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"Optimize everything you can. The place you trade from, your charts, everything you have an influence on and what does have an influence on you. Make yourself aware of the things you can change to optimize and the things you cant."
Larry Williams in "Long term secrets to short term trading" says to beware of over optimization. Over optimization is like having a pure breed pedigree dog. Generally they are snippy and short.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Some good advice is given already eg. by @cory and @paps.
But paper trading is not real money trading. Pulling the trigger is much different.
Read the psychology threads here in detail and start with a low budget investment
on your preferred instrument. See the results of your trades on the real money side
and compare it with the paper results you had in the past.
These two Mark and Van if you study them will put you well on the way to developing a probability trader mind set. This is counter intuitive to the way we human, by in large, think with very few exceptions. A trading system should be close to the last thing a new trader worries about works on and spends their valuable time on. Wish I would of asked the questions you are asking here when I was starting out. Maybe I would of not blow thru/lost the $50k+ I did...lol.
Train one's self to take your edge (please don't right now worry/work on just what that market edge is at this stage in your evolution as a trader) with your emotions under control and use your emotions as data points to better understand your trading and the trading environment. An edge any edge can produce a string of losers but you must so train your mind to take the very next edge that develops and not let the 6 losses you just had in a row deter you. This is the same type of thing emergency first responders train themselves to do (think building on fire and needing to save people inside etc) that would make the average Joe on the street have an accident in their pants. Or elite arm forces trained to go head first into a life or death gun battle that would make most frozen with panic.
Ron
...My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy...
The steed of this Valley is pain; and if there be no pain this journey will never end.
Buy Low And Sell High (read left to right or right to left....lol)
I think an integral part of trading is nearly blowing up, most ppl don't acquire the right money management headset/mindframe until they have lost significant capital. One of the best traders I know now blew his account up 3 times and almost a 4th before he became SUPER disciplined. I blew up one account and almost another before I took that side of things seriously enough. If I had to do it all over again, I would have paper traded at least 3-6 months before placing any live trades.
Also, I started to become a lot more profitable and more consistent when I started trading smaller, so that emotions weren't part of my mindset. Stay small and use stops and be very patient to enter and your win % goes way up in my view
Let this sink in--- 95% of all traders do not make any money. It all goes to the 5%. What on earth would lead you to believe that you are going to be in that 5%?? The odds are stacked. My advice-- do not start, run, do everything you can to put trading out of your mind. You will not make money doing this. How do I know this? Because you like 99.9% of the people here are not honest enough to ask the 2 questions that you really seek answers for. Namely, What is it that the 5% know that you do not? And, is there a way to make them tell? The answers are: They'll never tell, and there is no way to make them. But I'm sure you, like others will continue to buy books, newsletters, webinars, systems, ect... no matter what the facts are. And be sure to keep a journal and have a lot of posts because that is a sure ingredient for success. Since when did keeping track of bad trading suddenly turn any one into a good trader? It only reinforces bad trading period. Your brokerage statement is the only journal you need.
This thread is about when to stop, I guess my post is really about -- not even starting.
Harsh..but very true. But then one can always trade SIM forever..go on Forums and act like you are trading real money and exchange "System" ideas. That's no worse than playing video games and can be almost as fun.
Maybe if I read your message 7 years ago, I would have another 100 k in savings.
I am doing pretty good now..though..but it's been a very costly process. If someone doesn't have years to spend at this and the ability to withstand a few account blowouts, I doubt they have a chance...and even then.. a slim one.
I think the odds are even worse against retailers. Maybe a fraction of 0.25% of all retailers ever make it to trading consistently year in and out enough to make a living. The 5% winning of all trading are not retailers imo, and instead usually the big players with much bigger pockets which are hedge funds, hft firms, investment banks, etc. and they may not be positive year in and out.
Depends on your mindset, I treat trading like a job and am happy to make money every day, and peace of mind goes a long way.When I start adding size outside of my comfort zone, I don't trade as well and I don't hold as long. I also don't enjoy it as much. So, sweating a lot more for a few extra bucks, maybe, doesn't seem worth the hassle, to me at least
regarding the 5% who make the money, I believe it is a misconception to assume they make it all. Most of the money from losing traders goes to the middle-men, not the winning traders.
Take a hypothetical $1000 that a trader loses in the market. Since most traders lose, the person who "wins" that money will most likely trade it away to someone else, and so on. Each time that money changes hands the various middle men take their cut.
The broker takes commish, exchanges take transaction fees, market-maker takes the spread, the HFT's take a couple of pennies, etc. On top of that there are the monthly data, charting, and software fees of which a portion is taken from our $1000 as it sits in traders accounts.
As that $1000 continues to get passed around it gets whittled down bit by bit, eventually being reduced to nothing unless a successful trader happens to get hold of it. That's how this business works.