I think I'm done trying to trade the ES

[MandelbrotSet]

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

It seems like every few weeks a newbie is posting some variation of what audi posted. Experienced traders know just how hard this game is, so they tend to be discouraging. Other newbies who have made some money tend to underestimate how hard it is and volunteer advice that is well-meaning but useless.

If you are committed to trading, you will find a way. For example, have you researched all the advice given to other newbies on ET over the years? Have you studied the journals that are posted here? Have you researched the incredible posts by Acrary on system trading? Or are you just looking for someone to hand you the keys to the kingdom? People who have spent years and tens of thousands of dollars developing a methodology are not just going to hand it over because you ask. You have to do the work.

The first piece of advice I give in this situation is to get some backtesting s/w and spend weeks testing. People will say backtesting proves nothing, but how do you expect to make money in the future if you can't make money on historical data? You will quickly learn a few valuable lessons,eg popular indicators are not helpful, volume is not helpful, tight stops are not helpful, scalping for a tick or two is nearly impossible, systems that make money for a few weeks often then blow up.

The next piece of advice is to trade with the dominant trend of the next higher time frame. If you're daytrading, trade only in the direction of the 60 minute trend. That eliminates a lot of indecision right there because if the trend is up, you will not take a short trade for any reason. Will you miss the ocassional reversal? Yes, but that is the price you pay for having a methodology that keeps you out of a lot of bad trades.

Then you need to develop an entry trigger. It can be an oscillator divergence confirmed by the break of a moving average, a trend line break, a reversal bar, a break of a pivot level or other significant level,etc.

Then you learn to manage the trade. Take your mental stop to b/e after it has gone n points in your favor. Learn to spot failures, significant levels where price is drawn to, etc. This is the art part of trading, knowing when to exit.

Discipline is crucial because it is very easy to piss away a months worth of profits on one bad trade. Respect your disaster stop, never let a profit go to a loss(profit defined as b/e plus a noise zone), don't let more than half a big profit retrace. Expect to make a lot of mistakes and suboptimal decisions, always remembering the key to long term success is to avoid the big killing loss or string of losses.

Trading is not an everyday activity. Take time off, be aware of burnout. Keep in mind it is about making money, not being right or proving to the world how smart you are.

If there were a way to rank posts, I'd give this one stars!

 

[cashmoney69]

About 90% of the advice here, including what im about to say is probably and most likely useless because no two traders are alike, and some of this "advice" is givin by people who dont, and cant trade. But i'm going to say it anyway.

...one word. Fibonacci.

It works. period.

why?

look at the fact that:

1. Markets dont move in straight lines
2. Price will ALWAYS pullback at some point
3. This is true for ANY market
4. Many many many people look at these levels


A lot of people talk shit about fibs because they relate them to Elliot wave, which are nothing alike, and can be used without EW, which is what most fib traders like myself do.

Give me a stock, and i'll tell you how to trade it, for your time frame.

heres a trade I took on FSLR. I made 16.2 points on that trade.

If you ever wanted to know what they ment by "buy low, and sell high"..this is how they do it.

 

[cashmoney69]

fslr chart

 

[ammo]

do u not use the 38 # cash?

 

[spd]

this is one of the most courteous and helpful threads ive come across in a long while.

thanks to everyone involved.

 

[samiotis]

Quote from ivanbaj:

Let's think. What are bots good at?

If there is a pattern than gives you an edge, how long will it take for a server farm with 64 processors per server to try 1,000,000,000 patterns for the last 100 days and find your pattern? You can't win that game.

You have to use your entire brain all the time from 7 AM till you can. Tick by tick till you see an opportunity. Not based on a pattern but on an understating of what is going on.

Bots don't know what is going on.

This is got to be the best explanation,,,,, ever.---

 

[cashmoney69]

Quote from ammo:

do u not use the 38 # cash?

you mean the 23.6?. no

 

[Mup]

ES has repeating price action patterns....

 

[romik]

Whatever you do don't listen to Mandelbrothelset, the guy knows everything there's to know about trading & trades as well as an iron does in swimming.

 

[Redneck]

Romik,

The approach below is solid – imo…

Please help me understand what’s missing

Regards

RN

Quote from MandelbrotSet:

There are lots who argue for-and-against , but I think it's more important to be able to:

(i) consistently find the major trend of any market you are trading.
(ii) learn how to trade with that dominant trend (this will show you the Buyer/Seller and Support/Resistance relationships), to a tee.
(iii) after learning how to trade with the trend, you can learn how to trade counter trend if you like, but it offers far less profit potential, greater risk:reward, and the market will never "rescue" a position.

Whereas, if you are trading with the trend, you can make a bad entry, stretch your stop, average-in, etc., and still come out with a good profit on the trade. Until that trend changes, of course!