Matcha's Dow E-mini Journal

Quote from Picaso:

Well said, Matcha. :)

First you shift through the noise and come out with a strategy that has an edge. Then you work around your emotions to implement the strategy as close to 100% as planned. If you have some foresight, in the first phase you look for an strategy that you will feel comfortable with enough to properly implement.

Losing real money while trying to figure out the markets and a valid strategy might make for great war stories at the pub, but it's not a rational proposition.

Give them hell, M!
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Is there anybody reading who actually trades for a living who can speak about the reality of becoming a professional?

It is silly to think you can acquire this skill on a simulator. How did everybody do it 15 years ago before there were simulators?

It seems like there is a dedicated trader here and endorsing these myths is going to lead to a perpetual state of break even trading at best.

Somebody needs to be honest about this process.
 
Quote from BHOFFCO:

Is there anybody reading who actually trades for a living who can speak about the reality of becoming a professional?

It is silly to think you can acquire this skill on a simulator. How did everybody do it 15 years ago before there were simulators?

It seems like there is a dedicated trader here and endorsing these myths is going to lead to a perpetual state of break even trading at best.

Somebody needs to be honest about this process.
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Nodoji trades for a living. It was other successful traders who finally persuaded her to move to sim till she ironed the wrinkles in her trading.

15 years ago people paper-traded. Same concept, different tool.

Hitting a fastball in real life and hitting a fast ball in a computer game involve totally different neural circuits, not to speak of muscles. Trading sim/live is more akin to playing snooker for fun or for money. Different indeed because of the pressure, but same exact actions to replicate.

Feel free to agree or disagree as vehemently as you please, but before questioning, even if indirectly, other people's honesty, pray, tell us: how much $$$ for your honest help to "select traders who are serious about their journey finding that guidance"? :D

"Tough talk" has never made a professional trader. I hear it's a favorite of subscription sites, though.
 
Quote from tlow:

....
Speaking from my own experience, I was live for awhile with a large enough account it would take a lot of really bad days to blow it up. However, I stopped live trading because I found holes in my trading and holes in my emotional psyche. While SIM trading will only may only marginally help with the emotional part, it can definitely shore up some of the trading holes.

I plan on going live somewhere in the near future and if something goes wrong or I find more holes, Im sure I will be back in the SIM. My recent troubles didn't blow up my account, and really I didn't even lose that big a % of the account. But I wasn't about to continue down the same road making the same mistakes without fixing some of them.

......
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Great point! And right mindset to use SIM. We should feel grateful that we are this type of personality that we treat and respect SIM as our LIVE account. I see some type of personalities just can't be serious about SIM trading and doesn't do their homework at all. So I guess those traders have to spend real money to learn the hard lesson.

Just as Picaso said, once we defined our edge and plan, the next step is the 100% implimenting the plan properly in LIVE. This will take us another while. Some people failed at this step... Hopefully, we don't fall into that catagory either....

Lately I have been feeling that the whole idea of trading is not only to make money. At least for me, the objective isn't just becoming a Millionare and retire young. I don't want to be super rich and make tons of money through trading. I have no interest to trade like a pro floor trader. What I want the most from this career is to make pleasant and stress free trades. Actually, I am very happy with even Avg 15Pts/contract a day trading YM. I want freedom and be happy. That's my ultimate goal!

Staying SIM doesn't mean I am afraid of losing. It's just part of cutting the business cost and not to waste starting capital to "figure out" and to prevent the early and unessesary mental damage. Blowing up account isn't the most horrible thing, not the end of the world. Even if I finally trade excellent in SIM, but blow up my account in LIVE, so what, I learned. Then I will just start all over again.

But trading real $ with no strategy no experience at all, to handling so many blow up to learn the lesson, the pyschological damage could hurt me more than the money itself. For someone like me who always want to be happy, I dont know how long I am going to recover from it....
 
Quote from PatientOperator:

IB won't let me place stop loss orders overnight. It's hard to stay up all night to monitor the open trades. I might try later to set up some price alert with "siren" alarm to wake me up to trade. :) :)

--po
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Are you aware of this checkbox?
 

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Quote from Picaso:

Nodoji trades for a living. It was other successful traders who finally persuaded her to move to sim till she ironed the wrinkles in her trading.

15 years ago people paper-traded. Same concept, different tool.

Hitting a fastball in real life and throwing a fast ball in a computer game involve totally different neural circuits, not to speak of muscles. Trading sim/live is more akin to playing snooker for fun or for money. Different indeed because of the pressure, but same exact actions to replicate.

Feel free to agree or disagree as vehemently as you please, but before questioning, even if indirectly, other people's honesty, pray, tell us: how much $$$ for your honest help to "select traders who are serious about their journey finding that guidance"? :D

"Tough talk" has never made a professional trader. I hear it's a favorite of subscription sites, though.
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There is no offering and no charge for anything on my site. I am the one guy out there actually showing real trades and trying to be honest about the process.

I am attempting to engage because I am fed up with all the parasites out there who can not trade profiting off the backs of wanna be traders who are completely misinformed about what it takes to make it in this business.

The kind of nonsense coming from many of those posting here feeds the pool of ignorant new traders who are put directly onto a 3-5 year path of accomplishing nothing.

I am not trying to change your mind. I do not care what you do. I was hoping to maybe influence any new readers coming in and offer an alternative to the lunacy.

You can not make it in this business without pain. The more I read here, the more I see I am wasting my time.

