Need some help on trading

[johalber]

hi,

Need some help on trading from someone that is having some success in trading?

I have been paper trading for more then 2 months now and every time I feel that I understand the charts and make a profit the tables turn so fast that I lose faster then what I make.

I followed the same steps that I used when I made a profit but at time it does not seem to work, either I am overlooking something or just putting to much thought into the process, what ever the case may be I hope someone can help me understand this a little better.

Johalber

[Soultrader]

Hello Johalber,

You mention you follow your seutps. Do you have proven setups that are profitable? Do you have rules for your setups and do you develop a trading plan each day?

I would like to know a little bit about your methodologies. Do you understand why you are losing money? Instead of focusing first on winning strategies.... study your trading behavior and point out what you do to lose. You can either fix that losing strategy or eliminate it all together.

Regards,

Soultrader

[johalber]

soultrader,

Yes I have a plan and it has been working fine, but I find some stocks that have the same trends as the last stocks where I made a profit but the outcome is sometimes different. I also established a money management plan and have stops where I won't lose more then what I invested. So I think I have all those parts covered so I guess I will just need to study the trends a little more closely.

Johalber

[Soultrader]

From my understanding you are a trend based trader? What is your timeframe for trading?

Remember the markets only trend 30% of the time so having only a trend based strategy can lead to losses if you are not able to identify a trend from a range.

Also the markets change everyday so if you are relying on a system that worked in the past, expect it to give you different results tomorrow. You need to adapt to market conditions and adjust your strategies accordingly.

[ant]

Hi Johalber,

I suggest posting some of your losing trades with charts here, along with your rationale for the trade, so that we can review them with you. Perhaps we can all learn something from this. I think as long as you take a loss while following your trade plan and learn from your losing trades, then you're on the right track to becoming a consistent and successful trader. However, I would be concerned if I were taking more losses than expected and I did not have a good grasp as to what was going wrong with my trades and I still continued to trade with real money.

[forex_gump]

	Quote:	Soultrader
	From my understanding you are a trend based trader? What is your timeframe for trading? Remember the markets only trend 30% of the time so having only a trend based strategy can lead to losses if you are not able to identify a trend from a range. Also the markets change everyday so if you are relying on a system that worked in the past, expect it to give you different results tomorrow. You need to adapt to market conditions and adjust your strategies accordingly.

What are some of the things one should look out for to Identify range from trends

[Soultrader]

Take a look at a larger time frame such as the daily. Is the market rangebound or trending? One method I use is to see if there is higher/lower value placement or an overlapping value.

Price moves in zones, in market profile terms this would be value. Similar to Nicolas Darvas' Box Theory, price will find value/balance in one zone. When either the buyers or sellers express stronger confidence, price will move out of the zone into a new level. If there is price acceptance, we have a possible trend. As boxes or zones pile on top of each other we have an official trend.

In intraday trading, I will look at the past previous days action to see if price is stuck in any zone/box. Any breakout of this zone can lead to a trend.

Another method I use, is to watch for the range of the opening hour or perhaps listen to the noise in the pit. A tight range in the opening hour can lead to a possible choppy market. If there is not enough market participatin in the pit, the markets will be choppy.

Hope this helps.