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@iantg has captured exactly what every new trader should be doing from the beginning. Unfortunately, it all goes wrong for new traders because you start sprinting at the beginning of marathon. Every new trader is guilty of this to some extent because at the time you don't know how long the race is.
It is only as you continue trading you realise you have to slow down and perhaps stop for a while before you can continue. This could be due to blowing up an account(s) or just the plain realisation that what you are doing isn't working. You need to catch your breath when things are going wrong, not double down!
It took me years to discover that I needed to use the market data to find an edge. The edge only has to be small and "just enough", but if you do find something the hard work can really pay off.
The paradox here being that if I didn't blow up an account and didn't get whacked around by the market hundreds perhaps thousands of times, would I have all of the tools and lessons learned to parse the data in a meaningful way? I guess that part is up for debate.
I am not an Excel whiz by any means but once I began extracting the market data, opportunities started to present themselves. For example, I used the data to calculate the number of contracts (in the ES) required to turn the market in the opposite direction by a minimum number of ticks.
I met another trader via FIO and we talk all of the time over email, swapping ideas and discussing everything trading related. He is a very smart guy. It turns out, he was doing the same thing as me, but calculated the number of contracts using different data points, but our numbers were uncannily close. This wasn't coincidence.
The data then started to unfold itself in other ways. Could I calculate when a pullback is only a pullback and not the beginning of a trend in the other direction. You betcha. Is it 100% accurate? Of course not, but it is better than having no information at all.
@iantg is a much smarter guy than I am when it comes to using data points. He has posted many informative posts which I know some traders will gloss over because it appears too hard. Fact is, trading is simple but not easy. Ian knows A LOT about parsing market data and has provided this forum with really good information.
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- Trade what you see. Invest in what you believe -
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jumping on what @tpredictor said you absolutely have to feel good about yourself, your life, everything...your vision needs to be extremely strong and rarely waivers. Doubt creeps in and out at times and sometimes you hate this profession but overall the vision remains constant.
What's worked the best for me:
Patience S/R
Volume
Risk/trade management
Lots of base hits with some big winners sprinkled in.
avg 60% win rate and avg 2:1 r:r
I've had months of 70%+ win but lower r:r and <60% but 3:1+ r:r
if you want your diet to work and see life changing results then you need to change your life to encompass your goal,
trading is the same.. you want to become a trader then make sure your life is encompassing and supporting of your goal..
-P
"Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie"-Miyamoto Musashi
Nobody will tell you that once you have built the system that draws beautiful pictures, and tells you exactly what the market is doing, and even why it is doing it, that you will still do the opposite of what your system is telling you to do. For a very long time.
Wait wait wait a minute! I have a finance background (undergrad) and statistics/math background (grad school) from 25-30 years ago which are just pieces of paper and I think I burned them in effigy in my mid 20's...
However, 60% hit rate @2:1 r:r Even if you are only trading 10-15 trades per week and net net you are 1.8 r:r @60% winners; then you my friend are the top 0.1% of all traders.
Have you done the math on this over time? It is insane. You should be banging out 50-100 lots in your instrument of choice and clearing 7 figures+ per year unless your absolute net per trade is like $15.00 per trade and your doing 2-3 lots per trade or something in that area.
Congrats though. Numbers you quoted are as impressive as I have ever seen in trading.
Last 12 months of my trading in my Major trading instrument , totally systematic . Been a long journey with steady improvement since i went full systematic . I dont think stats like this are top 0.1% at all . I will be 7/8 figures soon enough , you got to live as well so it takes a while . No debt , freehold house , the nice things with holidays on the journey . The FU money not far away then i can crank it up and i will . 2019 will be huge for me , i already know
It aint easy , lots of hard work and migraines . Hardest work i have ever done by far
Yea; I shouldn't have typed about the money - that's individual and a byproduct of the work.
Regardless, that is some excellent work and I am impressed. Keep going!
Sure, trading is so much more than nearly any other career and worth the journey for those that by endurance can conquer the math and grind out that edge.
@researcher247 avg 60% win and avg 2:1 r:r are recent averages over the past 6 months, even hitting 72% win and 1.6 r:r in November with each trade detailed in my journal. over the past 4 years I've put up high 5 and low 6 figure years. One doesn't just start trading 50-100 lot trades... I've been through some serious shit the past 3 years so I've kept my risk low. But I will start increasing size when the time is right for me. I also posted a screenshot of my live trading screen showing my profit on the year a few years back.
"you haven't traded that well or you would be doing this and you'd be this good" then at the end you say "congrats though" That's funny man.