newbie looking for virtual mentor/ mentors

Quote from NoDoji:

And that, Shiko, is the key to the trading kingdom. An inability to do that cost me far more money than I ever made. Only recently have I started to learn how to do that.
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At the moment I need to stop losing money to those land mines.
If I can color it red and set ESC to close all of them, it would be perfect.
Right now I see I need to click as many times as orders I have and it looks like first click is only to activate order for cancellation.
 
Quote from shiko2000:

I will explain.

As I am tradiung and scalping, I see price moving around S/R and I am setting orders to enter. If one is hit ok, I am in. I always cancel order before opening another, but sometimes it happens, as my window is always full of canceled orders. 50-80. Then, I am in trade, I set limit order to exit, but I see prices is not reaching there and I want to get out quickly.
I cancel order, set another, no fill, I cancel c, set another. many orders like this and as I see sometimes 1 order avoids my attention and stays there like a land mine.
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Hopefully you can configure your trading platform to allow you to trade without too much confusion.

If not Sim trade or at least keep your size down until what you have becomes second nature.

You want to learn to trade to make money so make sure you learn to trade first. Losing money isn't the same as learning to trade.
 
Quote from duhmentor:

Hopefully you can configure your trading platform to allow you to trade without too much confusion.

If not Sim trade or at least keep your size down until what you have becomes second nature.

You want to learn to trade to make money so make sure you learn to trade first. Losing money isn't the same as learning to trade.
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This is what I am doing. This idle orders is the only thing left with execution. Otherwise I am quick to respond to any changes.
My trading has improved greatly. Most of the days are winners but I pay additional charges by losing to this land mines. i gotta eliminate this expense.
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

Shiko, this is an interesting thread, and I wish you all the luck in the world. I don't want this to sound negative, so excuse me if it does.

First, there is absolutely no excuse to be losing because you mishandle orders. You are like a guy who goes hunting with a new gun but doesn't know how to load it or put the safety on. What the hell are you thinking about, seriously man? Before you trade another share, get your workspace set up properly so you can see ALL open orders, hopefully highlighted in green or red, anything so you don't have open orders lyng around like IEDs waiting to blow up in your face.

Second, I was concerned about your statement that you barely had time to focus on three stocks. I think good traders are focused on several stocks, the S&P, the oil market, interest rates, data releases, leader stocks that tend to set the tone for the whole market, stocks that tend to lead the sector you are trading, plus news. This gets easier as you get more experience, and certainly you don;t have to focus on every tick of everything, but I sense that you are suffering some tunnel vision and not aware of things that are affecting your stocks and the market in general.

Third, I have some doubts about the method you are apparently trying to employ. To simplify, it sounds like you are trying to trade support and resistance at the tick level. I think this is a terribly hard approach. It is good for your prop firm, but their interests are not aligned with yours. They want two things, volume and low risk. You want net profits, which often means less volume and more risk. I understand that you are part of their system, but you need to at least keep this inmind.

Fourth, and related to the above, I think becoming a "specialist" in two or three stocks is not a bad idea, but the reason you do it is to understand how they trade. I don't see that understanding from your posts. It's more than observing that the week's high was 20.50 or that the day's low was 19.50. It's things like knowing how your stock tends to lag or lead the market and sector, what are the economic,political ornews oitems that will affect it and how, are there patterns that seem to repeat in it, eg if it takes out the first 5 minute high, does it tend to run, or maybe does it tend to make a low in the first hour and if it holds, youcan safely buy pullbacks, etc etc. Lot of stuff to think about. What i think is a very hard approach however is staring at ticks all day and saying, ok it looks strong here or it looks like resistance will hold. This is not 1998, where it was easy to spot mutual funds accummulating stock.

Fifth, I think you need to do some rethinking about your profit-taking strategy. This is where some backtesting can be very useful. I can tell you it is very hard to make money trading purely intraday, and the reason is you chop around a lot but you never get the stock that doubles or triples. I can't prove this, but I think most daytraders would be better off if they traded far less but looked to get far more out of their winners. One technique that a lot of traders use is that if a trade goes green the amount of their stop, they pull the stop to break even and let it run until there is an obvious reversal. At worst, you are out at b/e and you might have a big winner. The best daytrades I have are the ones I put on in the morning and close at the close.
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I need to add some.

I am obviously looking for support and resistance but after reading through Title Trading Volume II Theory I started watching for other things. When S/R is approached I start watching Orders Window to find my entry point if possible. I never set orders or open trades agressively at S/R areas without trying to find some kind of confirmation and looking for price to establish some level behind which I can have stop loss. Another thing that we actually have no stop loss as an order. all our stops are mental. We have no option to set stop order. We close all losing trades manually ourselves.
You can understand it is much harder and requires certain level of discipline.

First thing on Monday I am asking boss's assistance to set 2 things, New Orders other color and if possible to set ESC to close all New Orders with one click.
 
Had a discussion with trading gal pal about using single instrument to learn the trading game as fast as possible. I contend the ES or the NQ are the best choices to pick from because they are the easiest to understand in the macro picture but require the least understanding to trade in the short term. In other words the shorter time frames are more gray but yet the big picture is more black and white.

The reason the short time frames can be traded profitably is because we use "ROTE LEARNING REFLEX"" from what we see on the chart. We do what we do over and over, again and again without really learning new and different inputs of more incomplete and inaccurate gray garbage. We know what we know and are not interested in what we do not know because the results of what we do know is getting good results. Wow!!! That statement will set many back in their chairs of higher learning. But in reality we as traders know higher learning is not the answer at all. Trading is about knowing how to use what works, period. Finding what works is being able to think through why those lines etc on a chart CAUSE others to action. There is no understanding a chart until you are inside the minds and shoes of the heavy hitters. Punks do not move mkts, professionals do. The good news is the professionals do the same things over and over, again and again because they are rote traders also.

