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This is going to be the first of what I hope will be many posts on this forum. I have been a member of a few forums in the past and yet they never really felt like a place where I wanted to share my ideas. They all seem to have some things in common, shooting down people with ideas, ridiculing new folks for asking beginner question, tweaking systems to a point of not being able to recognize a system any longer and in general just being nasty.
I admire Mike for what he has started here and I believe this could be a good place for me to continue to grow as a trader and help others along the way.
This is going to be a lengthy one so I hope you will hang in there. It’s hard to get to know someone form a post on a forum but I hope this will help and maybe also lend a little hope to those traders still finding their way.
I don’t actually know where to start but I think in order for this to make sense to some and to have value for others a story of my background may be appropriate.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt
Read that quote again slowly and really understand its meaning. As you read through this post then finally reach the end it will tie in nicely.
Until recently I had been struggling with trading for years like many before me and what I am sure will be many after me.
In 1999 I was bitten by the trading bug when I saw a commercial for Larry Williams and his trading course on commodities and the Commitment of Traders reports. Couple that with his book “How I Made One Million Dollars Trading Commodities Last Year” and I was hooked for sure. Like so many others, I was looking for a way that would allow me to make a better life for my family. I mssed around with it and tried to learn some things but just couldn’t quite grasp what was being presented.
I am in the military and have supported multiple deplyments. After returning from my last deployment in 2005 I knew there must be a way for me to learn this trading stuff and finally provide for a better life for my family. I was neck deep in trying to make sense of it all with books, email course and anything I could get my hands on to learn how to trade. I was even a member of the original StrategyBuilderFX Forum back in the very early days before forex forums became so popular.
I read some things and learned some things and traded demo for what seemed like forever. Trying different methods that I read about and incorporating the newest latest and greatest indicators on my charts. I even tried using EA’s at one point but that failed miserably. I knew I was close but just couldn’t seem to put the pieces together, even after blowing 2 small accounts.
Sometime in late 2006, I came across A thread on a forum that talked about Price Action. I read through it the first time thinking hmmm, there seems to be something here. It just seemed like good common sense. Looking for price action setups, trading off of areas of prior support or resistance was pure genius my mind. Why hadn’t I thought about this before why, why, why, have I wasted so much time doing other things? So I started immediately putting to use what I was learning. At first it was with mixed results, and then I was getting what seemed to be better. Then I started with a streak of losses that freaked me out a bit, cluing me in to the fact that I needed some more help.
I read through many of the threads and watched a number of videos. I practiced what I was seeing but still with mixed results. Then like what happens to most of us, life got in the way. My job placed huge demands on me causing me to have to work extra hours and perform extensive international travel. Not to mention my obligations to the military. But I continued to try and learn, never letting go of the dream of one day being a profitable trader and having my income solely derived from the markets.
Then in 2008 my wife and I split up. In the end the life we had together was hard on her due to my Job and Military requirements. Leaving her at home to take care of our son, and deal with the events life would occasionally throw at us while I was off doing what needed to be done was more than she could bare.
My desire to become a profitable trader was unwavering! Now more than ever I wanted to change my life for the better so I can provide whatever my son would need. I read more books, Pring on Price, Trading is a Business by Joe Ross, and I took another trading course that was based around a trend following method. But I wasn’t quite breaking that barrier of profitability.
In late 2009 I was still struggling even though I had learned so many things not only about the market and price action, but also about myself. What kind of trader I am, what my risk tolerances are, how to control my emotions while in the market. Everything I had done up to this point has been valuable in teaching me something, even if it didn’t work out.
A friend of mine who trades for a living said one thing that for some reason hit me like it never hit me before. He said in his message “Look for good bars in good places”. He attached an image of a chart with a Fib drawn on swing high and a swing low showing a Bearish pin bar at the 61.8 retracement. It was like the brightest light bulb you could ever have imagined turned on in my head.
I scoured charts looking for these same types of setups and trying to identify valid entries and how I would have managed that trade. Then I came across a Todd Mitchell’s course which contained more info on price action. So I looked into it and eventually made the decision to purchase it. There was real quality information in that course and it was worth the price. Todd’s course finally put me over the fence on the side of profitability. Now I am not saying nor will I ever say that I am an expert, but I have definitely turned the page and started on a new chapter in my book on becoming a full time trader.
So for you folks out there who are still struggling with getting to the point of profitability, my message to you is to never give up! It took me 10 years to get where I am now. Ask yourself the question “If it took you 5 or 10 years to build a business that got you to a point where you could trade for a living would you put the time in to learn it?” I did and you’re damn right it’s worth it!
