This session was up, down, up, down, down, down, DOWN HORRIBLY, and back up up.. totally nutts. I took 29 trades, tons of scalps, and ended up basically flat. After commissions of course I would be down quite a bit. I was fortunate to catch several big winners, which is what saved me, however I made some terrible judgment early on and missed 3 good trades that could have earned me +$400.00, after that I was a bit emotional and think I over-traded and mismanaged some of my trades, still for 29 round turns I'd say my overall performance wasn't bad.
Results for this session -------------------------
7 hours of data traded 29 trades 9 wins 20 losses!! $700 gross profit $750 gross loss -$50.00 net
I need to tighten up my criteria slightly, stay focused and catch ALL the big winners, and manage my scalps a bit better so that I capture 3-4 ticks more consistently and tread water while I'm searching for the big winners. Easier said than done, but I feel my skill is improving.
My latest session was a profitable one, I'm finally starting to win a bit more than I lose, and believe I'm making good progress. For whatever I can't stick to 1 setup, I scalp, trend trade, try to catch reversals by calling tops and bottoms, and sometimes invent crap on the fly it seems. I'd be up more money if I stuck to what I seem to do best, which is not fighting the trend, but whatever, I feel there is money to be made going counter trend sometimes, so I'm gonna keep trying it. After all someone eventually must be left holding the bag, those are the people who get screwed in the market, and someone must get screwed, the only question is when will it happen. I took 11 trades for 6 wins and 5 losses, netting me +$112.50, back in the day taking 11 trades usually resulted in a -$300.00++ loss due to my stubbornness and holding losing positions, one thing is for sure, taking 2 point gains and 5 point losses will only result in a down trending equity curve, I don't care how often you think you'll win.
Just found this song.. I believe maybe it helps focus with scalping!
I continue to rock an atrocious win rate, however I'm down only 12 bucks after my last 12 trades. I had 8 losses and only 4 wins, yet managed to lose very little. I've gotten a lot better at taking a "setup" whenever it appears lately, even if I'd had 5 losses before it. Psychology is always working against traders, when your on a losing streak you can become very timid and afraid to place trades, so often times the trader ends up skipping setups that would have worked and that throws off the entire system. Not me however, I think I've finally beaten this flaw in my psychology, my previous wins/losses no longer affect me, I'm numb to them. Across these 12 trades I've spotted a couple setups that were garbage, and several trades that could have been managed better. I'll try to do a better job on my next sequence of trades, we'll see how I do.
I am feeling stronger lately, like I can accomplish things again. Where the fuck are these good feelings coming from I wonder. Not too long ago I was very depressed by my life, I'm 24 years old and work at McDonalds for minimum wage. I thought things were falling apart, but the charts have been making tons of sense to me, despite being breakeven across 60+ trades I am feeling filled with energy and positivity. I think my future looks very bright and feel confident I can and will beat this market. I think I finally understand price action and risk/reward, and I finally feel that I've got the necessary mindset to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done. I think I will get more hours at work, and find another job, save my money, and continue to study the market. Once I've got about 2k to my name which won't take more than a few months of savings, I'll refund my account and begin trading the 6E 4-6 hours a day 5 days a week, I think I'll profit anywhere from $500.00 - $1000.00 a week on a single contract and very quickly be able to decrease my hours at my job so that I can devote more time to trading. Soon after that I think I'll quit my job and be making 3x-4x what I'd be making working a full time minimum wage job. My question is why am I feeling so good? I'm not sure, things have just been clicking lately, trading is making more and more sense, and life doesn't seem so hard, I used to mind going to work "o god this is boring and sucks"! I don't mind working as much as I used to. Years ago I was so lazy I would sleep in almost every day rather than watching/trading the market, tired from the previous night of video games and mindless entertainment. Now the wind has changed, colors have changed, my perception, the way I think, it's all becoming different, even my inhibitions and shyness are going away. This is a very good thing that is happening to me, but one thing in me remains constant, and that is was scares me, and that thing is my doubtful nature. I am not sure if these feelings will burn themselves out in time, or If I finally have changed and become something different. I can honestly tell you that I don't think there has been a day that has gone by in the last 3-4 years where I have not at least thought about success for a brief moment, usually it is constantly on my mind, no matter what I'm doing, sometimes I can only think of success. I find it difficult to hold a normal conversation with my friends for more than a few minutes, without mentioning something about trading,money, or self improvement and so on, maybe all that thinking has finally shaped my mentality to that of a more "successful" or "serious" person. I definitely think way different that I used to, I find things like clubbing, and going out to have fun as semi-pointless activities, at least for me and my current situation, I have no doubt that my likely success will change that to some degree, but I don't see myself becoming some club/bar Vegas manic who gets hammered and does lines of cocaine in the bathroom. That type of lifestyle doesn't appeal to me, I'd probably rather photograph an abandoned hospital or wander and unfamiliar city contemplating its history, there's something about the way time changes places, and many other subtleties that are hard to explain that has always fascinated me. I'd also like to do a great deal of traveling, see different people and clutures, there's so much to experience in the world that if I lived many lifetimes, I couldn't see it all, but I'd like to see as much as I can in this one, I feel that it's time to stop wasting time and get down to work so that I can be free of my useless menial minimum-wage work. Inspiration is such a mysterious thing, but I definitely feel it.
My recent trading has been good, and I've managed to reclaim some of my losses. Right now the biggest drain on my account has been commissions, however I've implemented some changes to reduce transactions and select better entries that will yield bigger profits. Right now the account has just peaked into positive territory in terms of points earned, the only reason the balance is negative is due to commissions =(
Been awhile since my last post, and the reason why is coz all my trading has been break-even. It's been dull and boring, and I've been doing things wrong. Still the damage to my account has been minimal. In the past I couldn't have placed 50 trades in the market and still have a single dollar in my account, it's easy to lose when your a beginner as you all know. I had rules like 2 point stops, but would hold assuming price was "over-extended" with the hopes that price would retrace to my entry, naturally price would run down another 2 or 3 points and I would be looking at a -$250.00 loss on a $5k account in a single trade. Placing just a few bad trades in a day would leave me down anywhere from -5% to -15% on my entire account in just a day! This was my years ago when I traded with real money, I lost almost everything in that account, and eventually withdrew the remaining balance for living expenses. Bottom line, stops protect your account, so adhere to your specific stop loss rules!
So after 56 trades the account is down 10% and half of that loss is due to commissions. I'm an expert at bleeding slowly.. however in all seriousness I think this data is telling me that I need to be more selective with my trades. As you can see I have over twice as many losing trades than winning trades, yet my gross loss on the account is only -4.00 points after 56 round turns, how have I managed this? For starters I cut my losses very quickly, as a result I tend to take losses frequently, the losses are mostly like mosquito bits to the account, small and annoying. My winning trades are typically 2x the size of a loss sometimes MORE, I'm constantly looking for big winning setups, sometimes I want to see them so much I imagine things that aren't there, this has led to some over trading on my part, but not by much, for the most part I've managed to keep myself in check. I'll be making some minor adjustments to my trading style attempting to manage my trades a bit better and avoid some of the noise, hopefully my next update will be a tale of profits. We'll see.
So far these are my results with my simulation account. My win rate has been very low, but the account hasn't taken much damage, all thanks to the power of cutting loses quickly. My most recent session was a big win, and I've included a pic of the results. I finished that session with a net profit of $250.00 trading 1 contract of the 6E (all of this is done in market replay).
