surviving the first weeks

[pterodacytl]

Also, I highly recommend you use professional trade journal software that works with your broker trade execution platform. It'll provide you with all the statistics and much more that you can then use the info to help adapt your trading whenever market conditions change.

If your broker has embedded a statistic analysis with your trade execution platform...they're basic whereas professional trade journal software will give you much more advance info.

wrbtrader

Good advice. Right now, plan is to look at the reports that a reputable professional trading journal generates (free version) and try to reproduce the reports with my own spreadsheet, one element at a time. I’ve gotten started by making a chart of my win percentage (abominable). Automating reports is convenient, but it’s worth making them manually, at least at the beginning, so I know what to look for in my trade history and take a close look at every trade. I don’t think I could take full advantage, anyway, of the more advanced statistical analysis that professional software could produce until I get the basics down first.

 

[maxinger]

You need to change your mindset.
You cannot learn to day trade within few weeks.

You need to take it very seriously, and practice very hard as if you were going for olympics competition.
You need to practice 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, for many many years.
Even that, not all can make it and win the Olympics medals.


__________________

 

[Nobert]

Thank go back to the sim, and come back to the real $, once you double/triple it.

 

[traider]

Take a look at the lines and the arrows in the following chart. Do you consider those lines as merely an ACCIDENT or a VOODOO?? Perhaps it's time for you reconsider what trading is really about.

View attachment 217219

lines look good only on hindsight. Try to backtest an algo that does it in real time

 

[pterodacytl]

Well let's start off with some basics:

1. Day trading with $2450 is a mistake. I have no idea why you'd do this but it's a mistake regardless. I wouldn't day trade casually with less than $15,000 on single contract futures. For a living I wouldn't day trade without an account value of at least $75,000 with at least two years worth of expenses in the bank.
   
2. Paper trading is worthless. It builds a false sense of confidence. It's better to trade small and learn than feel like a champ after punching a heavy bag for months and then get knocked out in your first fight.

I am approaching day trading as an acquirable skill that some people have proven themselves capable of acquiring. Simulated and real trading are like night and day. I started early with real money for the experience. Revenge trading is unique to real trading.

 

[pterodacytl]

Well let's start off with some basics:

Here are the rules I use: Each trade is limited to 5% risk of the account. If I lose 10% of my account value I stop trading for a month and watch the markets to try to understand what I did wrong and what I need to do to improve. Only after I have an idea on how to correct my problem do I return to the market.

This makes sense, given the larger trend, even intraday. I see so many smooth, diagonal chart patterns that, had I better understood why they were trending, I could have taken advantage of, if I were willing to test the validity of my thesis/analysis with actual money. The losses from trying to make a good entry add up. Might as well concentrate those losses in a single intraday trade.

 

[pterodacytl]

Lots of financial "Gurus" claim you can make $500 in 10 minutes
Don't even need a day

As simple as gap and go 5 minutes after market open.

No, but there’s a lot more to it.

 

[murray t turtle]

I have no idea how I could have lost so much on this. If I’d simply bought AGTC and held it through this pattern, I would’ve been just fine.
Beginner lesson learned: avoid choppiness.

%%
I like, trade+ inVest tech like QQQ.....;
but biotek stocks like AGTC are much wilder=up or doWn. So wild, i never traded/invested them.
You may be able to profit with them?? BUT NEVER ASSUME A SINGLE STOCK HOLD WILL WORK OUT FINE= good way to go broke.DAL, GM,LEH did go broke. InVestors make millions holding QQQ , but that is 100 top trending stocks + it went down >>80% in bear markets.Back to my uptrending monthly candles............................................................................,

 

[pterodacytl]

%%
I like, trade+ inVest tech like QQQ.....;
but biotek stocks like AGTC are much wilder=up or doWn. So wild, i never traded/invested them.
You may be able to profit with them?? BUT NEVER ASSUME A SINGLE STOCK HOLD WILL WORK OUT FINE= good way to go broke.DAL, GM,LEH did go broke. InVestors make millions holding QQQ , but that is 100 top trending stocks + it went down >>80% in bear markets.Back to my uptrending monthly candles............................................................................,

Talk about wild biotech...

 

[murray t turtle]

%%
Carl Ichan did real well with one of the more liquid bio-techs, but I'm not Carl Ichan .....................................................................................................,,