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If I may try to help you: I'd recommend a trial run with Ninja 8, and it is a free download to allow you to get used to a platform for your trades. I believe that Ninja Trader offers "THE BEST PLATFORM SERVICE" when you have questions or need some help with software. Secondly, if you are interested in a trading course, my personal like is Al Brooks Price Action. It is not for everybody. Al's voice has been said to be boring monotone sometimes. IMHO, Al's teaching is right on for a price action trader. Al will even allow you a couple of free days inside his trading room, but I do not recommend that at first. There are several "you tube" presentations by Al for you to freely watch at your leisure. Al is not big on indicators so as not to clutter a screen, complicating your decisions with too many x's and o's if you will.
Most importantly, take it slow and easy. There are too many sharks in the trading world looking to take money from your account and put it into there's.
Threads like this really get to the heart and soul of who we really are as people IMHO.
Thank you everyone for being vulnerable and expressing your stories, feelings, and journey on here. I apologize about the length of this but I hope it reaches …
Best
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” Δ
“There is no path, but only a fool wouldn’t follow it.”
https://marketgeometry.com (don't buy anything right off … for maybe a year or more)
free resources Articles : Action Reaction Course : Median Line Construction instructions
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/User/MarketGeometryVideos[/yt]
these are examples of using median lines but some may be very focused on a sub topic
and not of immediate value. Some will present a different way of looking at a market
that doesn't appeal to you. My advice is don't get frustrated and stuck , just move on.
"Trades About To Happen" Weis entry strategy compatible with above Market Geometry methods.
Take your time and practice on charts every day if you can. There is a lot of randomness in
the bar to bar price trajectories but the boundaries are much less random, even pre-determined.
I can comment only on what has worked for me, although, frankly, I would not expect anyone to believe any of it might work for anyone else, as I believe the trading process is highly individual.
1. Lots and lots (years) of psychotherapy, to come to some realization within myself of who I am, what I want, what I don't want, my fears, my joys, etc. I know this may sound phony baloney, but the more I got to know and accept and become accountable to myself, the better trader I became. I am blind to what I don't want to see and acknowledge about myself. That's what therapy is for --- recognition and acceptance of personal blind spots and becoming accountable for them.
2. My trading advanced by leaps and bounds when I abandoned all indicators and began to analyse the market directly, using only its independent variables, price and volume, and their inter-relationships. Relying on indicators cost me some twenty years of unproductive time (although with my quantitative background, SB MIT, PhD Caltech, the belief that indicators might be productive is highly addictive to me).
3. My trading also advanced leaps and bounds when I shifted my focus from "making money" to "being the best trader I could be." That meant:
a) Developing an objective, rule-based, predetermined system that consistently had shown by extensive backtesting substantial profit over a substantial period of time. And:
b) Learning how to execute the system flawlessly while keeping my emotions in check.
Thus my goal was not "to make money trading." It was to develop my trading system and then to execute it flawlessly. If I could do that, I would become a "successful trader" in my own mind. What became of that in terms of dollars was irrelevant. The money no longer mattered. What mattered was only what I could control, and I cannot control the market.
4. Lastly, trading became much more enjoyable and less stressful after I had obtained sufficient funds from other activities such that I did not have to rely on my trading for my financial security.
I wish you my best along your journey.
Richard Wills, a student of the S&P 500 futures market since 1983
I would also suggest reading Trading in the Zone (douglas) and doing some coin toss exercises (look up FuturesTrader71 for coin toss exercise). More than half your battle will most likely be psychological than technical.
I once heard stated prior to the start of a trading seminar I attended online. "90% of retail traders loose due to spending 90% of their time on the 10% of trading (charts, strategies, etc), and only 10% of their time on 90% of trading which is your personal psychology! I highly suggest that you start on this path with a journal, and record everyday these three areas (PTR).
P=Physical wellbeing (We shoot ourselves in the foot, when we show up sick, under the influence, upset.)
T=Thoughts. Where is your attention/focus. Are you attending to the market auction, or your opinion of it?
R=Responses/emotional state: Nervous, fear, anger, annoyed, irritated, worried, etc.
I suggest you seek out a psych coach/therapist, and a mentor (Peter Davies, FutureTrader71, Tom Grady).
To me the best quote is
"The first $100k is a real bitch"
--Charlie Munger
If I started over I wouldn't start trading until I had $100k of capital, I would just dollar cost average into the index. Once you have a $100k then when you compound out another $10k start using that to trade in a separate account.
Without a $100k your profit is just too much a % of life expenses that there is too big an opportunity cost to learn to trade with that money.
If you blow up the $10k account , wait to compound out another one from your capital. Worst case scenario then is you quit trading and just let your $100k compound.
It probably also keeps you from trading much in your 20s. I had such delusional ideas about trading in my 20s.
This is probably not what @Lavrans wanted to hear, and these may not be the literal numbers he should be using -- risk is an individual matter. But the message is something that's important to learn, and learn well.
And, by the way, it's very, very (very) likely that, if you start out with a $10k account, you will also blow your $10k acoount. Or $5k. Or whatever k you have. Sorry, don't shoot the messenger.
How a person deals with this risk, which is definitely part of the learning process, is up to them, but be aware of it. Also, don't be too scared of it. There's a balance there that has to be found. Come down on the side of the balance that makes sense to you, realizing that you will not likely get it right the first time. Also, never trade with money you can't afford to just kiss goodbye. This may happen a few times....