Is shorting a dead end street?

oraclewizard77 · Sep 14, 2009

Ok, thanks.

I also saw

http://www.valuezonetrading.com/ninjaindicators.html

that they have tpo charts for $ 250 for ninja trader. Obviously, it may be that the free one is just as good. Of course $ 250 is not that much if it provides market profile, and then I buy a book on how to learn market profile.

In the future my goal will be to have a better risk vs reward, for example, maybe by having a 2nd contract that can run further after a 1st contract hits its target.

I guess the main problem with my trading is not wanting to take a loss which can cause bigger losses for the day either by revenge trading or moving my stop away after market heads for it.

Quote from FB123:

There is a free indicator available here:

http://www.ninjatrader-support2.com/vb/local_links.php?catid=1&sort=N&pp=15&page=4

It's called called dValueArea. It is a free implementation that maps out volume by price level for NinjaTrader. You can check out all the other custom free indicators as well. The one I showed you in the screenshot is called PriceVolumeHistogram.

FB123 · Sep 14, 2009

Quote from oraclewizard77:

I guess the main problem with my trading is not wanting to take a loss which can cause bigger losses for the day either by revenge trading or moving my stop away after market heads for it.

This about it this way: losses are unavoidable. No matter how well you can read a chart, there is an element of unpredictability in every trade, and you can never know with certainty how one trade is going to work out.

A poker analogy would be playing Texas Holdem and having double Aces in your hand. One (and only one) of your opponents at the table goes all-in. Having the best possible hand you can get in Holdem, you call his bet and go all-in yourself, knowing that you have an 80% chance of winning. However, this time he is lucky and a pair of kings come out while no aces do, making his two kings beat your two aces... and he takes the pot.

Now - are you mad at yourself for going all in? Do you get angry and revenge bet trying to get it all back? Why would you? You just played the odds, and this time, the odds didn't work out. You did the right move, but there are elements in poker you cannot control (like luck), and sometimes the other guy gets lucky even though you should beat him 4 times out of 5.

It's the same thing with trading - why would you get mad if a trade goes against you? It's impossible to predict how any one trade will work out, the same way that it's impossible to predict how any one hand of poker will turn out. There is an element of luck with any trade, just like any hand of poker. However, in poker if you keep going all-in with double aces you will make a lot of money in heads up play when your opponent calls your bet. And if you keep taking the right trade setups and cutting your losses short, you will make a lot of money in trading the same way.

You are getting mad about losing trades because you haven't fully accepted the randomness that exists in trading, which is why subconsciously you are thinking that you must have done something "wrong" when a trade goes against you, and that is making you angry. You are not "wrong", it's just a trade that didn't work out, like sometimes a hand of poker doesn't work out even though you did everything right and the odds were in your favor. This is something you will have to fully accept and get over to make decent money as a trader. You are getting angry at randomness, which makes no sense.