Desperation

Quote from Pekelo:

Here is a novel idea:

Instead of trying to be a trader, why not just follow a good one and copy his trades? It is ET's dirty little secret that at any given time there are at least 5 members posting realtime profitable trades. I know 4 at this time and there are more I am sure, I don't read every thread. It is free, you just have to find them, and follow them. But you have been a lurker here, haven't you? :)
(how come you never thought of this?)
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It that were to be the case, you may always PM me :) Yes, there are tips to be found, but none show all the clues to the strategy.
 
If I was in front of the original poster of this thread, Happy Go Lucky, I would slap him. But since I am not, I will try to help you with some written advice.

I have posted this chart on these forums from time to time. I am not trying to brag with this chart....only trying to prove a point. I began trading in 2002. This chart only reflects my time with Tradestation which began in July of 2003. You will notice that it took me about 700 - 800 trades to show any profit. Then it clicked and I can now call myself a full time trader with plenty of USD's to make me feel good. I also have a couple longer term accounts at IB for my retirement funds that I have done extremely well in that I am not counting.

I worked for a major corporation and fell in love with trading in 2002. I did okay in the corporate world. I made around $240,000 a year at my job. I was in sales so it was not always consistent. But none the less, I did okay. I do not work for corporate america anymore and I have made over $200,000 in one week on several occassions.


How did I do this? It was simple. It's not about any edge or indicator or mentor. Wash this from your mind. Believe in yourself and your God given talents. Search very hard within yourself to understand what you really want in life and what is important to you. Go buy two books (I think they are both around $7.95). Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" and also Maxwell Maltz, "Psycho-Cybernetics". You don't need these books really, but they re-inforce the age old principles that make a man successful. Commit to understanding and developing these principles and apply them to your own situation. If you do not believe in them, or if you try to complicate them, then you will not be succesful. The principles include...but are not limited to:
  • Definiteness of Purpose
  • Persistance
  • Self-Image
  • Faith
  • Creative Imagination
  • Auto-suggestion to the subconscious mind (extremely important)

These principles are behind every great man. They will guide you.

Take your trading methodolgy to a new level. Start with a blank chart. Do not, I repeat, Do NOt rely on any ridiculous indicators or colored sqiggly lines. These will bankrupt you. Devote yourself to a study of value. Remember, you are a trader. Traders buy and sell value. Your job is to buy at proper values so you can sell for a profit (and vice versa). Commit to identifying what a good value is, not when a stupid average crosses or and ADX is low. I would also suggest you make your trading decisions on no less than an hourly chart. Use old fashion things like trendlines and price channels. You will be a winner.

My friend, you need to work on you. Trading is easy and natural and should be very rewarding as a profession. Believe in yourself. Commit here and now to becoming successful and let nothing stop you. Trading is all about you and nothing else. If you have kids, do it for them. If you want to be a philanthropist, do it for charity. Success will follow for you, if you belive in yourself.

Good luck and God Bless.

DRT
 

Attachments

Oh boy, where to start.

#1 Stop trading immediately. Your chance of being successful at this point is close to zero. Your return over the last few years has been negative. Even if you had another $40K in the bank, would making 40K in the next year be enough??? Considering your negative return each year, what is the probability you could make a 100% return in the next year, just to make a measely 40K????? How many people make 100% return a year???? Very few, and only because they have smaller accounts and scalp.

Consider this a painful lesson, give it up, and never look back.

Orrrrrrr, come up with a real plan to become a professional trader.

It will need to look a bit realistic, something like this.

1. Get a job that will suport your family while you look for edges
2. Learn to find real edges - since you have gotten nowhere so far, this could take another 3-5 years easily. Sure its worth it?
3. DO NOT TRADE A SINGLE SHARE OF ANYTHING until you have absolute statistical proof of a solid edge. Anything else is simply foolish gambling.


Not everyone has the skills required to become a trader. Most people dont have the skills and will never acquire the skills or are not willing to put the sacrifice into it.