I use and believe in the following quote completely. So much so that it had become my mantra when starting my journey to become a successful trader;
“Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” -- Thomas Edison
So I hope to see you folks around in the forum. I will do my best to post as often as I can.
Platform: NinjaTrader, Metatrader, omnitrader, tradestation, Window on Wall Street
Broker: amp/zenfire
Trading: ES TF Ym eur/usd audnsd
Posts: 8 since Sep 2010
Thanks Given: 18
Thanks Received: 1
That is a very worthy and responsible Goal. Good Luck to you. May God bless your understanding of the markets.
Champions are made by risking more than others think is safe,
Dreaming more than others think is practical,
and expecting more than others think is possible.
Platform: NinjaTrader, Metatrader, omnitrader, tradestation, Window on Wall Street
Broker: amp/zenfire
Trading: ES TF Ym eur/usd audnsd
Posts: 8 since Sep 2010
Thanks Given: 18
Thanks Received: 1
I applaud your determination and Resilience. "...more than education, more than experience, more than training, an individuals level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails."
Harvard Business Review, 2002.
Champions are made by risking more than others think is safe,
Dreaming more than others think is practical,
and expecting more than others think is possible.
Hello from Seville, I also am interested in systems Trend and Martingales, I'm doing a script for NT but I have no knowledge of C # only I simply cut and paste from other scripts, sometimes works, sometimes not. I hope to share ideas. Greetings.
Hola desde Sevilla, yo también estoy interesado en los sistemas de tendencia y Martingalas, estoy haciendo un script para el NT, pero no tengo conocimiento de C # sólo que simplemente cortar y pegar de otras secuencias de comandos, a veces funciona, otras no. Espero poder compartir ideas. Saludos.
I have been trying to learn the business of trading for several years without much success. Gain some .. lose some, with the losses ahead for now.
Hope to learn enough to keep my head above water before I am no longer able to do so.
I am always searching for anything that will help improve my trading.
I have been playing around with automated systems for a while and explored programming strategies in NJ starting out with one of the great NJ programming introductory videos by Mike (this is how I came across this site and forum, thanks Mike, great job!).
I have probably been too cautious so far, only using demo accounts to find a system consistently profitable when back testing on the major Forex pairs before going "live". Haven't been successful so far though and realized I probably need to tackle the entire enterprise from a different angle. I have been using three line break (TLB) as the basic indicator and wrote my own code for it in NJ. Then added a bunch of other indicators to the strategy including MACD, slow stochastics, standard and extreme bollinger bands, ATR and some others, but no strategy has so far generated reliable results.
I'm sure others have been going down similar paths before and may have found like it looks I will that consistently profitable fully automated training is either extremely hard or not even possible. By "consistently profitable" I mean overall coming out at a plus after each full month of continuous automated trading on e.g. 10 minute bars.
I am here to learn about other's people's experiences and share my own and hopefully end up with a useful approach.
Hi Everyone, I'm Josh. I've started following the markets since the recent crarshes have convinced me that "Buy and hold" is no longer a valid investment strategy. In college, our finance professors said that this was the best and only way to save for retirement. My mutual funds lost a lot of money in the market crash and I now believe that there are huge asset bubbles in many markets and an active trading strategy is the only way to conserve and generate wealth.
I am interested in several types of instruments: forex and futures seem to be where the most profit can be made as brokerage fees are high in stock trading and you can't make leverage purchases. I am very hesitant about which broker to use.
What are your opinions about this, pick only one instrument type or several? Are there good brokers with which you can trade both futures and forex? How did you guys pick your brokerage firm?
I have been using the free charts end-of-day charts at ProRealTime.com as this lets me look at all types of instruments on one platform and I like the automatically drawn support and resistance levels. I have opened demo accounts with a few forex brokers so far.
I'm still thinking about what my trading strategy will be and trying to find the best way.
Is there a survey anywhere on here about what tools people use, for example indicators (which ones?), trend lines, etc?
Hello fellow traders. I have tried CFD a few years ago, was doing OK after gaining technical education and the Market changed and my account suffered. I realized I wasn't really ready. So after nearly a year without trading, and continuing my education I entered the world of Forex. A lot of reading, a lot of Demo trading I am trading a small capital with a Micro account. No losing too much, no wining too much. I am trying to get my consistency on the right track.
A fellow trader mentioned this site, and I found a lot of good info.
I started to concentrate on the GPBJPY pair only, and it seems to be less stressful this way. Entering after retracement for swing trading. Sometimes I feel like I am getting there, but I know it will take time.
I hope one day to be more helpful to other traders, because I like the idea of giving something back.
At the moment I am persevering and hope to bring better results in the future. Cheers