Unsuccessful trading with full-time job

I don't want to steer you away from the great advice of having to develop your own plan and not following others, but this one journal comes to mind that I thought would be particularly useful because this gentleman worked and traded like you are trying to do.

His secret was that he stuck to his game plan. He has a system for money management, he had a track record of knowing how often his trades worked out, and he followed his system to the T and it worked well for him.

It is a long read but essentially he put on trades that he thought would work out, but trades that he knew he was only ever 50% right about. He had a defined profit target and a defined stop loss of 2:1, so he would either make $400 or lose $200. You can see that being right 50% of the time would still produce a very nice profit. Although he couldn't use more automated order types such as an OCO order, this is essentially what he was doing. Once the trade was on it didn't matter what happened because it would either hit his target or his stop loss. The psychology of it all was essentially taken out. Once he saw a good setup he just put the trade on and was done with it until it came time to exit, but he never hesitated to take his profit or his loss. He would put on an average of 4 trades a day, and some days he lost all 4. But he knew his long term average was being 50% right so he wasn't swayed but a slight losing streak. His setups were quite simple, he described them half way into the thread, and he just took them each time he saw them.

Anyway.. hope you enjoy the link and hope it gives you some inspiration. From everything I've read on trading, intelligence has nothing to do with it. A plan that has been shown to work that you stick to is really all that is necessary.

Also, if you read a book by Mark Douglas, Trading In The Zone, about the psychology of trading, this might help as well.

http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=148752
 
Quote from k p:

I don't want to steer you away from the great advice of having to develop your own plan and not following others, but this one journal comes to mind that I thought would be particularly useful because this gentleman worked and traded like you are trying to do.

His secret was that he stuck to his game plan. He has a system for money management, he had a track record of knowing how often his trades worked out, and he followed his system to the T and it worked well for him.

It is a long read but essentially he put on trades that he thought would work out, but trades that he knew he was only ever 50% right about. He had a defined profit target and a defined stop loss of 2:1, so he would either make $400 or lose $200. You can see that being right 50% of the time would still produce a very nice profit. Although he couldn't use more automated order types such as an OCO order, this is essentially what he was doing. Once the trade was on it didn't matter what happened because it would either hit his target or his stop loss. The psychology of it all was essentially taken out. Once he saw a good setup he just put the trade on and was done with it until it came time to exit, but he never hesitated to take his profit or his loss. He would put on an average of 4 trades a day, and some days he lost all 4. But he knew his long term average was being 50% right so he wasn't swayed but a slight losing streak. His setups were quite simple, he described them half way into the thread, and he just took them each time he saw them.

Anyway.. hope you enjoy the link and hope it gives you some inspiration. From everything I've read on trading, intelligence has nothing to do with it. A plan that has been shown to work that you stick to is really all that is necessary.

Also, if you read a book by Mark Douglas, Trading In The Zone, about the psychology of trading, this might help as well.

http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=148752
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The "psychology of it all" was not "essentially taken out". It was simply ignored. This worked because of the market context at the time (pull up a chart of the market from the time this thread began, in 12/08, through the upcoming year). Under normal circumstances, the psychological impact of a string of losses will prevent nearly all beginners from sticking with the strategy long enough to benefit from the wins provided by "large numbers". In fact, they can very well go broke first, as pointed out by Magee 70 years ago.

This is the second time in recent days that such a thread has been brought up, and, interestingly, the other thread was posted during this same timeframe. But just about anybody would do well if trading during this period, as long as they weren't short, even if they were trading via radio signals from Mars.

I do, however, second the rec for Zone, though I'd more highly recommend The Disciplined Trader by the same author.
 
Quote from dbphoenix:

The "psychology of it all" was not "essentially taken out". It was simply ignored. This worked because of the market context at the time (pull up a chart of the market from the time this thread began, in 12/08, through the upcoming year). Under normal circumstances, the psychological impact of a string of losses will prevent nearly all beginners from sticking with the strategy long enough to benefit from the wins provided by "large numbers". In fact, they can very well go broke first, as pointed out by Magee 70 years ago.

This is the second time in recent days that such a thread has been brought up, and, interestingly, the other thread was posted during this same timeframe. But just about anybody would do well if trading during this period, as long as they weren't short, even if they were trading via radio signals from Mars.

I do, however, second the rec for Zone, though I'd more highly recommend The Disciplined Trader by the same author.
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Having not studied his exact setups, I would like to ask what was wrong with his method? I believe he shorted stocks as well as going long, so my guess would be that if the market didn't look favorable for going long, he might have just gone short more often.

I fully understand the implications of certain methods working only during years of great gains for stocks, but from what I saw in his methods, he was using setups based on support and resistance which should work in up and down markets... no? Having a 2:1 reward:risk ratio along with knowing that 50% of the time your profit target hits before your stop loss is a very positive traders equation from my understanding.
 
YOU CAN TRADE WITH A FULL TIME JOB.

What is part time trading? Trading is not a 9-5 occupation you are in and out there is no rocket science!

For Day Traders or Intra day trading you don't need to know shite but where that stock is going to be in the next 5 min.

My results and track record speaks for itself.
 
