Professional Traders. need advice
- Thread starter CollegeTrader
- Start date
college:
EDUCATION: I agree with those who say to read books, blogs, and this forum. The "Too much education" few deludes themselves. Imagine a doctor who never studied! Read or skim a few of the highly rated books (see green line at top of this page).
Finish your degree. 95% of traders are believed to fail. Most of the other 5% only break even or make small amounts. You are almost assured of failing, like all of us. Make sure you have a marketable degree in case.
FUTURES vs. STOCKS They both offer opportunity. Many futures traders have done well, in spite of Mr. "Zero futurestraders"
MONEY: There is a direct correlation between size of trading account and success. The $3000 opening account types are basically throwing away their money.
Protecting your trading capital is the most important thing.
ALGORITHM: Stay away from Fibonacci, Elliott Wave, Gann. Studies have shown them to be a waste of time. Most indicators are also useless, and they tend to lag.
Learn Price Action. there are a few good threads here, and most successful people here seem to use this mostly. Some claim Volume, but there are many doubters
MOST IMPORTANT:
Learn about trade management, portfolio management, money management. Include position sizing, profit objectives, diversification, and stop losses.
Paper trade for a long time. You should be consistently profitable for months before risking your precious trading capital. Then, trade for months at the smallest possible sizes, to get a feel for the markets. You should be consistently profitable for months before scaling up. There really are no shortcuts. IT takes a lot of learning and screen time to become a real trader.
EDUCATION: I agree with those who say to read books, blogs, and this forum. The "Too much education" few deludes themselves. Imagine a doctor who never studied! Read or skim a few of the highly rated books (see green line at top of this page).
Finish your degree. 95% of traders are believed to fail. Most of the other 5% only break even or make small amounts. You are almost assured of failing, like all of us. Make sure you have a marketable degree in case.
FUTURES vs. STOCKS They both offer opportunity. Many futures traders have done well, in spite of Mr. "Zero futurestraders"
MONEY: There is a direct correlation between size of trading account and success. The $3000 opening account types are basically throwing away their money.
Protecting your trading capital is the most important thing.
ALGORITHM: Stay away from Fibonacci, Elliott Wave, Gann. Studies have shown them to be a waste of time. Most indicators are also useless, and they tend to lag.
Learn Price Action. there are a few good threads here, and most successful people here seem to use this mostly. Some claim Volume, but there are many doubters
MOST IMPORTANT:
Learn about trade management, portfolio management, money management. Include position sizing, profit objectives, diversification, and stop losses.
Paper trade for a long time. You should be consistently profitable for months before risking your precious trading capital. Then, trade for months at the smallest possible sizes, to get a feel for the markets. You should be consistently profitable for months before scaling up. There really are no shortcuts. IT takes a lot of learning and screen time to become a real trader.
Rosy, I find most of your posts interesting, especially reagarding automation, but how does it come you are so negative about trading profitability, retail winners...?
Saying that there are just 5 profitable traders on this board is pure non sense... There are more posting on the P§L thread this month alone.
Quote:
Forget all the technical bullcrap. Forget moving average, Fibo-snatchi, and the like. It will NEVER help you make money.
Focus on SUPPORT & RESISTANCE. You can determine S&R by drawing straight lines on the daily & hourly charts.
End of story. Use tight stops & play these levels where you have the greatest "edge."
Risk 3-points in the ES to make 12+.
Make sense?
Always look for the EDGE of the market.
I hope this helps, young Padawan!ote :
he's right , after 5 years trading i'm just starting to be consistently profitable.there is no holy grail system to find.
Money management is the most important. not many books teach it well or focus on it enough.
Use stop losses. (Get used to the fact that 3 or 4 out of 10 trades will be losers and stop out)
Support / resistance and trendlines with tight stops in place.
maybe a few moving averages
then papertrading consistently with choosing the best risk/return ratio .
keep another supporting career for backup and you will do fine.
good luck
Forget all the technical bullcrap. Forget moving average, Fibo-snatchi, and the like. It will NEVER help you make money.
Focus on SUPPORT & RESISTANCE. You can determine S&R by drawing straight lines on the daily & hourly charts.
End of story. Use tight stops & play these levels where you have the greatest "edge."
Risk 3-points in the ES to make 12+.
Make sense?
Always look for the EDGE of the market.
I hope this helps, young Padawan!ote :
he's right , after 5 years trading i'm just starting to be consistently profitable.there is no holy grail system to find.
Money management is the most important. not many books teach it well or focus on it enough.
Use stop losses. (Get used to the fact that 3 or 4 out of 10 trades will be losers and stop out)
Support / resistance and trendlines with tight stops in place.
maybe a few moving averages
then papertrading consistently with choosing the best risk/return ratio .
keep another supporting career for backup and you will do fine.
good luck
================================
This pattern/plan;
is worth repeating, so i repeated it.
a] For many math problems;
there is only one [1] right answer,but in wise trading there is more than 1 [one ]right answer.
ab]Dont know, but probably that stock scalper doesnt trade futures, but he may watch them,benchmark /indicator
Even if you do not make it on $5,000,almost all [repeat almost all] honest profitable traders in business should tell you to start small. Even if they did err there. Why leverage ignorance???
LOL
abc]Top green line on this page has some great '' books'';
my Mom just ordered a library book free, library loan. I ordered some books new, like'' Way of the Turtle'', so the author would get a royalty.But a new book is a luxury , not a necessity.....................................................................................
College???Well I am all for education, but if you know you do not want to work for someone else, I like the way Richard Dennis , Bill Gates........ quit college to do/study thier own businesses.
Thanks traders for all the useful post. Really has helped me move one step closer. I have learned that all you need are trend lines and support resistance lines. It helped me clean up my charts and now i can see the price action. For instance i might see a double botton or top and ill draw a S/R line there. If the market hit these points again ive been taking mental notes on how it reacts. What ive learned is the market seems to retest intra day double bottoms or tops. While im not taking any trades i trying to train my self to read the action. Im trying to be patient and wait for trades that offer the best opportunities for me given the risk. Great insight guys please keep it coming.
This is how ive been drawing my lines. For those interested.
I think you are a little generous in your S/R. For example, the lowest horizontal line you have (support), was only one bounce. I think S/R lines should have 2 or more to be significant.
Also just based on your chart, I think your trend lines are not very optimal. For example, the leftmost end of your 3 support lines could have been a gently sloping trend line themselves.
I suggest you find site(s) that are already using S/R and trend lines and study how they do it more carefully. You will notice they do it somewhat differently across sites. After all, this is a bit more art than science!
hmm i saw the price action keep testing the last trend line botton right. when it finally broke you had a trade of 8 pts given you got short the 830 because i would give room for a fake. that brake fell all the way to the major trend around the 822 level. now looking at my chart i see consolidation around the 830 level with the 10 ma downward sloping so 830 should act as resistance again.