Need Advice

[Handle123]

Handle123,

Thank you for your thoughtful and sympathetic feedback. In no way is it cruel or harsh. I really appreciate that and recognize many of the issues you highlighted.

Yes, overleveraged is one problem. Taking large losses is another huge problem. Countertrend trading is another. Getting rid of all three would make me a consistent winner.

I learned daytrading in 2001-2003. We were in the midst of a bear market. Every long got crushed. I think I got "traumatized" and now I can't even go long. Every time, I tried to short rallies I get run over! When I go long indexes I hold for seconds. That's how much fear there is for me to go long indexes. Seconds! I'm a chart trader not a scalper. And my chart patterns tell me to hold for multiple bars. But when I go long I'm that afraid of reversal that I get out in seconds.

Then just now I gave up and bought which was a high then got shaken out by the pullback! wtf?!!

The one saving grace is when I'm wrong on a long on the indexes I get out VERY quickly! But when I'm wrong on the short indexes I hold until maximum pain and then get out. Well, lately that amount has been going down. So each wrong short on the indexes is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Which is a good direction and improvement.

But the best improvement would be NOT to enter those short index trades in the first place when my chart patterns and setup screams buy! I mean cutting losses and keeping them small is nice and all. But would have been better to AVOID those losses and GAIN from the upward pattern.

I can go long other instruments but not the indexes(YM and NQ). There's so much pain, trauma, and psychological biases that screws me up there. In fact the bias is so bad that even when I look at NQ/YM chart and it says this is the perfect long setup, my hands automatically hit sell! Either I stop trading the indexes and focus on other instruments that I have no problem holding long and for a good ride.

Regardless I need to learn to cut losses! Higher percentage winning is fooling me.

In fact, I would say 99% of my losses can be attributed to these biases and traumas.

I do have good trades mind you. It's just the bad trades overwhelm my good trades. One time I was long the NKD(Nikkei Futures) when Brexit was announced toward the bottom. Made $19K that day. That was by far my best futures trade.

My best equity trade was on LFIN. Made 86% in one trade in an hour.

But those super trades are all erased by this persistent short biases. I finally got rid of all of my bad trades last month. Got out of TVIX(the worst trade of my life!). I'm glad I got out since then TVIX had dropped significantly. That drop never ends. I got out of TECS. Whew. So no more short bias ETFs.

Really, please consider automation, you have way too much to overcome on your own, years of self study whereas you can program, back test then have it running. If it losses, you internally don't lose but the coding or system lost. On longer term, if you semi profitable, think in terms of credit spreads exiting one to two deviations away. And not the weekly options, more like 3-6 months out so if you pick wrong direction, you leave yourself time for spread to work itself back to breakeven.

86% on the entire account? Do these % make you warm and fuzzy? I tell you what floats my boat, DD percentage, how close to zero can I get at end of the year, cause how much I make is never more important than drawdown to me. If the account not going down much, more likely on good trades it is going up.

 

[Xela]

I tell you what floats my boat, DD percentage, how close to zero can I get at end of the year, cause how much I make is never more important than drawdown to me.

Indeed ... exactly so.

 

[Overnight]

...

Scheduled announcements, anyway. I'm a "fast trader"/"semi-scalper" and do my best to avoid "news" completely.
...

One thing I have noticed is that making a winning futures trade based on pre-known fundamentals gives a much greater warm-and-fuzzy feel than just pure TA. As if homework paid off or something. Very satisfying. Unfortunatley, energy fundamental news can go counter-intuitive because of all the other hidden bits we lowly folks don't know about. Alas.

 

[speedo]

Everyone gets disillusioned, after big losses.

But the comments in your post above (that I commented on) show that you're clearly thinking about things the right way - which is honestly more than can be said for so many people.





"Semi-scalp", not "scalp". Really not a scalper at all: some of my trades are 2-3 minutes; others (better ones) sometimes as long as 2-3 hours. Futures only. Mostly NQ; also CL a little (and very occasionally Euro and Pound futures, just because I'm a former EUR/USD and Cable trader from a long way back, when I was starting off). I don't like to trade much on Fridays anyway - Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are always my busy days.

I hope you took some trades on this Friday Zela, today as yesterday have been nice trenders on the NQ.

 

[trader99]

Everyone gets disillusioned, after big losses.

But the comments in your post above (that I commented on) show that you're clearly thinking about things the right way - which is honestly more than can be said for so many people.





"Semi-scalp", not "scalp". Really not a scalper at all: some of my trades are 2-3 minutes; others (better ones) sometimes as long as 2-3 hours. Futures only. Mostly NQ; also CL a little (and very occasionally Euro and Pound futures, just because I'm a former EUR/USD and Cable trader from a long way back, when I was starting off). I don't like to trade much on Fridays anyway - Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are always my busy days.

Interesting. In theory, I'm an intraday swing trader for NG, GC, YM, NQ, JPY, ZW, ZN, and occasionally stocks. I say in theory because sometimes I get out in seconds. My best trades are hours and even days or months. But most of the time it is intraday.

Thanks for words of encouragement. Today I actually physically put in stops. Strange thing is when I put in stops today I didn't get stopped out or suffered any losses. The minute I think everything is Ok and didn't put in stops for ZW the announcement came out and wiped me clean for the day.

But I think Handle123 is right. I should stop. I just requested a paper trading account. No point burning through more precious capital when I can't get the right habits down yet...

