Noob Here About To Jump In

comagnum said:
I just happened to come across this article toady - a good read for new traders.


Common pitfalls for traders
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My respond to these points....
1. Select the type of trading style can help tremendously i.e. day trade, trend trade etc. As for trend trading, by just being patient and wait for the trend to develop is the key. Most trends suffer premature death.
2. Study the chart and this may take a long time. With experience, one can spot trends that are more "reliable" i.e. higher probability to continue.
3. Easier to say "let profit run". Just look at these charts and see when the trend broke e.g. CBOE, CAT, BABA, IBKR etc. 50SMA is one good indicator to get out.
4. What is right? When one put on a bet no know what will happen next.
5. This is for sure. Out of capital, out of the game. Protect the capital.
6. Never watch ... cnbc or Bloomberg.
7. What is a trading plan? Study the market and its constituents.
8. Same as 4. "I am wrong, just get out." :)
9. If it's that easy, why need a job?o_O
10. Don't count chicken before they hatch. :rolleyes:
 
Psychology is imo maybe the most important aspect of trading. Its easy to just say you know you will hit the bid on the stop loss, but I bet you you will go over it many times if you are not psychologically prepared
 
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People fail at trading is like all the members of ET times two. Lack of knowledge, and of course who you ask, you have no knowledge if they lack knowledge. If you are relying on Math skills to be very helpful, you most likely will fail, Math is not going to be able to see to the left of now on a chart that might be reading to stand aside on next signal. Most will say do not trade against the trend, but should be a where of a dozen back tested reasons if a reversal might be coming soon so you are stopped of taking more trend signals and tighten up stops/or take profit ongoing position. Too many seldom commit enough time to learning charting and they lack back testing of their ideas, if you lack the stats on 300 signals, like driving your car with a blindfold.

Good luck.
 
gdubb85 said:
Hey there... new guy here about to jump into day trading... so far I have perused a few posts/trading journals on this site, read a few day trading books on my Kindle from Amazon and about to open my TD account, so i can use their Think or Swim platform...

I have heard it stated multiple times "its not as easy as it sounds", "90% of traders lose money" and I just don't "get it." I am itching to get on the Think or Swim paper money sim to see how wrong I am... but can someone explain why this is so hard?

In my head I am thinking: study 1 pattern, make a scanner for it and be disciplined enough to only enter trades that meet that strict criteria, enter the trade with a stop/profit target that's 3:1 and just wait. It either hits the stop or I get the target. I specifically entered into conditions that are probable/favorable in this trade, so presumably I will hit the profit more than 50% of the time. At a 3:1 ratio, the profits are guaranteed. I see post after post of people saying they are grinding this out for years before they break even and eventually get into meager profit. It seems like as long as you pick your stop appropriately, the numbers should work out long term. If the account is 75K and you gain an average of just 0.2% gain a day, that's 6%/4.5K a month. If you have considerably more than this, the % gain requirements are even lower for a decent overall profit.

Alright. Once you are done laughing at my naive view of the world, can you then explain the flaw in my logic?
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Markets are chaotic (as in chaos theory) and yet very competitive.

It’s hard to appreciate that until you attempt to trade it.
 
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