Diary of a very bad trader!

Another winning day on both CL and NQ.
NQ was a bit messy and too many trades, so I won't post it.
CL was fairly good and less messy with my entries (chart attached)

Not getting carried away. Even a very bad trader is allowed some winning days

I have changed things around a little, but for now, we'll just call it coincidence.

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Question for anyone reading.
I 'know' a trader who happens to be rather good.
In my experience, the best traders (who are also able and willing to prove their ability to me) don't tend to look at charts or use TA at all. (I have met one exception in my time, although even in his case, charts only played a fairly minor role in order to help him pin point an entry)

But i'm left with no clue as to what this person does use.

I know that it isn't anything to do with DOM/time and sales or charts.
I also know that they trade fairly small stops. (which would also rule out the more fundamental stuff).
4-5 trades per day.
I keep coming up blank when trying to work it out.

I know I'll never be able to work out exactly what they do, but I have literally no idea of what they could be looking at.

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My views:

1. You are trading way too often, on marginal (at best) setups
2. Your stops are too close, and are in obvious places
3. Losing 60 ticks per day on 10 trades per day (-6 ticks per trade average) is NOT fadable, it is perfectly normal for any strategy that employs stop-losses. Stop-losses, especially close ones, reduce profits on most trades (in exchange for avoid monster losses on occasional trades), so a steady bleed is THE NORM for a strategy with no edge (i.e. random P&L), which is what yours probably is.

You need to radically increase your win rate, and improve your risk/reward ratio. To do that you must be much more selective in the setups you take. I would recommend being at least 50-100 times more selective in your trade setups (yes, that means 1 trade in CL every 5-10 days).

Do you really think a liquid, widely followed commodity market is going to deliver serious inefficiencies 10 times per day? If so, why wouldn't every commodity hedge fund jump all over it?

Try looking at say 10-20 futures markets intraday, and taking 1 or 2 trades per day maximum. Those should be your very best trade setups. If you can make those profitable, then you can try trading more. But if your top 1% of setups aren't profitable, then clearly your median trade (50th percentile) setup is going to be way less profitable. Your best idea is always far better than your average idea.

Anyway, my assessment is that you have no edge, you have no real understanding of trading, little market experience, and no real idea about how to construct a trading strategy. The one positive note is that you are aware of your current inexperience and open to suggestions. My suggestion is it is insane to trade when you have negative EV (i.e. expected result is to lose money). You would be much better off not trading for 6 months, and just watching the markets, taking notes, and learning. If you can't do that, you probably don't have the patience and discipline required to become a profitable trader.
 
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