Pro Traders...please tell me what I'm doing wrong - how can I change it ?

Try only trading 100 shares with much wider stops. Prove to yourself that you are actually right so very often by trying things with only 100 and building from there.

Quote from neveral0ne:

Its not that its gona scare me off, my daily stop loss is 100$ , and I went in with 1000 shares... so I was down - 20$ already... plus I was down 40$ from a pervious trade... -60$ total.... i Didnt want to be stopped out for the day.
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I didn't read all of the replies to your OP so my apology if I'm repeating someone else's advice.

To me the problem is obvious, you're trading with too much size. Cut your position in at least half, maybe more, and gain some confidence in you setups and methods.

IMHO & GL
 
See I forgot to add one thing though...the place where I'm at push volume really hard....so alot of times I do "forced" trades just to keep volume high, but then again setups dont happen 100 times a day on 4 stocks.......and its really hard to keep a high volume when im trading setups only, with little size, vs scalping Citi with 5k shares the whole day.
 
Quote from neveral0ne:

See I forgot to add one thing though...the place where I'm at push volume really hard....so alot of times I do "forced" trades just to keep volume high, but then again setups dont happen 100 times a day on 4 stocks.......and its really hard to keep a high volume when im trading setups only, with little size, vs scalping Citi with 5k shares the whole day.
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Recipe for failure IMHO.

Here's my result when I trade like that (my max loss is $500/day):

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=132626&perpage=6&pagenumber=338

Fortunately I only lost my mind like this 3 times in many months.

If your firm pushes high volume, then they at least owe you some serious training in how to come out profitable.
 
scale-in (average down), but no more than 2 or 3 times, giving yourself cushion... of course, if you can perform hfts on par with GS, then that's your ticket...
 
Quote from neveral0ne:

What would you recommend I do ?
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I don't know the details of your firm. Why are they pushing volume? My personal belief is "less is more". if you want to make money, you wait for solid confirmed price action.

Sometimes my best days are days when I only have 1 or 2 trades. My best day this year ($1200) was 2 trades. The first was a scratch trade where I tried top-picking off a new high of the day and was stopped out near break even; the next was a confirmed trend reversal (lower high) that netted $1195 on just 500 shares. That was a lesson in the value of getting confirmation of a reversal.
 
I agree, less is more. Trading less generally works out better. It's less stressful too. Not all days will be that way but allowing your winners to run is consistent with this plan. The more you're in the market the more chance there is something could go wrong (i.e. you don't obey a stop, you average down, etc). Look for the best setups. Wait for them to come to you.
 
For those here that daytrade aapl and pot I was curious, do you use hard stops not worrying about if they get run intentionally or are you comfortable with soft stops (mental)? What works best for you?
 
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