Practice. Practice. Practice until I get rid of all the bad habits and install in the good ones. Then go back to real account. The market will always be there. But if you lose all of your trading capital then you can't trade. I'm far from that happening. Better to stop, diagnose, and fix the problem before it gets to that point.

 

[Xela]

I hope you took some trades on this Friday Zela

One trade only, today, for me, not so long ago (long NQ, +10 points in 25 minutes, no complaints!).

 

[speedo]

Nice work

 

[Buy1Sell2]

Hey Guys,

I need your collective wisdom and advice on this. I've been on ET on/off for years. As some of you might know, 2015 was my breakthrough. Finally became net profitable.
While I was net profitable, the amount was very small compared to my corporate salary. It's more like a nice yearend bonus.

This was all because I was doing it part-time while holding down a very nice corporate job in the tech industry. So no pressure to make money all the time and all the associated benefits(both psychologically and monetarily that goes with that).

So, I got laid off from a tech company a few months ago. And I've been trading a little in the morning in between recruiters calling, interviewing, vacationing, and some side gigs I'm doing.

I have two strategies. In my daytrading strategies, I can average a few hundred bucks a day easily. $100-$500. Without being too aggressive. Of course, there are down days too.

On my longer term trades, it has been disastrous! Holding on to losers for too long on large size on one account. But on another account, my long term trades are good(riding a good trend). I know it's a bit schizo. Long story. On my good(meaning net profitable though still somewhat volatile) long trading account, I recently got margin on it through Robinhood. So now I can swing pretty large amount of capital. I was thinking maybe I should be more aggressive on that longer term account? But I don't want to lose money like the other longer term account that has been decimated. Not sure how best to proceed..

I guess I haven't quite figure out this longer term thing yet. While the daytrading is steady, the profits are small. I'm not banking big like in my volatile swing trading account. I'm not sure how to scale it up without erasing that steady small profits. Meaning if I put on a lot of shares/futures contracts I'm sure the equity curve will not be as steady & smooth given the psychological element of holding large positions.

I'm very hesitant to do this full-time, because even at $100-$500/day it's still SIGNIFICANTLY below my corporate job salary in the tech sector.

Should I be MORE AGGRESSIVE in my daytrading and try to get above $1k+ daily? If I do that then I'll be above my corporate salary though there's no guarantee to I'll be able to do that everyday.

Or should I just try to lock in another corporate job again and forget this fantasy of full-time trading? For a brief moment, I thought maybe if I was more aggressive in my daytrading then perhaps I can do this fulltime and escape the corporate job all together. Is that just a fantasy? For guys who have been in this shoe, please respond. Or should I just continue to trade on the side again and slowly compound that pot?

Since I have time now(unemployed) to weigh these options, I like to know your take on this. Actually my daytrading is now more than my unemployment benefits. haha. And my good swing trading account is occasionally more than my old corporate job's monthly salary.

My ideal setup would be to be for my daytrading to be $500-$1k+ a day.
For my longer-term swing trading account to capture good moves(10pts+) a month. I have enough capital on that account where a 10p+ move would be a significant profit.

I'm not sure I can do that everyday for my daytrading account. I'm not sure if I can do that every month on my swing trading account. I know there are no guarantees...

thank you in advance!

trader99

Prudent Risk Management is the only true edge in trading.
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...ment-is-the-only-true-edge-in-trading.292728/

 

[trader99]

Really, please consider automation, you have way too much to overcome on your own, years of self study whereas you can program, back test then have it running. If it losses, you internally don't lose but the coding or system lost. On longer term, if you semi profitable, think in terms of credit spreads exiting one to two deviations away. And not the weekly options, more like 3-6 months out so if you pick wrong direction, you leave yourself time for spread to work itself back to breakeven.

86% on the entire account? Do these % make you warm and fuzzy? I tell you what floats my boat, DD percentage, how close to zero can I get at end of the year, cause how much I make is never more important than drawdown to me. If the account not going down much, more likely on good trades it is going up.

Yes, I was up 86% on LFIN trade in an hour. Not the entire account! I guess the account could have been up 86% in a hour but that would be imprudent. Too much size. Your perspective is wise.

I have recently started looking at Quantopian and Quantconnect to start programming up my systems and ideas. Much safer and intellectually more interesting. Also, it will overcome all of these emotional and psychological bias.

On the job front, I'm still interviewing and have more next week. It all looks very promising.

Something else interesting came up. I'm seriously considered scaling a business idea I have. It has already been profitable on a small scale. I'm working on scaling it up. My late wife always said I should do something on my own. She always encouraged to start my own biz. She told me a while back to stop interviewing for corporate jobs. Yes, you read that correctly. At the beginning of this thread she was still alive. Long story...

I'm really attracted to the idea of running my own biz rather than going back for another corporate job. This fits my personality and lifestyle better. Also, it will give me time flexibility to trade or design trading systems during the day.

I'll keep you guys posted. Maybe I can do all three. Get a steady paying corporate job, trade for an hour in the morning, and run my biz on the side. My biz idea is not time intensive yet still profitable.

 

[lawrence-lugar]

One trade only, today, for me, not so long ago (long NQ, +10 points in 25 minutes, no complaints!).

You made $200 today...I thought you were an ET, extraterrestrial trader,...that's not enough to buy alligator boots.
Well...maybe just one boot, of an off-beat brand.