My high school summer job: trading the NQ

Gotta love the support around here.

Kid loses money his first day of trading ever and it's doom and gloom.

Today was an important day zdawg b/c you learned about EMOTIONS IN TRADING. Your head is your own worst enemy.

This takes much time and practice to overcome. There's a good chance your summer job here will be to simply get a control of your emotions, even if that means 'blowing' out this account.

Over time, if you stick w/ it, you heart won't race as much and you'll be able to calmly enter/exit trades. But that takes time and something a simulator cannot do.
 
Quote from zdawg164:

Relax, I'm not looking for empathy here from the fact that I'm 17. I'm just telling it like it is.

Anyways, down to the real deal. I want to give you my background on trading. Ever since freshman year I've developed a strong interest in trading and the markets in general. I started out trading virtually what everyone pretty much starts out with: stocks. That summer I traded with 2000 bucks and managed to make a decent return of 800 after taxes.

Anyways, this winter I discovered the magical little thing called futures. For the last 5 months approx, I have been trading the NQ through the NT sim, (which is ultra realistic). Anyways, this Monday I finally plan to go live with $2000 dollars.

Let's go into detail about how I plan to tackle this thing.

My strategy is very simple, a retard could probably learn it, no joke. But it's effective. Basically, I trade new highs/lows and strong points of S/R. If price breaks these points, I trade in one direction, if it fails to break, I'll trade in the other.

My stop is 1.5 points, and I don't use limit or anything like that, just market orders. Yes, sometimes there are moves SO volatile that price just BLOWS through my stop, however, occasions like that are pretty rare.

My time frame is pretty tight, I only trade from 10 30 to 12 00. I'm not full time on this project, I'm very serious about it, but I have friends to see, and girls (well, who I try) to fuck.

Anyways, I have full confidence in my plan, and I know now that I (hopefully) will be follow it religiously.

Any questions/comments/thoughts will be appreciated.

SPARTANS, PREPARE FOR GLORY!!!! My battle against Mr Market starts Monday
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All new traders can learn something here. Paper trading is not even close to real trading, no matter how much you think it is.
 
zdawg.. keep it up. i feel like this journal is a glimpse into the future for me. after reading and rereading what everyone has said, it seems like i'll be just as fucked as you for day one. when you were describing your heart pounding, it totally reminded me of my first bid on ebay. thats peanuts compared to this. i wish i traded today, but i didn't have time. i have a feeling that since my account is funded now, it could be a while before i start trading.

trading as a summer job beats the shit outta any other job for us high schoolers. i dont know about you, but i keep saying to myself "i'm part of the 2% who make it." ha. time will tell. anyways, just stick it out. if we both blow, fuck it. life goes on. its early enough that 2-3k down the drain wont make a whole lot of a difference.
 
Get used to it kid. Most traders lose money their first 6 months no matter what they trade. So this summer will be 2 months worth of trading "tuition".

That said, you should focus on taking the minimum size for trading if not already doing that. If your capital is 2k to start, At the most I would not risk anymore than 200 each day. If you happen to make 400 that day, put in a 20% stop on that profit for the day to assure you keep it and then enjoy the spoils of a good day in your head.

The others are right when they said your first lesson was simple: trading is 95% between the ears. Paper trading prepares you for nothing.

Good luck tomorrow, I am pulling for you!
 
Quote from TradeTheFunk:

Get used to it kid. Most traders lose money their first 6 months no matter what they trade. So this summer will be 2 months worth of trading "tuition".

That said, you should focus on taking the minimum size for trading if not already doing that. If your capital is 2k to start, At the most I would not risk anymore than 200 each day. If you happen to make 400 that day, put in a 20% stop on that profit for the day to assure you keep it and then enjoy the spoils of a good day in your head.

The others are right when they said your first lesson was simple: trading is 95% between the ears. Paper trading prepares you for nothing.

Good luck tomorrow, I am pulling for you!
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Thanks man, I'm glad that SOME people are vouching for me. So much negativity, damn!

But I feel like this day was kind of like my initiation ceremony into the "real world" or the "matrix" or whatever you call it. Hopefully when I log on tomorrow, my head will be fully clear and aware of what's going on, and I will be able to stick to the strat more thoroughly.

About my losses, you're absolutely right, but you're a little off on my max draw down. When I start heading south of $100 lost, I quit for the day like I did today. It's not much, but with my account and my batting average, it kind of fits. Amazingly, %66.6 of my trades were fucking winners! But obviously I lost due to other issues which I already explained.

And if I EVER get close to a day where I make $400, that will be my new 4th of July, seeing as my daily profit target is a modest $100. I'm not saying I'll quit when I make that much for the day, it's the amount which I will then try to keep my earnings from falling below.
 
Quote from zdawg164:

Thanks man, I'm glad that SOME people are vouching for me. So much negativity, damn!

But I feel like this day was kind of like my initiation ceremony into the "real world" or the "matrix" or whatever you call it. Hopefully when I log on tomorrow, my head will be fully clear and aware of what's going on, and I will be able to stick to the strat more thoroughly.

About my losses, you're absolutely right, but you're a little off on my max draw down. When I start heading south of $100 lost, I quit for the day like I did today. It's not much, but with my account and my batting average, it kind of fits. Amazingly, %66.6 of my trades were fucking winners! But obviously I lost due to other issues which I already explained.

And if I EVER get close to a day where I make $400, that will be my new 4th of July, seeing as my daily profit target is a modest $100. I'm not saying I'll quit when I make that much for the day, it's the amount which I will then try to keep my earnings from falling below.
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Yeah those numbers you use are even better. I should have read more of your posts. ( I thought I saw 400 somewhere?)

If 95% of traders lose money, that explains the unrelenting posts from haters on this site. No matter what you throw out there somebody is going to flame you on this board.

I'll check in tomorrow and see how you did.
 
With an account as small as this maybe it'd be better to trade index etf's?
Just to get a feel for trading / emotions / discipline.
It might not be as exciting, take with it what you will - I've never traded futures before myself, just options and stocks.
 
Hey why don't you go ahead and post some of your strategy, especially stops and targets and maybe you can get some better pointers.

Here is one right off the bat. Watch the ES and the YM as well, and be more active when all three are moving together. If they aren't moving together be very picky on your trades as you are less likely to get follow through.
 
If you're trading your setup (which you said has a positive expectancy) and you lost money today, then no biggie... move on and go at it again tomorrow. As long as the setup is good things should work themselves out.

However, my concern is that your setup is flawed on a scalping timeframe. It appear to me you're trading a "breakout" strategy based on very small bars (I thought the 250CV chart I watch was tight). One thing I've learned about scalping is that you want to take the opposite position of the losing traders... and what happens during a losing trade? A stop-out. Stops are placed past the pivots that you are taking entry at, meaning you're entering at the same time traders are being stopped out. More often then not, these traders being stopped out frees up enough pressure on the market for it to move back the other direction. I don't have any specifics for you other than to think like that. It's all mean-reversion... try to make it work FOR you.

And about the money... don't worry about it. Trade enough while not touching your account (no withdrawals or deposits to attach tangibility and emotion to it) and it becomes desensitizing. Theres no other way to go about it than experience.
 
Hey kid. Good luck with it. You've got some balls. I'm the principal of a private Catholic School and have previously worked on the floor of the CBOT. I trade ag and soft options with time decay spreading strategies. We teach a futures class every year at my high school. You might like the blog and the video of our class doing mock pit trading.

all the best

www.comtrading.blogspot.com
 
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