The following is not bragging by any means, but I want to sink in a real life example of what it takes.

1. Im a computer quiz, a programming super hacker, above all my peers
2. Im good at stats/math
3. I have an IQ well into the right side of the bell curve
4. I dont have a family dragging me down, working 14 hour days for years is not an issue - no wife will divorce me - my children will not suffer without a dad
5. I have built backtesting systems that make tradestation and wealth lab look like pathetic little toys I could never imagine trying to use to find a good edge. A back test that takes 3 months to complete in wealth lab I can do in about 10 minutes.

Given the above advantages I started with, and the freedom to work my ass off, it still took me 3 years to become profitable, it was the hardest challenge of my entire life. I personally only know 1 other real sharp person who I am confident could have been successful at trading if he poured all his blood sweat and tears into it. No one else I have ever personally met has the tools or tenacity to pull it off. Its that hard. This BULLSHIT industry waves fantasy riches in everyones face to sucker them in. I hear people spew all the trading sayings "never double down, its all psychology, the edge is in your head, magic chart patterns " blah blah blah, and I want to puke. So much garbage out there.

Even here , its so obvious who knows WTF they are talking about and its about 1 out of 1000 it seems.

It is very possible that no matter how hard someone tries to become successful at trading, that they will simply lose money for the rest of their lives trying to succeed at it and die broker than if they never traded. Determining if this is you is a very hard thing to do. How long do you go before you throw in the towel? -$40K? -$100K What if 10 years from now you are -$500K and youre not profitable? The kid working at McDonalds just blew by your networth in the meantime.

Unlike all the scammers trying to convince everyone trading is easy, I do not recommend it to any of my friends. No way. Worst thing I could do to them.


The best thing I ever did was to promise myself I would stop trading when I lost a certain amount of money. , $20K. I lost that in 2 years, with lots of starts, stops, pauses, go's.

Then I got serious. Decided I would never trade again unless I knew with an extremely high level of confidence what the behavior of my next 100 trades would be.

What is the probability it would be profitable? By how much? What is this setups %win in the last week? month? year? 5 years? 10 years? Whats the worse loss for this setup in the last week, month, year, years? How has its behavior changed over time? Does it work in up markets, down markets, sideways markets? How does it test during market crashes? Whats the worst possible case? How do I decide if this setup has gone to shit? Add about 100 other statistical points for this "setup" I discovered. Once I knew all this, I finally started trading again, it took a couple of years. Hmmm maybe it took me 4 years to become profitable, my memory has faded. My numbers are approximate.

Now I have multiple systems, trade them every day, and consistently make money with no surprises. I KNOW I will liekly make money this month. I do NOT gamble.

I have literally run millions of backtests.
My best systems probably have at least 500 million backtests run against them. I analyzed them to death.

No compare what you have done to become profitable to what I have done. Anywhere close???

Im not saying my way is the only way. But I played to my strengths. Paper trading and manual backtesting by staring at charts for discretionary trading, to me, is like using an abacus when I have a cray super computer sitting next door.

I have no idea if you have what it takes, but I hope I shed some light on what it could take to turn the corner. I just cant imagine pulling this off with a family. It would have taken me twice as long.

The markets a brutal and efficient, but not entirely efficient. You have to bring something to the plate that is beyond what everyone else is bringing to the plate. Or just dont bother. Save your future earnings.
 
Traderdragon, you have my utmost respect as a person with dual gifts of extreme intelligence and talent for computer literacy. I have spent enough 1,000s manhours with TradeStation system writing - testing - live trading to realize there is something decidedly lacking for me to create success there.

Like downrivertrader, I rely on the abacus to make a very fine living. I have no ability to quant the type of data you do... it'd be great if I could, but I simply cannot for all of the reasons you stated.

Here's what I do know for sure: <b><i>intraday</i></b> price action in the eminis is directional more often than not. Today for example, the ES and ER pulled back into daily pivot points (and other measures of support) with an overall dominant uptrend.

