The mind of a trader
- Thread starter djmartin
- Start date
I know of a guy that trade very similar you. I think he was daytrading out in Texas, and he has been doing this for a long time, it's a family business. He watched 3 things: $TICK, DOM, and AD line. And he combined that with the whole bias selection on the chart, which is fairly universal if you are a decent trader. But yeah, when I watch your video, it instantly reminded me of that guy because I see that $TICK chart, ha. He was very good at finding the turning point.
I'm at the stage myself where I'm not really focused on the chart itself, but I'm working on the position sizing and trade management. It's not hard to find a good entry, but what do you do when you get into a move? How do you maximize that move? To focus on maximizing the order size as the trade moves in your favor. And I'm also working on ranking my entry, the closer it is to the bias change...the bigger the size I can start with...I'm sure you know what I mean. Take smart chances.
To help me with that exercise, I already assume that I've hit my loss for the trade when I enter. So if I put on a trade, and I accept my maximum loss for this trade to be $500, for example, I'm mentally subtracting that $500 from my account balance. Then if the trade goes in my favor, what I do is start adding trades and moving the collective SL to $500. So even if the trade is favorable to me, I'm willing to lose that $500 just to put on more size as it goes in my favor. It is not intuitive because you want to lock in the profit and be right.
I'm at the stage myself where I'm not really focused on the chart itself, but I'm working on the position sizing and trade management. It's not hard to find a good entry, but what do you do when you get into a move? How do you maximize that move? To focus on maximizing the order size as the trade moves in your favor. And I'm also working on ranking my entry, the closer it is to the bias change...the bigger the size I can start with...I'm sure you know what I mean. Take smart chances.
To help me with that exercise, I already assume that I've hit my loss for the trade when I enter. So if I put on a trade, and I accept my maximum loss for this trade to be $500, for example, I'm mentally subtracting that $500 from my account balance. Then if the trade goes in my favor, what I do is start adding trades and moving the collective SL to $500. So even if the trade is favorable to me, I'm willing to lose that $500 just to put on more size as it goes in my favor. It is not intuitive because you want to lock in the profit and be right.
As far as position sizing, I scale in and scale out of positions. I'm big on adding to your position when it goes in your favor. The key is to be big when the real move happens, that's the art of trading. Its takes some time to understand and implement this in your trading. The biggest mental hurdle when you add to your position is sometimes it comes back on you and you end up making less or even losing money on the trade and you think to yourself if I never added then I would of made more money (greed). Back testing is the key, it can help you with knowing when to add and when not to add but this is trading nothing is a 100%.
I don't trade forex. If I was trading forex I would focus strictly on price action with no indicators. Learn the natural movement of price. A long time ago my mentor gave me a drill to do, he told me to just watch price with no indictors for a week, don't trade just watch. It was hard at first because I was use to having indicators on my charts but as the week went on I started to notice things in price that i didn't notice before. The last couple of days he had me take notes but still didn't want me to make any trades. Most markets have a natural flow to how it moves. When your trading it its hard to see so just watching helps you take a step back and see the market for what it is. Hope this helps.
Forex does not have a centralized market, there is no DOM or orderflow to look at, so price and "tick volume" is all you have to trade with. I was hoping you might have some insight from working at a bank, as to what else I can use that is not obvious (LOL, what the banker is using).
Indicators is just a variation of price, shown to you in a different way. I would say 99% of them are garbage or convoluted mess.. The only indicators I would use is a simple moving average or maybe a momentum indicator, and even these are not necessary, but it's good to have a reference point when you are just floating in the price action.
But what makes Forex really attractive to me is the high leverage. Some idiots want to get rid of the high leverage, but I say that is complete nonsense. Their argument is that the high leverage causes people to go broke too fast....ummm, no one is forcing anyone to trade. There are people that join prop firms to get this kind of leverage, and it is readily available to Forex traders.
But I appreciate your feedback. And I really enjoy watching your videos, it is like getting into the mind of a trader because it is very similar to what I 'm thinking when I'm trading.
Indicators is just a variation of price, shown to you in a different way. I would say 99% of them are garbage or convoluted mess.. The only indicators I would use is a simple moving average or maybe a momentum indicator, and even these are not necessary, but it's good to have a reference point when you are just floating in the price action.
But what makes Forex really attractive to me is the high leverage. Some idiots want to get rid of the high leverage, but I say that is complete nonsense. Their argument is that the high leverage causes people to go broke too fast....ummm, no one is forcing anyone to trade. There are people that join prop firms to get this kind of leverage, and it is readily available to Forex traders.
But I appreciate your feedback. And I really enjoy watching your videos, it is like getting into the mind of a trader because it is very similar to what I 'm thinking when I'm trading.