Day trading difficulties

Quote from bighog:

Quote from NoDoji:
That post above of yours puts the speed in a nutshell, you grasped the basics of a trend and raised the "flaps" and just like the Wright Brothers, you took off, and as they say........the rest is history.

Trend following, once a person understands what those zigs, zags, retraces, reversals etc are all about.........they you just pull the stick back (trigger) and at full power you lift off and enjoy the flight........ :)

As always thank for your kind words, and thanks most of all for never giving up on me learning to trade with the trend at some point, but I wouldn't say my learning process was speedy!

How many big losses did it take before this here trend-fighting dim bulb of mine lit up? When you book big fat counter-trend losses enough times eventually you either give up or an "Aha!" moment occurs: "That big red unrealized loss I'm sitting on would be green if I went in the direction price went way back there when I thought it looked really weak..."

Finally, one day you think, "Maybe there's something to this, maybe no matter how counter-intuitive and scary it seems, I should just hold my nose and jump on these scary-looking setups" and you do that thing you find more difficult than anything in trading, like buy when price has been falling (pullback in a trend) or you do that thing that implies you think price is going to do the impossible and actually go even higher after it's been running half the day, and you place a buy stop above the high of the day as price gets near to it.

And you're shaking your head and your palms are sweating and you're certain this is sheer stupidity, and...

...at full power you lift off!

That's been my description of a with-trend trade ever since I finally got it. It's like liftoff. There's no better feeling in trading than to be on the other side of your previous inexperience and realize you've moved to the next level.

And what's just as great is thinking "Here it is setting up again, how can it possibly work again, that's just too obvious" but you put on the trade because it's a setup and you've scheduled appointments all day to trade your setups and damn! it works again!

:cool:
 
Quote from oraclewizard77:

Your wrong about 4 - 5 times trend setups fail. I would say 70% of trend setups work. Its just you don't know what a trend setup is.

1) You need to define a trend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trend_lines_(technical_analysis)
This is a good definition.

2) You then need to define a setup. A setup is a high probability trade based on experience, back testing, or forward testing. When I say high probability, it means more than 50% this setup should produce a profit.

Now lets look at your next theory that there is too much bad news during the day.
1) Use a professional news service. Many use briefing.com, I used CNBC Pro today when I traded. There was actually only good news today and the market was trending up. I took a real trend trade, and made a profit.

2) You do need to use the market to confirm reality. A good or bad news report can come out, and the market will be trending in the opposite direction, so price matters more than these reports, but I have found these reports help with my bias for the day.

Now lets look at your other thought, should I trade breakouts or should I trade with the overall direction of the day. Or should I trade swing trades based on higher time frames.

1) This is really what I call developing a trading strategy or edge. Yes, all trade setups even those with edge have losses. No matter what time frame you choose to trade, you will have a losing trade. During the day, I have seen price move more than stocks I have held for months at a time, so for me trading, I rather do it during the day based on my setups.

Now lets look at solutions:

1) Decide what type of trades you want to take for example swing, position, scalp, and what time frames you want to trade.

2) Find a trade setup that you want to use, either by looking over charts for patterns, watching the market during the day, having a mentor, paying for a trade course, buying a book, reading over threads here at ET.

3) Test the setup over time keeping a Journal or Excel spreadsheet. For a long time I kept an Excel spreadsheet, it had why I took the trade, did I win, did I lose, summary, was I making the same mistakes.
I have found that sometimes taking winning trades is against human nature.

4) Setup some trade management rules with stops and profit targets.

5) Create your own rules of trading. For me this is a Word document that lists my setups and includes some charts which illustrate winning trades based on those setups for my review. Last week I saw I was making the same stupid mistake, and I corrected it, so Fri, Mon, and Tue based on this new rule which I wrote in my document, I have had 3 good days in a row.

I hope this is helpful to you. Remember it takes a long time to start trading correctly and to stop making mistakes.

Thank you for your post.

There were plenty of profitable entries trading trend lines correctly over the last week.There was good 200 to 300 pips to be made on trading only the euro/usd on intra day.

My apologies , as I was not seeing the picture clearly.
 

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Quote from oraclewizard77:

I would say 70% of trend setups work.

I have found that sometimes taking winning trades is against human nature.