From there they made their way to R2 value (ES) and failed below (ER) respectively in the afternoon. Further breaks of measured support (short term trend lines, etc) after 2.5 days of steady ascension made it quite probable for some type of retracement to follow.

Buying the early dip to support = subsequent rise and/or selling the afternoon break was tech analysis 101. Kindergarten chart reading, no more than that.

Here is what we know for sure: ES and ER tend to move greater than 10pt ranges more days than not, sometimes 1.5x to 2.0x that span. Somewhere inside, price action will swing up or down most - all of that distance. If we get good at (1) filtering probable direction and (2) entering in harmony with probable direction using a +2/-1 or +3/-1 profit/loss ratio, our probable result over any large distribution of trades will be profitable.

**

In all reality, trading really can be simple as downriver describes. Thank God for that, or I wouldn't have had a chance in heck! While I do admire what you accomplished systematically (speaking as one who's been deep, deep in those trenches) I am also happy to say there are those of us still steering our ships by compass instead of GPS.

Last time I checked, the stars above still offer pin-point direction to navigate across this globe same as they have since the dawn of mankind. So goes trading with simple tech-analysis tools. :>)
 
Like I said, I played to my strengths. I dont doubt that people can find edges using other methods. (Although I suspect it is much harder to prove such a method works compared to my methods. I can dump a pile of data on your desk that would leave 0 doubt in anyones mind. Absolutely zero.)

After all, the brain is an incredible pattern matching computer. We can peer at a face and recognize it instantly, while a super computer could take minutes or hours to do what we consider a trivial task. The flip side of this is, the brain also frequently see's patterns that are not really there. Fooled by randomness, is a frequent occurence.

But, big but, the moment you step outside of the purely mechanical domain, you must also deal with emotional control and discipline to a huge extent. Something which is easy for me. I just watch the computer trade.

Knowing myself, and knowing how thin edges can be, which allow no room for error, I do not believe I have the emotional control and discipline to consistently play every trade perfectly according to plan. I am flawed.

Knowing this weakness in myself, and knowing my strengths, is what eventually forced me to choose my path of super analytical number crunching and pure automated system trading.

I decided to play in the automated space, where I could use my skills to beat the other players also playing the automated space.

I just hope for you, that markets dont get so damn efficient, that the compass stops working. I may have a GPS, but I know for a fact there are guys out there with military grade GPS's which are far more accurate than mine :p

But for now, GPS is good enough, and the opportunity cost of upgrading to military GPS is too great for me. Maybe one day that will come.



In all reality, trading really can be simple as downriver describes. Thank God for that, or I wouldn't have had a chance in heck! While I do admire what you accomplished systematically (speaking as one who's been deep, deep in those trenches) I am also happy to say there are those of us still steering our ships by compass instead of GPS.
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To all thread participants (and lurkers),

I'm sorry it's taken me so long, but I'd like to give you an update on my situation.

Without re-reading the entire thread, I'm pretty sure I spoke about considering taking a (salaried) job. While posting this thread, and after posting it, I continued to pursue this possibility. As I said, jobs where we currently live don't pay enough to make ends meet for a family, at least not at entry level. All the same, I have to put bread on the table, and to jump back into trading as things stand -- well even I know that would be foolhardy. I was very pessimistic about job opportunities, but as it turns out, a few days after posting this thread (I'll return to some of the responses shortly), I got an email from an online company (who had received my resume, such as it is, from an employment consultant I had visited) that they were looking for a writer/editor to provide financial-based content for their website. I checked out their website, and I liked what I saw. It was obvious they were highly professional, motivated, and looking to grow quickly in the world of internet financial portals. Their niche is that they aggregate many top-quality blogs written by hedge-fund managers etc., edit them, at times add editorial comments, and distribute them to interested parties through web and email. I interviewed with them, a relationship was struck, and I took on the job. I'm grateful to be working from home (the editorial content team meets each day in a virtual chat room), and the hours, and degree of flexibility will allow me to continue to pursue trading.

