There's just so much more to successful trading than trade signals that by the time most figure that out...its too late to recover from so much instilled bad trading habits...it can't be cleaned up. Simply, you are the key...all that psychological stuff while interacting with the markets...not your trade signals.
This is obvious to me now.
By the way, how the heck did you get onto the 5 second charts ? That's a scalper time frame. Therefore, do you have the proper resources to be a scalper such as special commission rates, trading platform suitable for scalping and many other stuff that successful scalpers use ?
I have seen you write about the definition of scalping before and it was quite the eye opener. So many on here though use it in a similar way that I do, which would be to get a few points as opposed to the whole move, so I just stuck with "definition" although I realize that yours is perhaps the more formal one.
Yet, one should not be doing simulator or real-money trading if they know they don't have an adequate trading plan. Trading with real money when you shouldn't be trading will instill bad trading behaviors you can't fix. Therefore, in my opinion, your goal should be how to control that urge to trade the markets...how to stay on the sidelines while you learn, test and put the pieces of the puzzle together. You could have an addiction to trade, to be in the heat of the battle.
I don't think its an addiction. Its simply just that I thought that the things that I was looking at was enough to throw some money at it. One of the big mistakes I made in the past, and I guess it kept creeping up, was that I would take my losses but not my wins. Over the past few weeks, I had taken several trades for +10, and I was very diligent about cutting my losses. So I figured that as long as I kept my losses at -2, I practically only had to get 1 out of 4 trades to hit my target to balance things out, although this clearly hasn't been my result.
There is just one huge difference that I would like to point out for those reading, because I know there are many and its important that this be put out there so that they save themselves months.
We really have two groups of people here. Both may be profitable, but both see price completely differently. I was having a conversation in PM with another fellow member, and the conclusion really stuck with me this time. He said that you absolutely have to watch price move when you're testing.
So in one camp, we have the Scribblers (DbPhoenix, 40D) and in the other camp, we have those traders that are strictly looking at a chart, just at the bars (NoDoji, and most others is my guess). I can see that for the past year, I've been taking advice from both camps, and this is where things get difficult. My entire desire to go with 5 sec charts has been because I'm trying to capture, to visually see that behavior on a chart. But for the static chart traders, it obviously doesn't matter what happens within in bar, all that matters is how far above some line price went, and if the next bar creates a signal of some sort depending on how high or how low this bar ends up. In essence, you already know where your trade is going to be based on what you want to see that bar do, and you realistically only have to glance at your chart every minute to see the next bar without really caring what's happening as the bar is forming. (unless of course this bar entry up being the entry bar, so you might enter your trade as the bar is forming because it has exceeded the high or low of your signal bar)
Depending on which route you take, this drastically affects how your entire trading plan will shape up. This is why I have been so reluctant to replay any charts because if I was to follow a strictly stats based system on how the bars look, if I knew I had an edge by placing a trade one tick above the previous bar if the previous bar broke some line, then this is easy to do. But because I am in the camp where I'm watching price move and trying to figure out if there is more demand or more supply, then things get quite tricky.
Looking at Db's chart this morning for where the trades should go yesterday is a bit nerve wracking because (well never mind the hindsight nature of the chart), but placing trades on a static chart because of how the bars look is really no different than taking the stats trading approach, which isn't really his approach though. Its simply a matter of waiting for price to leave a range, waiting for the RET on a 1 min chart, and placing the trade 1 point away. If the pace looked sluggish, you could argue that its a good reason to skip the trade, but on the chart, this isn't visible, so there is no way to say if that trade should be placed there or not. Now I realize that a chart is necessary because how else will you capture all those ticks, but its just funny to show a chart where the SLA trades go, but then be a huge proponent of behavior. Db himself gets confusing because what he really wants to teach is behavior, but he has this SLA system which is designed without behavior in mind... its simply a matter of finding ranges and placing trades above or below retracements.
Anyway, so my whole point is that although everyone is saying the same thing in some respects about testing and not trading with real money etc, every trader is also going about this in a completely different fashion. Much of my failure till now is absolutely fear based, but I have also been bounced around a bit with the advice I've been given. Its all good, but much of it does contradict in many ways, and I've been trying to figure out what I wanna do, all the while seeing these contradictions.
Its true that if you're going to just trade patterns and stats, then a 1 min chart is plenty. But if you are going to trade behavior, then something of a lower time frame is absolutely necessary to see the quick moves and what traders do with it. The experts might be so experienced at watching the right tick that they are happy just looking at a 1 min chart, but what happens within that 1 min bar they deem crucial, so the size of the waves they have paid particular attention to and know them, because they saw that 1 min bar form. My whole use of 5 sec charts was so that I could see these waves print, so I didn't have to remember and try to visualize them.
Today for example, as in the chart below, I show this, along with my thinking based on what is happening. How else to get into this 20 point move up without a retrace on the 1 min chart until we finally get close to the top? Because I've been typing all this up, you'll all be happy to know that I wasn't trading, and didn't take the long, so I didn't get my 10 points.
Anyway... my price action reading skills in general are clearly lacking, perhaps it was just my late entries and tight stops, or else I would have showed consistent profits.
Perhaps other traders have a plan to just buy once they have two up bars so they got in on the move anyway.... who knows. But I just wanted to illustrate the reason for my confusion, the reason for why I seem not much further along. I've seen been going back and forth too much, trying to take bits and pieces from both systems, and I've managed to mess both up!
Ok... that's all I got.
(I think its operator error and not a result of the hardware... LOL)