Right out of that popular trading song entitled "Consistent Profitability". :)
 
Quote from oilfxpro:

Thank you for your post.

There were plenty of profitable entries trading trend lines correctly over the last week.There was good 200 to 300 pips to be made on trading only the euro/usd on intra day.

My apologies , as I was not seeing the picture clearly.

Hi,

It seems you're comparing what you see in real-time while under the stress of trading to what you see in "hindsight". Simply, be very careful because "anyone" can see the picture clearly on a hindsight chart after the fact in comparison to what they see in real-time with real money on the line.

The real question is why do you think you were not able to see those key price areas outlined by those trendlines. ???

Next, will you be prepare to trade any trade signals you're using when those trendlines are tested again that's outlined on your chart for future reference. ???

Another question, what's the lifespan of those trendlines considering new ones will appear every trading day. ???

Quote from oilfxpro:

I designed and operate 44 automated day and swing strategies , they worked fine for the period 2001 to 2008.In 2009 to 2011 the systems work , but with much lower returns , due to extremely huge amount of fakes, bad news and much more uncertainty in the markets...

I'll repeat something I said earlier...you already have profitable swing trading strategies that's still making you money...

Why mess around with day trading ???

Your change in profit level, while still profitable, can be due to change in volatility or market context. That's normal. I'll repeat, it's normal and your adjustment should not be trying a new type of trading. Instead, tighten your wallet and personal lifestyle needs until suitable trading conditions return that allows your profit levels go back to where they unless you have a fear that your profit levels will continue declining in your swing trading.

*****
My point is that you have profitable methods and you should be concentrating on improvements in your "trade management after entry" of your existing swing trading strategies instead of messing around with learning a new trading style called day trading.
*****

Last of all, the years you stated had a particular type of volatility that change dramatically in 2008 and is still changing as of now. Thus, I strongly suspect your swing trading methods are very sensitive to key changes in volatility.

Mark
 
Can somebody post a snap shot of that well known chart that shows the emotional roller coaster traders go through when hanging onto a position?

Thanks!
 
No problem, I was just trying to help out.

Thanks

Quote from oilfxpro:

Thank you for your post.

There were plenty of profitable entries trading trend lines correctly over the last week.There was good 200 to 300 pips to be made on trading only the euro/usd on intra day.

My apologies , as I was not seeing the picture clearly.
 
OilXPro

In June 2004 I went to a trading expo in Chicago (If my memory is correct). After one of the presentations at the expo on trading stocks was complete, a trader next to me stood up to ask this question. “…if markets only trend 20 % of the time, then trends fail 80 % of the time. Right. Then how come it doesn’t show up on charts? If you look at chart of the Dow from 1980 to 2000 I don’t see 4 failed trends…”

For the life of me I can’t remember the presenter. It may have been Larry Williams? But I never forget the answer that was given back to us. So I will try to paraphrase it:

“…Don’t be mad at me when I really tell you what price trend in stocks really means. Because it is not going to fit your definition or the text books definition. To me it is the general direction in which stock price tends to move. But for many this is too simple a definition …”

“…you have stated the 80/20 rule which is tough to use because it gets so twisted by everybody who uses it as an example of trend in the markets. What it originally meant in the first articles written about it was that when a stock price moved in a direction that about 20% or 1 bar in 5 really contributed to the movement in that general direction (the trend). The other 80 percent of the price bars or 4 out of 5 create price noise that cannot be seen as contributing to price moving in that direction…”

“…But in today’s literature this saying as come to mean any number of twisted variations. Things like 4 out of 5 breakout set ups fail to work intraday…Only 1 trend in 5 produces good results and the other 4 are duds. Or that 4 out of 5 bars on a chart are not part of trends… All of these are false and contribute to traders not understanding when a trend is taking place on a chart…”

Take an example say of a chart of the weekly price bars from March 2009 to today for the S & P 500. Try to explain to us the directional price movement for the S & P 500 using your 80/ 20 rule. Can you show us what periods where it trended 20% of the time and what periods where 80% of the trends failed?



Quote from oilfxpro:

if markets only trend 20 % of the time, then trends fail 80 % of the time. 4 out of 5 trends really fail.