Truth be told, I am enjoying this line of work (dare I say it) more than trading. I research stocks, read and edit the ideas of some pretty sharp minds, and get paid for it, without taking on any risk. Currently, I'm not earning enough money doing it to support my family long-term, and that is why I feel compelled to continue my trading research after-work-hours. However, I feel exceptionally fortunate to be paid (quite reasonably) to do this kind of work, which is stimulating, and, who knows, may even change the way I trade somewhere down the road.

By the way, we provide this information, and there's a wealth of it, free of charge. There's some really great stuff. I'm not comfortable posting the url here, a) because I don't want to come across as a spammer (although I imagine that the fact we don't charge for the info. may take care of this concern), and b) I would rather keep it off this thread. However, if there is interest, and if it's not against ET policy, I could create a new thread with the url and tell you some of what you can find there. The site leans slightly towards investors over traders, and there's not a wealth of TA, but if you want to know what's going on behind-the-scenes with your favorite ticker, I think you'll like it.

To be continued...
 
So basically, for the last week-and-a-half, I've just been getting up to speed with this job, and have had almost no time to devote to trading, or even to post to this thread.

Getting back to my predicament such as it relates to trading. Aside from the online responses to the thread, a number of ETers responded offline as well. One in particular (A), called me up the very night I posted the thread, after sending me the following PM:

<< I may be willing to Mentor you, only because you have a family and I am concerned for them.
I will keep anything you and I talk about Private.
If you are interested give me your home and cell phone.
I would also need your screen name so I can read thru your previous post.
I have a trading plan that I can teach you in 5 minutes and you will be profitable tommorow, no joke.
I can call you tonight if you are available.
If, and that's a BIG if, I share my trading plan with you, then YOU can NEVER reveal any aspect of it to anyone.
Good Luck whatever the outcome.>>

A, you know who you are. You can imagine that after receiving a PM, I was quite excited. He did call me that very night, and spent a good couple hours with me detailing his plan. He kept saying, "I've never told anyone this before ... I can't believe I'm telling you this." A was so excited for me that by the following Monday (the original post was on a Thursday), he was asking me if I already opened a brokerage account (my present account only allows me to trade futures). I haven't opened an account yet, a) because later that week I received the job offer that whatever little good-sense I have compelled me to take, for my family's immediate security, and b) because, unlike my previous escapades, I wanted to really paper-trade and back-test his method before putting down real money, not because I didn't trust him (he had nothing to gain and no reason to lie to me), but because I had to see that I could trade the method and that it worked for me.

The first day I traded it, it really seemed like magic. I made something like 1.15 trading 1,000 shares. In maybe 20 trades, there were perhaps 6 losers, all less than .08, and a few big trades (the stops are never more than .08). On Tuesday, I was less successful (I think I might have actually lost maybe .40. A told me to change to a different time frame, which I did. At any rate, I obviously can't and won't give you even a clue as to the method, not out of lack of generosity or spite, but because I gave A my word that I would never tell anyone.

I spent a lot of time that week, as well, trying to get the hang of backtesting tools that I had never really used much in my discretionary trading. My distraction with that, as well, prevented me from getting the full benefit from backtesting A's method.

Late that week, I got the job offer, and since then, I have simply been inundated with learning this new line of work. A seems to be making a consistent $1,000-2,000 a day trading his method with the few tickers he gave me, and my goal is now to acclimate myself with his method.

To be continued...
 
Something smells very fishy here ,i gotta hunch that he is about to do some system selling.
Be very careful if any of you think to do PM shopping with
HappyGoLucky .
 
Quote from siki13:

Something smells very fishy here ,i gotta hunch that he is about to do some system selling.
Be very careful if any of you think to do PM shopping with
HappyGoLucky .
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I planned to continue, but if you really suspect I have ulterior motives, I'm more than willing to stop right here. But honestly, siki13, if I was looking to sell systems, would I show up as HappyGoLucky? :O

(BTW, I openly invite ANYONE who I have ever, or do ever solicit in anyway, to post openly here to the thread.)
 
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