In the time many of you have spent spreading trading myths, I have seen others actually grow into real traders.

They did it via hard work, sacrifice, and risk.

It is not right to set the expectation that simulated trading will lead to a career.
 
Quote from BHOFFCO:

It is not over in a fraction of a second. The trader on the other side is who you are playing against.

You decision on what you are going to do is going to be based off what the other side is doing. This occurs until you get pushed out or the other side gives up.

Your chance of winning or losing a trade from a given entry point is not 50/50. There are often many chances to exit with a profit and many chances to lose in a given trade.

Most of the time when you are stopped out, it is on an extreme tick. You are not puking out of a position because you want to. You are getting out because you are being forced out do to fear, risk management parameters, or strategy.

It is the other side who is forcing you out thus they are driving the trade.
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I've a few final words on this subject as I think Matcha won't mind.

When I trade, I'm betting a sum of money (my protective stop) that after I've bought or sold a contract from/to someone else, the majority of other people trading my chosen instrument during the time I hold my position will push price to a profit level that is greater than my bet.

Most of the time when I'm stopped out, it's not on an extreme tick (extreme being a new high or low of the day). I am most often "stopped in" to a trade at an extreme tick because I buy new highs or sell news lows.

There is no other side forcing me out, because I decided in advance the amount of my bet and have accepted that sometimes I will pay the fee and other times I will pay nothing and, in fact, often receive 2 or more times what I was willing to pay for the trading opportunity.

I believe that destructive trading practices such as revenge trading and fighting strong trends are the result of acting from a "me vs. them" frame of reference or from the belief that taking a loss makes one a loser.

A professional trader knows that s/he has an edge and a risk management strategy that provides net profit over time. S/he trades each setup that appears, follows the rules that make trading net profitable and has the plan laid out in advance, not on the fly.

I'm not insinuating that someone with a me vs. them mindset or a huge ego can't make huge profits. I'm just making a point that a lot of very large losses come out of those frameworks.
 
Quote from BHOFFCO:

Is there anybody reading who actually trades for a living who can speak about the reality of becoming a professional?

It is silly to think you can acquire this skill on a simulator. How did everybody do it 15 years ago before there were simulators?

It seems like there is a dedicated trader here and endorsing these myths is going to lead to a perpetual state of break even trading at best.

Somebody needs to be honest about this process.
More...

One of the ways to becoming a professional is to find a mentor that will show you the way. I've traded live and am trading on sim right now. I understand that trading on a sim is not the same as trading live but I feel that if you cannot make it on sim, you will "probably" not make it live and if you make on sim that does not gurantee that you will make it live.

I started taking MMA classes and we beat the bag and it won't make me a professional fighter because the bag doesn't fight back but there is no way I will fight someone withhout practing my techniques on a bag.

What happened in prior years ago, does not matter. There were times when the surgeons would give the patient vodka before performing some surgery so the patients don't feel the pain much, but these days there is an anesthesiologist that will take care of that.

Eventually we will have to trade live to make it but sim is a good start as long as you follow the rules, refine your technique and admit that the real world would be different.
 
Quote from garage sale:

What happened in prior years ago, does not matter. There were times when the surgeons would give the patient vodka before performing some surgery so the patients don't feel the pain much, but these days there is an anesthesiologist that will take care of that.
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Oh, trust me, the patients feel the pain when the bill comes in. Vodka's definitely the way to go :D
 
I am doubtless ignorant or worse... as a beginer.
I put the 'OOb' in no-OO-ob, it seems to me.
For myself I want to trade real money to have that experince. 'Trade live small and trade often' is something I've heard as beginning advice. So I'm trying it for a week or month or whatever.
I find it different than sim trading. In that I agree with taking the real risk.
But I see no value in loosing assets and creating a harrowing tale.
If I see holes in my system, I'll sim trade, of course. And trade live one day every other week or something!

But like Matcha... I want to do something in addition to making money. A personal priority, I guess. Which in it's way is more important than the money, at least in the moment in which I'm working (and I'm not saying money is not important). I'm sure that makes no sense to some.
 
Hi ALL,

SIM Trading - My testimonial.....

First of all, well said from both sides.

Also, I would like to say there are no myths spreading in this journal.

To me, SIM trading has it's rightful place in "learning" how to trade.

When I first started, I took the "advice" to trade LIVE right out of the starting gate. I used to think SIM is not useful. I thought the proper way to do it is to jump right into it with real money on the line.

But Matcha's journal has changed my view 180 degree. I remember she said she can learn without risking her capital. I reflected on that when I compared the money I had lost due to my inexperience.

Now, I think SIM trading is one of the best tools that technology has to offer to learn the business other than reading lots and lots of books or having a great mentor. Think of the airlines training their pilots (even the most experienced ones) to fly a NEW aircraft. They use flight simulators. Isn't it a wonderful way to learn without risking life or properties. Or these days, most if not all of the medical schools when they train future doctors, they use highly sophisticated patient simulators. There are lots and lots of other learning and testing that we rely on simulators - embracing the best of the technology has to offer.

There are pros and cons of using or not using SIM to learn how to trade. As long as we know the limit, SIM is a great learning tool.

With that said, after we go through the period of learning in the SIM on all those wonderful methods, strategies we that pick up from trading books and all the sifu(s) in this forum :) we will be equipped to fly that 787 jet with confidence.

Thank you all and especially to you Matcha by sharing your trading journal with lots of wits and candid reviews of your trades - both SIM and LIVE. :)

--po
 
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