[speres]

Originally Posted by Blue »

I've been trading full time for 3 years and I'm still losing money. I'm at the end of my rope! Looking for some help, words of encouragement, or even some harsh words from those who know.

I'm in my late 40's, broker is IB, day-trading NQ.

Three years ago I was laid off and took it as an opportunity to go full time into trading. Had enough money to make a good go of it. Prior to this, I'd read all Larry Williams material, plus all the classics as well as many other books. I traded with a broker for several years. Net result was to lose my $20K trading capital.
When I was laid off, I figured I could spend a few months paper-trading and then go live and start making money. Seemed logical, as everything else I'd done in my life worked that way! Most things I've tried ended successfully.

Not trading.

Began with a mix of live and paper trading. Took me two years to paper trade successfully, all the while losing controlled amounts live At this point I can usually make my target of $100 net profit trading NQ in less than half an hour, on paper. Logically, this should translate into some success trading live, if not the same success.
But no, not at all! I'm still losing my loss limit every day, after three years of this. When I reach my loss limit, and go back to simulated trading, boom, target in 10 minutes, or 15 minutes. Next day, same thing.

When I close on a small loss, it turns around. When I hold the loss waiting for it to turn around, it doesn't, but keeps growing--hold, hold, hold, loss keeps growing--close the trade and boom! it turns around. When I hold waiting for a move, the market inevitably moves against me. When I close after waiting for it to move, it goes in my favor, without me. When I'm profitable with a minuscule couple of ticks, hold, hold, hold waiting for the big move I can see coming, and give up after waiting too long, then Boom! it shoots to the moon, as expected. Again without me.
Net result is my losses grow at an astounding pace, my profits are like try to build a tower by stacking sheets of kleenex.

Is this game rigged? Seems like my broker is trading against me, feeding me whatever market data they need to clean me out. Is this just paranoia, or am I wasting my time and money here?

Is it worth persisting? Can one really be successful trading from home?

You can but it takes Education And Discipline

If you wish, pm me and I will help.

[stevio]

[QUOTE=jasont;48985]


I discovered two things, one was that my plan wasn't concrete. I traded the same setups but didn't have exact places to enter. I didn't know exactly what would trigger my entry when I saw the setups. I discovered that if I used a smaller time frame I could see the exact point at which my entry should be placed. That on its own was a big relief to my trading as I no longer felt I had to guess the right place to enter
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Thanks Jason, You just made me relize that this is a problem I have too. I know EXACTLY the setups I am looking for. However, the exact entry is usually a discressionary guessing game (i.e. +/- .25 on the ES or +/- 5 pips on the EUR).

I need to dig deeper and develope rules for the exact entry so as to totally remove the "guessing" aspect of the setups.

I have to say my trading got a lot better (no, not there yet) when I set down a dogma of exactly the setups I was after and took each trades when the setups presented themeselves. Thereby, removing most of the "discressionary" part. This freed up so much emotional energy. It's great, the setup comes, my rules say "I have to trade it" and so I do. Now, if I can just remove the last little piece of guess work, it should get even better.

thanks

S.

[jonbig04]

Exactly! There are no good days or bad days, you either follow your rules or you don't. Follow them when they work, follow them when they don't work. JUST FOLLOW THEM. Eventually you will have a set of rules that show positive expectancy. When you do, you have arrived! All you have to do is follow your rules, increase size and repeat.

[mg1193]

Agree with you. After few days of following plan human brain starts wandering and result is bad day. Trying to pinpoint the cause, for this few weeks. What is helping is typed up rules next to monitor.

[BlowFish]

Do you have a sound plan? If you can't answer immediately in the affirmative stop trading until you can. If you do have a sound plan then why aren't you following it? I still find myself asking that last question occasionally (once in the last month, a week ago yesterday, mid morning) You need to get to the point where aberrations are rare.

Just to be contrary, there is nothing wrong with taking 40 trades a day in and of itself. That is, if your method calls for this, and of course your plan is profitable when executed with discipline. Personally I think the benefits of high frequency trading can potentially far out weigh the drawbacks but that's another debate. However my guess is that you are probably jumping in and out of trades for the wrong reasons? In which case there may be a clue to the second question I asked.

[cybrbrdr]

I am a fairly new trader and new to the forum. I can relate to this thread, as I am struggling with same issues. I have a plan which I would consider as mechanical, as it has a well-defined set of rules. I have trouble with exits, getting out too quickly, or hanging in too long. Have worked with both set targets and trailing stops, but haven't got the hang of it. I trade NQ and ES mostly. Will study the threads. I feel that one of the main things I need to work on is the rhythm of price action and how it relates to support and resistance throughout the day. Right now, I am sort of breaking even or making a slight profit. I hope I have passed the point of losing consistently, but just need to take it up a few notches.
Cybrbrdr

[sevensa]

Originally Posted by cybrbrdr »

I have a plan which I would consider as mechanical, as it has a well-defined set of rules. I have trouble with exits, getting out too quickly, or hanging in too long.

Doesn't these two statements contradict each other? If you have a plan with a well defined set of rules, but doesn't address exits, then you only have half a plan.

[snav77]

Wow its amazing you completely addicted to trading but iam not.aim doing for my living only not more than that.