Student of the market

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Hello Steve,

I have been net positive every month after my third month into trading. I have been trading for 20 months. So that makes 17 consecutive months. I don't make a lot of money. I guess the problem I'm faced is transition from being a scalper to being more longer term trader. I want to be able to make more money while being able to retain my consistency. Having scalped for 20 months, it is extremely difficult for me to make that transition mentally. Most of my trading happens in an instance and I don't think much when I make those executions. But I'll keep trying.




Quote from Steve Tvardek:

I dont want to sound like a downer, but I am a realist when it comes to the markets. I think you should prepare yourself for the fact that you probably wont be net positive consistently for at least 8 to 12 months. New traders always come in with unrealistic expectations of how fast they will be able to succeed. The best advice i can give you is to work hard, constantly be looking for ways to improve and be 100% dedicated to the task. If you are passionate about trading and your will to succeed is great, there is no reason why you wont be able to get consistently profitable. When i was in your position my thinking was that it wasnt a matter of if i would succeed but rather a matter of when. Stay positive!
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I see more and more equity traders moving to trading eminis. I've been told grass is greener there. I've been asked to come trade with couple of guys that trades futures but I want to give myself more time in equities.. I feel like if I keep at one thing long enough.. I'll be able to eventually become better at what I do. Maybe not.. Hopefully I will :)


Quote from ozzy:

Hey:

I started trading futures in February of this year (~ 6-7 months ago). I have not been successful. But I am still working on it. In the process I have learned alot about trading and myself.

It's not over until the fat lady sings. :cool:

ozzzy
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TD,

I think you will get to where you want to be because you seem to be very concerned with self improvement and are very persistent. As long as you continually search for ways to improve yourself, I am fairly confident you will get what you want out of the markets. I think the main reason most fail is because they lose all of their cap before the've given themselves a fighting chance to make it. If you have been trading for 20 months and have been consistently profitable since your 3rd, I think that says a lot about your capabilities of as a trader. We all have our demons when it comes to trading, hardly any of us can become true trading robots. But I truely believe that those of us who are consistent now but understand that we need to improve for the greater good of our trading, will end up doing very well. I really like your attitude, and keep looking to extract all you can out of the markets!


Quote from tradingindreams:

Hello Steve,

I have been net positive every month after my third month into trading. I have been trading for 20 months. So that makes 17 consecutive months. I don't make a lot of money. I guess the problem I'm faced is transition from being a scalper to being more longer term trader. I want to be able to make more money while being able to retain my consistency. Having scalped for 20 months, it is extremely difficult for me to make that transition mentally. Most of my trading happens in an instance and I don't think much when I make those executions. But I'll keep trying.
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Quote from tradingindreams:

Thanks skalpz. I spend a lot of my time listening to bloomberg radio. Doing so, I've become very sensitive to macroeconomic events. I am somewhat in tune with the market knowing when certain economic data are due and what the expectations are. I feel as though I can read the futures market slightly better on certain important days where there were many macroeconomic news.

For example, 3 weeks ago when job numbers came out 3 trading days before the Fed announcement day. I was very convinced that Builders and Reits will sell off till the day of Greespan makes his annoucement. I told my friend that morning that we should short these sectors. During that next 3 days, I realized I didn't make a cent from Reits or the builders. Every entry seemed far to risky and I didn't want to take that risk.. My friend on the other hand made a killing..

I tend to not follow up on my research.. I do very thorough research before the market opens and when the market opens I don't seem to trade any of the things I've done my research on.

Anyhow, I haven't yet had the chance to trade currencies. I wish I would someday have the foresight and flexibility to be able to trade different trading products depending on situations.
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Guy sounds like a trader, to me.

TDs, forex is the perfect scalping environment.

EUR/USD is the highest liquidity instrument on the planet.

When EUR/USD moves 75 to 100 points during a 8 to 12-hour trading session I can scalp off 1000-pts.

If you are a scalper you are wasting your time in anything but currencies.

It's pure liquidity. Money vs money. Plus you pay no commission or exchange fees so it is free to trade.

Let me know if you're interested and I'll set you up a demo.

This is what a forex trading platform looks like - scroll down once you get there -

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49859&perpage=6&pagenumber=2

fx
 
I really hope trying hard will be enough to get there. I keep trying to adapt to all the changes that continuously happen. But its it feels overwhelming sometimes. The pilot program that started this year reduced my earnings by about 2-3k a month. I feel insecure most of the time even when I do make money. I don't have much asset to support myself and trading gets really hard mentally especially at the end of the month when I am financially pressured. My monthly net on average is about 4k - 6k.