Quote from k p:

Having not studied his exact setups, I would like to ask what was wrong with his method? I believe he shorted stocks as well as going long, so my guess would be that if the market didn't look favorable for going long, he might have just gone short more often.

I fully understand the implications of certain methods working only during years of great gains for stocks, but from what I saw in his methods, he was using setups based on support and resistance which should work in up and down markets... no? Having a 2:1 reward:risk ratio along with knowing that 50% of the time your profit target hits before your stop loss is a very positive traders equation from my understanding.
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In order to say what was wrong with his method, if anything, I'd have to know what it was. And by that I don't mean generalities. One's method should be stated so clearly that someone else could trade it in the same way as oneself. If it isn't, there's little point in posting it at all, much less the usual "here's a trade I 'took'" or "went long at" or "went short at" or any other trade stated in the past tense.

As to the rest, "support" and "resistance" are defined in many ways, most of them wildly inaccurate. As to r:r ratios, the market couldn't care less how much one is willing to risk, nor does it care how much reward one expects. The market will provide whatever the market will provide. Sometimes that reward is unexpectedly generous, like the short I took last week. Sometimes it's begrudging, and one better be happy to take it. But determining the reward in advance is pointless.

As to "knowing" that one's target will be hit before the stop 50% of the time or better, this takes far more time to determine in real-time trading than amateurs would believe. One could rely instead on computer backtests, but there would be no point in doing so since the results rarely pan out in real-time trading, particularly with real money. One should instead shoot for something much higher than 50%. In this way he can weather those trades which turn out to be losers, particularly if he cuts them short rather than wait for the market to take him out via stops.

Edit: I went through the first few pages just for the hell of it and it's the SOSO. He (a) posts his results long after the trades are taken (b) without ever having said anything about them in advance. If you can find somebody who (a) explains his method in detail and (b) posts his trades in advance, then you can start paying attention. Otherwise, it's just a flea circus.
 
I was in a chat room with Geez every day from pre-market through the close for the duration of his journal (which he ditched due to spam) and for many months thereafter.

He traded from a laptop while managing a full time job. Because he was an independent contractor, his work hours were flexible, allowing him to trade the RTH session without too much interruption much of the time, but there were always some work-related interruptions each day and also days where he was unable to trade for several hours.

He told me had 8 years of trading experience and he had conducted a thorough study of statistics surrounding the setups he traded when I met him in early 2009. This statistical analysis allowed him to handle 5 losers in a row without issue, and allowed him to watch price come .01 from a profit target and reverse all the way back to stop him out. I'd ask why he didn't take profit sooner or move the stop to break even and he said that in the long run his experience showed that the method he used to manage trades was optimal.

He had a screener that would alert him to a specific level of relative strength or weakness in the stocks/ETFs he traded. Once he got an alert he would announce it and he would announce the trades in advance (he placed buy stops and sell stops to enter trades), with the stops and targets. He would buy or sell little pullbacks following the signal of strength or weakness, so he was always trading in the direction of an intraday trend.

When a stock or ETF signaled and he knew where a technically reasonable stop loss would have to go, this was used to determine his position size. The profit target would be twice the stop loss.

It was all so mysterious to me to see him apply a pure trader's mindset in real time. At that time there was no way I could imagine myself putting on the trades he did (I was a counter-trend trader who faded strength and weakness to scalp profits off the pullbacks) and when I'd see him buying near brand new highs or selling near brand new lows, then see price end up hitting his target, it felt like pure magic.

I never mirrored a single trade of his because I didn't understand any of it (I had about a year of experience and I use the term "experience" loosely).

His results were far beyond the bet he made, closer to 100% return, despite a $22K hit he took due to forgetting to cancel an unfilled order at the end of the day of a RIMM earnings call.

I think of Geez often each week because I now buy strength and sell weakness, and it still feels like some sort of magic when price runs even further. His words of wisdom are with me all the time.
 
Quote from th3moneytrain:

...I find it too slow and boring.

...the style I prefer...exciting...

...Not enough capital to ride the ups/downs...

...No idea how to code scripts to get some sort of an edge or backtest

..."drive"/motivation to beat the market...

...Also, multi-day moves require more capital and greater skill.

...all the action...
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Consistently profitable intraday trading is boring.

Manual backtesting one trade at a time requires no codes or scripts and helps you develop a feel for price action as you work.

Money is made by catching and riding the waves the market offers, not by beating the market.

Day trading requires far more skill than swing trading.

Here's a good place to start:

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/wyckoff-forum/15535-developing-plan-trading-journal.html
 
Quote from NoDoji:

I was in a chat room with Geez every day [and so on]
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All of which may be true. I'll take your word for it.

However, unless one knows exactly what he did and why and how, his results aren't replicable, and if one has only a vague notion of what happened, then he may well take away all the wrong impressions and implement a set of tactics that are the opposite of what they should be.

Few people are going to go through the work that you did in order to develop your trading plan, but that's just what is necessary in order to earn consistent profits. What somebody else did or did not do is not particularly pertinent unless one requires inspiration. But even then, one ought to be sure that the object of the inspiration isn't just spinning yarns.
 
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