Giving up on day trading?

Quote from trading_time:

To the OP, systems don't work for the obvious reasons you have posted. They may work for a short time, but by the time the consistency wears off your stuck trying to figure out what little changes need to be made to bring it back to its feet. Years end up going by and your at the same place you were when you started.

Trading by nature is not complex. Price is trending up, trending down, or in a sideways chop. Figuring this out does not take 3 years. There are a few other things to identify such as the speed of the uptrend etc, but after a number of years you gain the experience to identify what is what.

EDIT: Stop reading books, or going to trading rooms, or listening to friends, stop using MA's or stochastic, or volume indicators, no one knows anything or how to make money, they all selling this crap, that's where their money comes from.

Just look at price, and the trend, the rest is up to you. Not some system!
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A lot of traders fall into:

1. They believe indicators will make trading easier

2. They believe having a certain combo of indicators will unlock "the secret"

3. Many traders push the use of indicators. Newbs see indicators on just about every chart, and think that is the way to trade. Any trading system that is non-conforming, must be unprofitable.

4. 99.9% of trading books talk about their profitable systems, usually with indicators.

5. New traders rarely develop a feel for, and knowledge for market structure because they used indicators for so long. A chart without them is strange, and scary.

6. Similar to 5, traders have a hard time with price action trading because: A) people who claim to be Price action traders tend to also have indicators on their charts as well, further confusing the poor trader, and B) How to trade price action is not clearly defined, and probably never will be.

7. Most traders are attracted to the 1min charts. God forbid should they trade off the 1hr or daily. People are still living in the early 90's, when in reality its anything but.

8. The world of trading is filled with conflicting information, and places like ET make it harder.
 
23 trades since mid July.
Definitely not all winners but its easy to see if this was profitable.
Swing trading is definitely easier on the brain and can be a lot more profitable.
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Quote from crgarcia:

There is no "edge" in short term trading as the markets are mostly random.
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Statements like this seem to be typical of this ET board. There is NOTHING AT ALL RANDOM in price movements. Yes, Garcia, I read "Randon Walk..." too. It's TRIPE.

When I first learned to program computers in the 60's, one of the first things I did was the production of a set of "random" numbers with which I constructed a hypothetical time series to emulate stock prices. What did it prove? Nothing except that I had learned to make a machine perform a given operation. The numbers were not, in truth, random. They are called, in the computer world, "pseudo-random", because they are NOT RANDOM.

Mahiel, or whatever his name is, is dead wrong in his assumptions, and his approach. He obviously doesn't even know what a random number IS. And apparently you don't either.

]As far as your comment that "All frequent traders lose money", that's foolish. I put on trades several times a week, and haven't had a loss of any kind since last June!

Idiot!
 
Quote from Fireplace:

Don't mind Garcia, he has already admitted to never daytrading so he knows nothing on the subject.

Funny when people proclaim supreme knowledge of something they've never done!

:)
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I DO know the inner workings of brokers and how they recommend daytrading to get more commissions.

Quote from konviction:

A lot of traders fall into:

1. They believe indicators will make trading easier

2. They believe having a certain combo of indicators will unlock "the secret"

3. Many traders push the use of indicators. Newbs see indicators on just about every chart, and think that is the way to trade. Any trading system that is non-conforming, must be unprofitable.

4. 99.9% of trading books talk about their profitable systems, usually with indicators.

5. New traders rarely develop a feel for, and knowledge for market structure because they used indicators for so long. A chart without them is strange, and scary.

6. Similar to 5, traders have a hard time with price action trading because: A) people who claim to be Price action traders tend to also have indicators on their charts as well, further confusing the poor trader, and B) How to trade price action is not clearly defined, and probably never will be.

7. Most traders are attracted to the 1min charts. God forbid should they trade off the 1hr or daily. People are still living in the early 90's, when in reality its anything but.

8. The world of trading is filled with conflicting information, and places like ET make it harder.
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Nice post.
It clearly explains why all tech analysts lose.

Quote from ProfLogic:Equity curve for the last 76 trades.
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Nice photoshop skills.
You should use it in a real job.
Maybe web page or graphic designer?

Quote from crater:

Statements like this seem to be typical of this ET board. There is NOTHING AT ALL RANDOM in price movements. Yes, Garcia, I read "Randon Walk..." too. It's TRIPE.

When I first learned to program computers in the 60's, one of the first things I did was the production of a set of "random" numbers with which I constructed a hypothetical time series to emulate stock prices. What did it prove? Nothing except that I had learned to make a machine perform a given operation. The numbers were not, in truth, random. They are called, in the computer world, "pseudo-random", because they are NOT RANDOM.