The question was then asked if we are getting good results from what we use as inputs but still do not get all of the offerings from the mkts, should we just accept that as "good enough" ?

We laughed and said in unison YES. :cool: :)

PS: A little artical as food for thought. http://www.trojanmice.com/articles/paradox.htm
 
Quote from bighog:

Had a discussion with trading gal pal about using single instrument to learn the trading game as fast as possible. I contend the ES or the NQ are the best choices to pick from because they are the easiest to understand in the macro picture but require the least understanding to trade in the short term. In other words the shorter time frames are more gray but yet the big picture is more black and white.

The reason the short time frames can be traded profitably is because we use "ROTE LEARNING REFLEX"" from what we see on the chart. We do what we do over and over, again and again without really learning new and different inputs of more incomplete and inaccurate gray garbage. We know what we know and are not interested in what we do not know because the results of what we do know is getting good results. Wow!!! That statement will set many back in their chairs of higher learning. But in reality we as traders know higher learning is not the answer at all. Trading is about knowing how to use what works, period. Finding what works is being able to think through why those lines etc on a chart CAUSE others to action. There is no understanding a chart until you are inside the minds and shoes of the heavy hitters. Punks do not move mkts, professionals do. The good news is the professionals do the same things over and over, again and again because they are rote traders also.

The question was then asked if we are getting good results from what we use as inputs but still do not get all of the offerings from the mkts, should we just accept that as "good enough" ?

We laughed and said in unison YES. :cool: :)

PS: A little artical as food for thought. http://www.trojanmice.com/articles/paradox.htm
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Hi bighog,


I trade MS, FAZ and WFC now.
They all used to be more volatile but this week volatility is so so.
Some guys started trading FAS. I have checked it. It looks like a way too much of a good thing for guys with 20 ticks daily loss limit :)
 
Why not stick to trading just 1 equity. SPY and thats it.

That is your first problem, you are chasing around different stocks and trying to trade three of them.

Focus on SPY. And learn to trade by trading 1 round lot of spy. For 1 year minimum. If you want you can attach training wheels by going long one ATM put. The cost being part of the education and tax deductible and you can trade around and at least have a max loss floor under you.

Year 2 you can trade 2 lots + study.
Year 3 you can trade 3 lots + study.

Why focus on sectors,specific companies etc.. when you still do not know your ass from hole in the ground.


You are trying to fly a 747 when you have not even qualified for VFR single prop yet.


This is why 99.99999999999999999999999998% of traders fail.
 
Quote from KINGOFSHORTS:

Why not stick to trading just 1 equity. SPY and thats it.

That is your first problem, you are chasing around different stocks and trying to trade three of them.

Focus on SPY. And learn to trade by trading 1 round lot of spy. For 1 year minimum. If you want you can attach training wheels by going long one ATM put. The cost being part of the education and tax deductible and you can trade around and at least have a max loss floor under you.

Year 2 you can trade 2 lots + study.
Year 3 you can trade 3 lots + study.

Why focus on sectors,specific companies etc.. when you still do not know your ass from hole in the ground.


You are trying to fly a 747 when you have not even qualified for VFR single prop yet.


This is why 99.99999999999999999999999998% of traders fail.
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You have not read carefully the whole thread.

1. I trade firms' capital:
SPY is too expensive for us. We trade cheaper stocks.

2. I do not chase stocks but trade 3 stocks: MS, FAZ and WFC. Mostly MS.

3. I am doing fine when I am disciplined.

4. If I trade SPY what I can use to see market direction to follow. I use SPY as indicator to trade FAZ and WFC but not MS anymore.

5. What do you think, did SZEVEN waited 1 year minimum to trade whatever he traded because someone like you told so?
 
Quote from shiko2000:

Hi bighog,


I trade MS, FAZ and WFC now.
They all used to be more volatile but this week volatility is so so.
Some guys started trading FAS. I have checked it. It looks like a way too much of a good thing for guys with 20 ticks daily loss limit :)
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FAS is the inverse of FAZ. Because FAZ is so much lower priced, it seems to move slower. Compare equal dollar amounts and it won't. The problem most people have is that FAz is unavailable for shorting.

I happen to like the financial sector for daytrading and focus mainly on FAS/FAZ and GS, but it has not been all that volatile lately. I think if i were you I would run a screen of a half dozen different market sectors to see which were moving and concentrate my trading on them. Now there are ETFs for virtually any sector, so you don't have to dig too deeply.

For example, the DRN/DRV are highly volatile and tend to track or slightly lag the financials. The materials and energy sectors have several different ETFs and tend to be driven by moves in the dollar and China news. Punch up a chart of WLT and see what you could have made. Tech has been active this year. Retail has had big moves. Bottom line is you have to be where the action is.
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

FAS is the inverse of FAZ. Because FAZ is so much lower priced, it seems to move slower. Compare equal dollar amounts and it won't. The problem most people have is that FAz is unavailable for shorting.
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I have a comment along the above.

Shorting FAZ is really the same as longing FAS. At least on an intraday basis, the percentage swings are about the same, pretty much tick for tick.

I have seen new traders love "low price" stocks. Because they think with limited capital they can buy or short a lot of them. The number of shares is an psychological illusion. One should consider the actual price swing. FAS may look "expensive". But it is a lot easier for FAS to move $1 than for FAZ to move $0.10. You have more granularity to play with.

Intraday: if bullish long FAS. If bearish long FAZ. No need to short the hard-to-borrow counterpart.
 
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