Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Hi, I'm new to this forum and would like to hear from traders who are profitable, or traders who aren't profitable and understand why. Since I'm new I'll give a bit of background: I'm 18 years old, been trading for 16 months. Initially, I made all the mistakes: terrible mm, rr was an afterthought, biased backtesting = must be actual results, stop losses were nothing, traded forex, indicators, etc. Needless to say I blew out an account or two. Then after reading about bucketshop forex brokers I ditched forex asap for eminis. Ive been trading/watching demo (live data streams) for about 6 months and am about to go live again for the first time in a long time. This time I have a legitimate positive expectancy, as I now focus on what makes traders successful. I have good RR, positive win rate, I don't touch stops, only risk 2-3% a trade, strict price action only etc. My question is: how do you stay consistent? What differences will I find trading ES on a sim compared to live with actual money? I am starting my own hedge fund, and trading futures is how I intend to grow my capital. In general, I love trading. I'll be attending nyu stern undergrad next year in hopes I'll learn more of how to make this business a success in my life. Also, what's your advice for someone young and new in trading futures? This form seems to have many who are profitable in this industry. Thanks !
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Sounds like you already went through quite a bit of experience for your age and you are able to articulate a lot of the pitfalls that are out there.
With regards to your question, the difference with sim are :
- fills might be a little different, (but on ES, that might be the lowest of all instruments
- in certain instrument stop hunting can be an issue (depends on the instrument and the time of day)
- psychology on real account is different from SIM
With regards to consistency, keep a track record, try not to change all the time and know what is your edge, seems you have a few of those points already identified and you are probably well positioned ...
good luck !
feel free to share your progress in the future
1) read and understand the most busy journals
2) optimize your strategy over time (read appropriate threads here)
3) OPEN your OWN JOURNAL on fio instantly and post your trades and thoughts about the results
4) Don't switch strategy instantly if things are not going in your direction - but optimize your stops then
5) "Know THY market" as a wonderful former fio member mentioned many times - means IN and OUT! If you feel like
things are doing well in your system - do not change it short time: but watch longtime perfomance (3 months plus).
Oh - I forgot to point out No. 3 above: With the wonderful followers here on fio you will get your consistent
path over a long period - reading and answering the most important questions.
Broker: Infinity Futures, SierraChart RT Data Feed
Trading: Mini-DAX, CL, 6E
Posts: 532 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 273
Thanks Received: 403
Your journey sounds thrilling and I am wishing you to succeed!
Reading through your post some thoughts came up:
1. Although I don't know your actual approach to the markets I stumbled upon the 2-3% per trade. Assuming you are talking about the percentage of your account I have the feeling 1% risk keeps you safer and in business longer.
2. Having a statistical edge is the most important aspect of staying in the game - so do extensive research with your own statistical numbers and adjust carefully. Just as an illustration this screenshot from my "riskengine":
3. Develop a strategy for trending market situations and a second one for rangebound market situations with a reasonable statistical edge. Stick to the strategies, do not tweak to much, just perform your strategy day by day.
4. Regard the position FLAT as an important part of your strategy and know when not to trade.
5. Be aware of the market context and markets actual location resulting from the nesting of trends on one timeframe as well as in respect to higher and lower timeframes.
6. Work through futures.io forums.
7. Keep a structured journal - futures.io is a good place for keeping yourself accountable.
I see rleplae already having given answers to some of your questions, that is so great on futures.io,
Congratulations on your considerable success so far!
Being consistent is definitely a key point.
I asked a friend, a novice trader to review a website with a free two week trial of a call service.
Later in asking him about it - and more generally about how compounding a consistent profit makes an enormous amount of money and how traders can't be successful- he replied that he thought traders go through streaks. - make a lot then lose a lot.
I don't KNOW the answer to being consistent.
But I will say that you might increase you odds if you ask yourself:
"Under what change in conditions will my system lose it's edge?"
So being aware of when it might fail can alert you to stop trading until to get a new edge.
---
on another note there is a site where you can create a verifiable track record that can lead to getting hedge fund financing. Fundseeder.com (this is not a recommendation or not of them just info - sim accounts won't get you a track record)
i been trading about 7 yrs . At year 5 i took on a mentor that specialise in NLP and taught the pyhscology of trasding . I knew i had a good trading plan because at the end of day if i had followed my plan i would make money .trading was like a roller coaster of emotions for me . He taught me to be aware of my emotions and how to keep them in check by excercises . 2 yrs later now i am making the most money i ever made and my stress level is down by 50% . I learnt to trade with my conscious mind and not my subconscious mind ( revenge trading,fear of missing out, chasing trades ) . This was my missing link .
If you trade systematic strategies then you might start to notice more stuff and it can lead to better ideas or improvements for the strategies actually. I do like what Mike Bella says about trading: you should be trading in such a way that your focus is heightened but not too extreme. You need to have a little fear but not too much.
The transition for a discretionary trader can be more difficult because you have always to introspect yourself to see if you're making the same decisions you did on the simulator. So, there is a lot more introspection and need to be critical. One possibility is to trade sim and live concurrently to see take an emotional temperature gauge so to speak.
If you trade over any length of time, you'll see the markets can through many changes both structural, volatility, etc. So, that makes it difficult for a single market/single style trader.
The account size is important. The biggest problem is most sim traders trade a large account with less leverage and then go to a small account that is highly leveraged. The style and skills aren't the best match. So, you want to keep everything exactly the same. Another similar problem is on the sim a trader might accept $1,000 loss per day as acceptable and then suddenly decide to trade with $500 loss limit. But, what's likely to happen? A smaller loss limit might mean that the percentage of overall profitable days drops. It might mean that a trader takes smaller stops on trades which leads to a lower winning percentage.
And, there are always one off events that can change everything. Be sure you know your platform inside and out and your broker well too.
Sometimes problems lead to more problems. Maybe one day, you always enter with your stop and target. But, for whatever reason you forget to set it and then you want to be long but you somehow you end up short -- wrong button or distraction whatever. Now you know you want to get out of this trade but it runs against you and you're down a couple hundred bucks. Do you close it or wait for it come back? These are the sorts of situations that can lead to disaster. Your equipment keyboard and mouse can go bad. I had a mouse that one time started to double click or the click would get stuck -- you know that will add a ton of contracts. If you have a "hot key" to order sometimes keyboards go bad or get a stuck key. Positions can be left on by accident if wrong order types are used.
Trading software bugs and problems. Third party programs trading programs that connect to your broker sometimes break or don't work properly due to updates and the whole complexity of the operation. Now, if you put on a position and news breaks and you're not getting updates to your trading software. Do you know the broker's software? Can you operate it? Maybe you didn't bother to even learn it. In rare cases, you might end up with a stuck trade that won't close out and you have to call the broker. Maybe you hold over the close and your stop is cancelled but your position stays on. Do you have the brokers number somewhere convenient? Internet can go down. Things that seem rare or whatever normally tend to happen more regularly when it matters.
One of my first trades was placing trades stock trades AH and had planned to just place my trade with my stop and go to sleep. I don't trade stocks so I forget what the issue was but it must have been something about it wouldn't accept stop orders overnight or whatever, and the position moved against me. Either that or the broker quit accepting orders.. at any rate I had to watch the position.