Mahiel, or whatever his name is, is dead wrong in his assumptions, and his approach. He obviously doesn't even know what a random number IS. And apparently you don't either.

]As far as your comment that "All frequent traders lose money", that's foolish. I put on trades several times a week, and haven't had a loss of any kind since last June!

Idiot!
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Of course you failed as a computer programmer (to end up as a broker shill on ET), you don't know what randomness is.

Even flipping a coin is not "random".
But the equilibrium of a flipping coin is so delicate and so dependant on even the slightest physical conditions change, that it's entirely unpredictable.
Even your breath may influence the coin flipping. Also remember the coin of the last flip has changed, as it now lost some atoms on its rebound from the floor, etc.

All these no losses is BS, as you couldn't prove it with REAL TIME TRADES posts.
You can only use your photoshop skills to make believe.
 
Well I know guys who trade and make in $500,000-$5,000,000 a YEAR
These guys are mentored by treasurers of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, RBC, etc and ex-NYSE,CBOE,M/X, TSX traders, so it's possible.. if you have the right mentors backing you up!!

If you are trading prop, your % success rate diminishes without a GOOD MENTOR!
 
Quote from crgarcia:

Nice photoshop skills.
You should use it in a real job.
Maybe web page or graphic designer?
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It's too bad you aren't bright enough to validate trades on your own.
 
Quote from crater:

Statements like this seem to be typical of this ET board. There is NOTHING AT ALL RANDOM in price movements. Yes, Garcia, I read "Randon Walk..." too. It's TRIPE.
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Have to agree.

In a seminal 1985 paper by Werner De Bondt and Richard Thaler title "Does the Stock Market Overreact?", the researchers concluded in a study of market efficiency that most people tend to overreact to unexpected news events and that "substantial weak form market inefficiencies" were discovered in their analysis.

Apperently, MIT also did a study with the same conclusion "inefficiencies in the market caused by overreactions". However I can't find a reference to it.

There are lots of studies that show the market are not effiecient due to human behavior. However, I'm too lazy to list them.

Human emotions plus leverage = wild market moves.


Just like this job
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1941259
Day trading is not for everyone.
 
Quote from crgarcia:

Even flipping a coin is not "random".
But the equilibrium of a flipping coin is so delicate and so dependant on even the slightest physical conditions change, that it's entirely unpredictable.
Even your breath may influence the coin flipping. Also remember the coin of the last flip has changed, as it now lost some atoms on its rebound from the floor, etc.
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Seriously Garcia, Are you sure you are working in the "real world"?
 
Quote from Badeco:

Hello traders,

I've been day trading full time for over 3 years now.
At this point in time I have experimented with multiple different models and strategies.

I've experimented with manual, semi-automated and fully automated trading systems for entering and exiting positions. I've traded stocks, options and futures and used different time frames for analysis.

I have to admit though that after over 3 years trying very hard, I am still unable to consistently win the day trading game. A system can work in some occasions but then in exactly the same setup it will fail and give back the gains. All in all, over time I've found it very difficult to generate revenues that would cover commissions and other costs and still generate profits.

From my first days trading I never thought that trading would be an easy adventure, I knew that it would take a lot of losses, stress, humility and patience. But after over 3 years full time I would have expected that I would have "graduated" on trading and would be able to generate consistent profits, but that is not yet the case...

I would appreciate hearing from experienced traders, in particular those that have been on this business for a longer period of time and I know they aren't many, whether it has been for them such a hardship to succeed in trading or maybe it is simply that you can not really consistently win the trading game?

Thanks for your comments.
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Wow, I am truly sorry to hear of your lack of success. I traded for a little over a year and that was nine or so years ago. I was a nivice and I done really well. I used Datek and then Speedtrader. It was sheer luck or my simplistic approach. (I was naive and didn't know it.)
I don't think you can do it part time and make any decent money. I also think you need a lot of money to be able to trade carefully.
I have been watching these boards to reaccumulate myself with the market. I look at price, volume and a year chart along with a three month chart and a daily chart. I look if the market is up or damn for the day. The three month and yearly chart I loot at once to see if this stock works for me. I also watch the news. Candle stocks work only in hindsight so they are a distraction. Stocks go only two ways, UP & DOWN so off the bat you have a 50/50 chance. With a tight stop loss, how can you loses money?
Come January 2011 I will be playing with between 300K & 500K. That gives me the ability to buy and sell more expensive stocks which are less volatile.

In closing. KEEP IT SIMPLE.... Know the trading ranges of the stock you trade.
 
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