I feel as though I am learning something new all the time and that I am somehow getting better trading. But its really depressing because my net don't show the result. If I'm getting better and learning more, I should be making more money but I'm just not there. Its like I can't connect what I know to what I trade. I feel like I ran into a wall and I'm stuck.


Quote from Steve Tvardek:

TD,

I think you will get to where you want to be because you seem to be very concerned with self improvement and are very persistent. As long as you continually search for ways to improve yourself, I am fairly confident you will get what you want out of the markets. I think the main reason most fail is because they lose all of their cap before the've given themselves a fighting chance to make it. If you have been trading for 20 months and have been consistently profitable since your 3rd, I think that says a lot about your capabilities of as a trader. We all have our demons when it comes to trading, hardly any of us can become true trading robots. But I truely believe that those of us who are consistent now but understand that we need to improve for the greater good of our trading, will end up doing very well. I really like your attitude, and keep looking to extract all you can out of the markets!
More...
 
Thats incredible. I went to OANDA and made a demo account. I realize there is no tape. Is there any way to tell how much buying and selling is made during a given time? It fears me to think that there is no way to know how much is actually getting exchanged. It seems like only way to make a trading decision would be off of chart levels, news and speed of price movement.




Quote from sKaLpZ:

Guy sounds like a trader, to me.

TDs, forex is the perfect scalping environment.

EUR/USD is the highest liquidity instrument on the planet.

When EUR/USD moves 75 to 100 points during a 8 to 12-hour trading session I can scalp off 1000-pts.

If you are a scalper you are wasting your time in anything but currencies.

It's pure liquidity. Money vs money. Plus you pay no commission or exchange fees so it is free to trade.

Let me know if you're interested and I'll set you up a demo.

This is what a forex trading platform looks like - scroll down once you get there -

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49859&perpage=6&pagenumber=2

fx
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Quote from tradingindreams:

Thats incredible. I went to OANDA and made a demo account. I realize there is no tape. Is there any way to tell how much buying and selling is made during a given time? It fears me to think that there is no way to know how much is actually getting exchanged. It seems like only way to make a trading decision would be off of chart levels, news and speed of price movement.
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mm... possibly.

yeah, in forex it's not like we really have a Level II system or anything to watch.

It just kind of explodes sometimes and you got to deal with it.

when I first went live I was trading short EUR/USD for about 3 or 4 days I was stuck in a trade that kept going higher and higher on me - I was going into deep red and getting very worried.

Suddenly one morning at about 8:30AM EST... it couldn't have been more than a blink of an eye... the whole market fell out from under me - less than a 1/10 of second the market dropped 100-points - then in the next few minutes it fell another 75-points.

I was so deep in the black I couldn't collect the money fast enough. :D

Lately, when the bombs first went off in London I was long the British pound at about 2:30AM my time and the market tumbled on me something like 400-points in a few hours - that was brutal - it took a chunk out of my trading account (that I later recouped).

Lon Eagle said he was trading GBP once and in one 24-hour session the market tanked 10%!
 
tradingindreams,

You said you feel you exit your trades too early.

Have you considered (or used) a scaling-out approach? I do this quite a bit, although not on every trade. I will usually close about a 1/3 of my position at the first slowdown or wave (likely a similar spot to where you are exiting), and then another 1/3 at the second, and then let last third ride until it seems right to close it. This helps satisfy that inner scalping desire to take that initial profit quickly while possibly allowing you to take a little more advantage of a trend if its there. On occasion, after closing the first third, things reverse, and I would have been better off closing the entire position at once, but overall, scaling out has maximized my upside as I have been able to hang on to some part of the position through a couple waves of a trend.

I have heard lots of people who disagree with this approach, as it is opposite of pressing a winning trade, but it has helped my P/L because like you, I tended to bail the entire position too early.

Enzo
 
I've begun taking this approach about 3 months ago. It seems easier than the stop order approach because I don't need to put stop prices in all the time. However, whenever I cover about 1/2 of the position, the strong urge to cover everything kicks in. Its tough letting go..

Quote from EnzoF:

tradingindreams,

You said you feel you exit your trades too early.

Have you considered (or used) a scaling-out approach? I do this quite a bit, although not on every trade. I will usually close about a 1/3 of my position at the first slowdown or wave (likely a similar spot to where you are exiting), and then another 1/3 at the second, and then let last third ride until it seems right to close it. This helps satisfy that inner scalping desire to take that initial profit quickly while possibly allowing you to take a little more advantage of a trend if its there. On occasion, after closing the first third, things reverse, and I would have been better off closing the entire position at once, but overall, scaling out has maximized my upside as I have been able to hang on to some part of the position through a couple waves of a trend.

I have heard lots of people who disagree with this approach, as it is opposite of pressing a winning trade, but it has helped my P/L because like you, I tended to bail the entire position too early.

Enzo
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