ES day trading journal - my final attempt

Other advice, I would take 2 weeks off and try to get away from trading. Also, try to rethink your approach. Is Day Trading ES really what you want to do? Probably one of the hardest forms of trading and in my opinion it is just gambling on noise. Just my opinion...

I would argue the largest traders in the world, are generally not day trading ES. They are taking large positions in things for many weeks/months. For instance, there were many LARGE traders buying gold in December... I would argue they are still in it and it as a 2 year trade to take /gc from 1000 to 2000, not 20 bucks.

There are many different ways to trade and ES might not be the easiest to learn.
 
The majority of day traders have a risk of ruin so high as to make eventual bankruptcy virtually inevitable. When you try to scalp the short term 1-5 min charts you are competing with the HFTs and hedge funds, only a few (4%ish) are able to carve out a living for a few years or more. When you increase your hold time and decrease your leverage, incorporating a solid risk management plan your chances of succeeding are significantly greater and your stress goes way down also. Of the original market wizards I am only aware of one that day traded - but had a seat on the exchange which gave him an edge by being able to front run the big orders, he now trades options holding over night.
 
Last edited:
hurricane_sh said:
Handle, my biggest problem is that I have little discipline or determination to cut losses. When the price moves against me on a trendy day, I may suffer a huge loss. When trading a down trend reversal, I enter at the second bottom to expect a double bottom, if it doesn't move as expected, I don't have stop loss order, sometimes I even add more lots instead of closing my positions.

I'm ashamed to say that I still pretty much trade based on feel.

As my first step, I need to enforce my rules strictly, cap my max loss per trade and max loss per day.
More...

No, your biggest problem is that you're clueless and don't have a methodology. Period.

Stop trading or lose all your money. Your choice.

Now, this doesn't mean you should give up on trading, although that is probably the most reasonable thing to do, but it means that you should stop trading and instead LEARN the market and LEARN how to trade.

Trying to 'trade' when you know nothing won't learn you anything.

Study the market. Put together data. Backtest. Create a methodology. Simulator test it. If successful, go live. If you have any losses, go back to the simulator.

Maybe this will take you five years.
 
Thanks for your honesty with this thread! Did you ever consider taking a step back to paper trade for a bit and documenting on ET just so you can perfect your strategy?

I recently went through a string of losses while being break-even for the majority of this year, and then I finally decided I needed to take a step back and reflect in-depth on my trading. I have a journal on ET documenting my trades titled NQ Paper Trade Journal.

I personally think it will give you the room to make mistakes, and then review your trades so you can learn and grow from them. I find it helpful myself already! Something to consider! Best of luck!
 
Laissez Faire said:
No, your biggest problem is that you're clueless
More...


LF... come on dude. Really?
The guy is just working through something that really f*cked with him.
I mean your opinion on what he should do may be valid..... but geez... use a little more polish.

kind.jpg
 
It took me 7 long unforgiving years to get profitable day trading and another seven years to become decent at scalping. As one gets smaller and smaller in price, it gets tougher and tougher. Best advise I can ever give someone when attempting to be profitable in ES, either sim trade first hour, and must be profitable 18/20 days OR trade real time in Forex at dime a pip if possible and must be profitable 18/20 days. DO NOT DO REVENGE TRADING. If not in Trading Plan, it not a signal.

Automation lost on Sept 9 and 12 for me as well, but it stopped when it had 3 losses on Sept 9 and Sept 12 didn't have 3 losses only because risk management rules of when it can't take signals based on one minute bars too big or BB pinching. If I was manually trading, would have done exactly same thing. You have to know your system inside and out. But based on feel is not a system that can be back tested, and unless you can read the Dome, never ever average down till you been profitable several years.

hurricane_sh, everyone here are wanting you to succeed, but your words don't sound positive.

I forgot which "Wizard" sim traded $5k and till it tripled, then took $5k and did same sim trading another two times before he used real money.

When you do your stats, which have lower losing percentages, Longs or Shorts?

When you speak of "First Steps", you need to be writing a solid Trading Plan. Think of everything possible to go wrong, then have an answer for it.
 
I am reading this thread and it is a real eye opener. It did not occur to me that you had been trading for a long time.

hurricane_sh : this is your final attempt per your posting.
What have you improved from your last attempt in your trading?
Do you have any real evidence of improvements ( mistakes eliminated once for all) ?
If there has been zero improvements backed by real evidence, why this time
should be different from last one?
 
Why did you start with futures? With a single lot of SPY you would've been trading the same market for 1/5 of the risk. Little late now as you're far below PDT requirements...

How many trades did it take you to lose that 10k?

What are your signals? You said you trade breakouts; how do you identify fakeouts? My guess is you didn't exit immediately when a fakeout occurred...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top