every possible advantage yet.
You're way ahead of most...most will keep trading something they've never backtested nor simulate trade prior to real money trading. They'lll keep doing this until they blow up their account or have a margin call.
Thus, you're not an idiot...your'e smarter than most. We've all been beginners at one time.
wrbtrader
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IF i got caught in a pump + dump , which is seldom 'caus i dont do many or any penny stocks; i would tighten up stops + dump @ $5 to $5.666 area.Of course split adjusted some ETFs have gone below $5 , but that is real different.
NICE volume, maybe the reason i see so many strange intra day gaps , bioteck has always been WILD.I enjoyed Tim Sykes hedge fund book; college age maybe a good time to trade penny stocks if you had to trade penny stocks.[ A normal uptrend, you could jump on it- @ your slow yellow uptrend; but i would not do it with a stock under $5]
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