I have identified the enemy,,,,

Yes, after a LOT of hard work you may have a system that has a sustainable edge. But you will have to experience all the usual trading pains prior to getting there. You will most likely have some tough decisions to make when it starts to deviate. It's no different from a successful manual trader no longer battleing with all the deamons and just profitably trading his "system." And still he/she will need to adopt sooner or later. All I'm trying to say is that this "right of passage" is normal and unavoidable, IMHO. And if you could avoid it, would it even be worth anything? The sooner you imbrace this the better.

It has been live for only few months, so far no deviation. I need at least 1 year live to make sure. It is coded smart enough to adopt to market changes.
 
It is coded smart enough to adopt to market changes.
I wish you all the success, but these kind of statements make me quiver :) Maybe that is where the difference in our views come from - I prefer simple/dumb strategies which I can manually control based on market conditions. Not saying it's superior or anything.
 
I wish you all the success, but these kind of statements make me quiver :) Maybe that is where the difference in our views come from - I prefer simple/dumb strategies which I can manually control based on market conditions. Not saying it's superior or anything.

Anything simple I ever tried did not work for me. I have a strategy that works fiansticlly for break outs, but other time it looses. Long term it never made money overall. February 5th of this year it was minting money. Made 5 percent that day.
 
Yup. It seems that at least here on this forum nobody wants to be honest about how hard trading is. It’s probably ego and the fact that most traders are male. I wish more traders would discuss the difficulty of being successful.

When I read most comments it’s like traders are either lying or just won’t discuss the truth. TRADING IS HARD! Really hard. It’s no wonder that 95% of traders fail.

What you are describing is the truth as you have experienced it. The successful ones that make it learned to unlearn what they thought was true to what was actually true.

Until one begins to observe the market in it’s basic granularity it’ll be like attempting to drive a car, looking in the rear view mirror, in a foreign land with different traffic rules and language without needed glasses.

Many describe this process in a variety of ways such as backtesting, working with a mentor or spending thousands of hours in front of a screen, etc. All with the associated advantages and disadvantages.

The commonality with those successful is how much they observed the accuracy of their underlying data and whether that is a solid foundation to build trust and confidence in their style of engagement with the market.

Without posting your view of the market it would be difficult to receive contextually relevant comments that would make a difference for you.

Most folks would choose to commiserate with others instead. The 95 or the 5 you get to choose.

If you think you are the enemy, that’s the wrong direction to accomplish your goals. A better start would be to become your own best friend.
 
oneself is the worst enemy of a trader anyday. how you overcome and handle yourself in the worst situations of markets defines you as what kind of a trader are you.
 
"For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his very mind will be the greatest enemy."

Bhagavad Gita 6.6
 
And it is me! There comes a time when you realize that your technical skills and knowledge is far enough along, But then I wonder why my results are not what they “should“ be?

Answer? It’s my challenge to execute what my system and knowledge say to do when it says to do it.

This week was very difficult for me. I trade NQ and cannot believe I did not bank a major profit week. When I look at the charts it all seems so easy looking back. But in the heat of the moment is different story.

But hey, at least I am not losing. But really right now my goal is not making money. My goal is to become a better trader . To execute my well thought out plans properly and effectively.

This is the hardest thing to master I believe. The technical stuff was easy to learn compared to the mental. But it seems that I see so many traders thinking if they just learned more about the markets they will be successful.

Re reading Douglas book Trading in The zone.


I agree. The most powerful enemy is the one with most control over each and every one of your trades - yourself. Mark Douglas provides top quality help to get past this.

Another good point is that the major enemy is not another trader trying to take your money away. That kind of adversarial thinking verges on paranoia and can harmfully affect strategy.
 
This is the hardest thing to master I believe. The technical stuff was easy to learn compared to the mental. But it seems that I see so many traders thinking if they just learned more about the markets they will be successful.

Re reading Douglas book Trading in The zone.

Awesome. Very few traders seem to be brave enough to take on the mental side of trading, which is the make or break aspect of long-term profitability and the most difficult part of trading to master. The Douglas book "Trading In The Zone" is NOT a good book to work on your mental aspect of trading contrary to popular belief.

It's a great book and written really well, however, he does not tell you HOW to change your mental side of trading, nor does his seminar. I assure you, thinking in probabilities does NOT stop emotions from highjacking your trading plan (right brain thinking/logical thinking).

The one book that stands far above all is "Mindful Trading: Mastering Your Emotions and The Inner Game" by Rande Howell. I highly suggest getting the workbook with it. You can find both on his website ( mytraderstateofmind (.com) ).

I've read countless books and have taken countless courses. Of course the go to as you mentioned, "Trading In The Zone" which is incredibly weak on actually teaching you HOW to work with your emotions (which are actually BIOLOGICAL first, mental second), of course the Van Tharpe stuff including his recorded seminars. Trader Mind by Steve Ward; Trade Mindfully by Gary Dayton and many more which I won't list.

Be patient because it will take you some time to work through stuff. At least two months before you start to see real results in your trading, but then it snowballs and within a few months you will see a HUGE positive difference in your trading results.

I promise you if you don't work through the mental stuff you'll be like a hamster on a wheel. Doing a lot of work but going nowhere fast and seeing absolutely no longterm positive results in your trading. No matter what technique you add to your trading, because you won't be able to trade it worth a darn because your emotions will high jack your trading, time and time again.
 
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