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.
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.
