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)
Either give up trading entirely and move on... (there is SO MUCH more to life than trading)
OR
Forget about trading live for the foreseeable future. Find a source of income to survive. Unless you have at least a $10k account, switch to cash Forex and trade tiny size (say, 10c / pip) on much slower charts, min H1 (D1 would be best). Use a free MT4 account in simulation mode with someone like Oanda.
If and only if you can put together 3 consecutive profitable months with acceptable drawdowns, then consider trading live again.
If you cannot bring yourself to stop trading live (and apologies if you have), then look seriously & honestly at why this is.
Good luck and enjoy & focus on the process.
Edit : one more thing....
Do not trade live until you understand that no new problems are springing up.
Have you only been learning for a year? If so, give yourself at least 5 years, some people may be quicker or longer. But if you can survive 5 years without blowing up, you might just have a chance of success. You need to be obsessed with acheaving your goal of being consistanly profitable.
There may be at least two things you are not doing right.
heikin-ashi bars look nice but they do not reflect the real price action if you study how they are mathematically composed. They draw nice pretty bars but often in different places to the where the real price action falls. Use the H, L and the C format and you will get accurate entry and exit points, if you are soley relying on price action to interpret the market. I would not recommend you rely solely on interpreting price action. Even Gann suggested he would make losses when he relied on space measurements alone.
Learn how to read buying and selling volume within bars or across bars, or better still, learn how to measure the forces of supply & demand that causes the price action. Rather than trying to interpret price effects which have no foundation, certainly not from using heikin ashi bars.
Regards
Hi There and thanks for your post. I am currently in the same situation after being named as trader of the month in the place I am trading for. I have a mentor and shared my situation yesterday with him ( which is losing a lot of money all out of a sudden after winning a lot, to be simple). His two advices where helpful: 1) do not think you are special, he earns millions a year and only last summer he had a series of losing days that even led him to think he was not good for this and2) do not seek aa new method, concentrate in what you have been doing well. He also said this is a toll you have to pay from time to time to be a trader. And here is my half penny: Have you tried to trial out with some of the companies out there that allow you paper trading leading to a potential funded account? It will hurt at times but will settle your discipline and your pschyco.
Hope this helps, and...never ever give up. That is no solution.Trading is for the strong ones and these show how strong they are in the worst moments.
I'm not an expert in any of the issues you discussed in your original post, nor do I have words of wisdom for your particular style, method or mental/emotional issues. We are all on a journey and while we can help each other, ultimately its your internal dialogue that determines your success. You must find your own path in your time and in your own way.
That said, I would offer this little note. My trading got a lot better when I stopped trying for big wins and instead focused on a reasonable profit on a reasonable time frame. With that in mind, it may make some sense to look at trading less, not more time.
I offer you an educated reason why in the attachment below.
Good luck on your journey!
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
My best advice to you is that you that you listen to Futures Traders 71 (FT71) approach. First, and it is free, listen to to his webcasts and his daily market review and trading preparation work (Trader Bites). They are available on You Tube. Then if his approach makes sense to you, subscribe to FT71's Convergent Trading website (https://www.convergenttrading.com/). The monthly cost is minuscule compared to the benefits you will get out of it. That is how I learned trading and it worked for me.
One of the turning points in my trading career was buying bloodhound.
Before I continue, I have no relationship or financial interests with them so just take this as one guy offering another guy advice. Bloodhound (programming in general) is very helpful because it allows you the ability to prove and realize that 99% of the indicators and methods you think work, don't.
I've literally Google "best trading strategies" found a bunch of systems... Heikenasi this, macd that, blah blah blah. Built them, tested them.... Complete garbage. However, sometimes, they win. Which is the great trick to fool you into believing in something that has no edge.
This backwards process of taking all the indicators out of the toolbox and trying to build profitable mechanical systems will lead you down the path to realizing that its almost all useless.
Why heikenasi? Why volume bars? Why those colorful squiggly lines on the bottom of your chart?
Until you can prove or disprove that the tools and methods you're using have any sort of reliable value, you're just sitting in front of a different kind of slot machine and some times you win which makes you feel like you're on the right track.
A couple of other pieces of advice are, 1. The only people making consistent money are the brokers and vendors. 2. Your job is to take high risk to reward trades and lean on an edge. 2 to 1.... What a waste of time. 3. There's more important things in life than these colorful lines and flashy numbers, don't get caught up in the glamor. 4. Realize that everyone is selling you something (see 1.), don't buy it unless they have LIVE trackrecords to back it up.
1 Move to 1 contract
2 Forget ES, contemplate YM. You get more ticks for the same move, less risk and far less choppy than NQ
3 Use a 1 min chart, with some MA's (10,20,50.100 & 200). The MA's will better illustrate the chop for you.
4 Pay attention to the left side of the chart, the prev hour or 2 will tell you loads.
5 Maybe trade pre 930, far less choppy and should lessen the stress level. I only see people getting cut to ribbons the majority of that that time.
6 Look to achieve nothing more than $200 per day on 1 contract.
7 once you have made consistent (month minimum) profits then move to 2 contracts
My final words are that trading the 930-1030 window is something i avoid like the plague. Wait for the market to settle. Patience is key. Lastly if you look at January's trading ranges you will find range contraction and intra day chop, I had an unbelievable Q4 18 and yet i'm flat so far this year. Trade the market you have, not the one you had. My aim at the mo is just to be up every day, whether that is 1 or 1000 bucks.