You're going the right direction and have very much the right mindset. If you keep at it and chip away at those tiny percentage improvements, you'll get there. It sounds like you're in that very vexing place right now where you're not good enough to make money outright, but not bad enough to just flip that strategy and fade your instinct.Have started to be serious about trading a few months ago and learning all I can.
I have been reading on technical analysis by Robert Edwards and Magee, and I've been drinking from the firehose that is youtube etc.
I am not looking to day-trade, but rather hold options for a few days or weeks.
My base assumption is that news influences price and I can't predict that really well, but I would think that TA gives me some form of edge. Knowing full well I'm completely new to this, I would assume my readings of the charts have any value, but I'm somewhat disappointed to find that I actually seem to be more wrong than right. I would have guessed it would be a toss-up at the worst.
I use Ichimoku, trade with the trade (so calls if it is above the cloud), wait for pullbacks to the mean, believe I understand resistance or support from Williams fractals and use RSI or a stochastic to confirm.
I realize this is pretty much the most basic thing to do, but one has to start somewhere. Still, as soon as I start a trade (I even put in my journal words like: "wow, this can't go wrong") the market immediately proves me wrong
I'm not asking for anyone's setup, I understand that it is my journey to find my own edge and trading style.
Questions:
- Is there some de-facto beginner resources that I should be aware off that should get me started? I'm reading books, but most seem to be written for the world of the 70's.
- If the market is fickle, should I not still be at around 50%?
- How long did it take you to start making sense of it all?
thank you kindly!
The answer here is to keep your positions small because that will decrease your market tuition.
Another thing to keep in mind, improving how often you're right isn't the only path forward. Making winners larger than losers can work just as well. And this point is not something you should overlook as an option trader.
So keep reading, but remember that most of what you read is already stale and everyone else knows it already. And every time you make a trade, your counter party thinks you're wrong.
Keep what you can control under your control. Right now, reducing commissions is probably your largest loss controlling measure you can take. If you can get yourself just back to even, you can spend a lot of time and effort learning...and it sounds like you're going to do well if you keep watching and learning. So, I wish you all the best...good luck!
-- and they proceed to disparage what they did not bother to make operative. 