Turtle trader was a mentor not just another snake oil vendor ,

all his funds with real money failed

People greater than u failed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dennis
 
Quote from wrbtrader:

Hi,

It seems you're comparing what you see in real-time while under the stress of trading to what you see in "hindsight". Simply, be very careful because "anyone" can see the picture clearly on a hindsight chart after the fact in comparison to what they see in real-time with real money on the line.

Agreed , every thing looks easy in hindsight..I only trade live accounts .

The real question is why do you think you were not able to see those key price areas outlined by those trendlines. ???

I was not following trend lines, but support and resistance and was not pre-prepared to trade trends.I had my own method of trading support and resistance, trends and fundamentals , there was a fault in this method.This method has caught me out trading against the trend.There were too many different conflicting methods /systems to cloud my judgement.I have got rid of all the other methods, and will trade only one method for day trading.I had a lot of personal biases on where the price should go , as opposed to following trend lines.

Next, will you be prepare to trade any trade signals you're using when those trendlines are tested again that's outlined on your chart for future reference. ???

Yes , I decided to trade only the trendline trading method with variations to suit my style.It is going to be difficult trading uncertainty along the trend lines .

Another question, what's the lifespan of those trendlines considering new ones will appear every trading day. ???

A couple of days to 5 days with longer trends.


I'll repeat something I said earlier...you already have profitable swing trading strategies that's still making you money...

Why mess around with day trading ???

The returns are not adequate from swing and automated trading.

It is an obsession to win and master all trading.The more time we spend trading,learning and devising methods , the better we become as traders.Everything is achievable , if you are determined enough.

Your change in profit level, while still profitable, can be due to change in volatility or market context. That's normal. I'll repeat, it's normal and your adjustment should not be trying a new type of trading. Instead, tighten your wallet and personal lifestyle needs until suitable trading conditions return that allows your profit levels go back to where they unless you have a fear that your profit levels will continue declining in your swing trading.

It is frustrating seeing all the fakes triggering false trades , and going through drawdown periods for months for little reward of 22 % a year.
*****
My point is that you have profitable methods and you should be concentrating on improvements in your "trade management after entry" of your existing swing trading strategies instead of messing around with learning a new trading style called day trading.
*****

Agreed , this exercise in day trading helped me see potential improvements to my swing trading.

Last of all, the years you stated had a particular type of volatility that change dramatically in 2008 and is still changing as of now. Thus, I strongly suspect your swing trading methods are very sensitive to key changes in volatility.


They are sensitive to changes in volatility..

Mark
:) :)

I have answered your questions above .

For day trading , I am now going to trade only trendlines using the 15 min/1 hour and daily charts using the 15 min trendline break method.Nothing else will be traded.This will eliminate the problems I had with day trading.I have been looking at variations of this method for around a year.

Using a robust day trading /swing method ,a trader should be able to consistently average about 500 pips a week on oil, indexes and currencies using a $100k account. It should make about $250k a year, with probably a draw down of no more than $10,000.This is based on 1 lot future contract @$10 per point.

In comparison the automated system currently makes about 22% a year with 10 to 15 % draw down on $100k account.

Here is a similar method to mine.

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=163012
 
Quote from NoDoji:

Do you have an example of this, say, on a 5-min intraday chart of anything? An example of 5 with-trend setups where most of them fail? I've found that the majority of trending setups succeed. The statement just makes no sense. The way a trend forms is when price pushes in one direction further than in the other direction, several times in a row.

Day trading is difficult because you have to stay focused throughout the day, and be prepared to look for entries in the other direction when the prevailing trend throws one or more reversal signals.


Trend lines are subjective; there can be intermediate trend lines, medium term trend lines and longer time frame trend lines.

Take a look at this chart, very choppy.several failures here.
 

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Quote from oilfxpro:

...The difficult market conditions with so many fake moves, create psychological problems ,leading to stress and emotional responses and a breakdown in discipline.

I am thinking of changing to swing trading in the direction of longer time frame trend , i.e using daily time frame and wider stops.

Any opinions would be welcome.

This thread seems to have quickly developed into a "strategy re-design" discussion and not about the psychological difficulties involving day trading.

My point, it seems like you're doing something very common I see occurring in the Journal section of this forum for the past 2 years.

Simply, you're trying to resolve your psychological problems in day trading and breakdown in discipline via tweaking your trade method. I don't think it's possible to fix such problems via making changes in your method as seen over and over again in the Journal threads.

Mark
 
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