Quote from jonbig04:
Ironfist,
I was going to make some much needed comments on your chart, but this is much more needed.This isn't going to be want you want to hear, but its what you need to hear. You are trying to run before you can walk. Right now your goal is to make sim points, when it should be to become a trader who can make money. I did the same thing. I sat in front of my sim account trading, trying to learn about PA. On the surface it sounds good and it isn't a bad thing, but if you think about it...you have much more to do first. Ask yourself why you are working your ass off to make fake points? Its a simple question. You will likely say something a long the lines of "I'm learning PA and the fake points are used to determine my progress so I will know when I'm ready for cash". The truth is that fake points have far less t do with cash then your mental state. Best case scenario you make boat loads of sim points doing whatever you're doing. Then you will think to yourself "now I'm ready". Then you will go into cash thinking your PA reading ability will not be affected at all by the fact that there is real money behind it. What will happen then? We both know and it happens all the time. Good traders sucking the big one when there's money on the line. The only way sim isn't a complete waste of time is if you can honestly say to yourself that the results would be the exact same with thousands on the line or more. Can you say that? If you trade from today had worked, could you say it then? If not, what is the point of what you're doing?
I have no problem what so ever following mechanical rules with 100% efficiency. I even made a thread when I was pissed off at every poster who says "if only i had followed my rules I would have made money today but I freaked out and blah blah blah."
That's why I like 100% mechanical systems. There is never any question. It's is always 100% clear cut ENTER and EXIT signals. No "oh gee I wonder if price will keep going up" and then if you exit and it does, you are like "damn, I missed some of the move." Even if a mechanical system takes you out at that point, you say "awesome, i exited when my system told me to. I traded with 100% efficiency" and you don't care that price kept going up higher.
What a qualifies a trend? A retracement?
Speaking purely from a "PA" standpoint, I don't know. I have no indicators on my charts to tell me what is going on. Is that a pullback or a reversal? I have no idea! Is the trend done going up or is that another pull back? Beats me!! That's why this PA stuff is so difficult for me. Before, with my old system, I could answer each of those questions in 100% concrete terms with no room for interpretation at all.
I just feel like I've developed some bad habits by using a few indicators (MAs) before, so I'm trying to unlearn them now.
My hope for making this thread was that I would eventually learn the answers to those questions, so how I could tell that price was retracing in an uptrend and not reversing into a down trend, for example.
you're going to need very strict and defined rules and the ability to follow them in order to maintain discipline.
Once I have strictly defined rules I have no problem following them, as mentioned before.
I just don't know how to make them using only PA. I feel like I've just been given a book written in Sanskrit and told to translate it, and I don't know any Sanskrit, how to read it, or even have a Sanskrit --> English dictionary.
So since I'm utterly clueless looking at *only* price action, it would be pointless for me to use real money, anyway.
It would be like someone who wants to learn MMA so for his first day of training he competes in UFC.
