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It has been a year since I started my challenging career trading the ES, I lost approximately $2000 in tuition fees, but nevertheless I am as determined as Winston Churchill. I learned a ton in my first year, and am eager to continue learning.
So I received an email last night from Ironbeam saying that my account has been approved, and all I have to do is download the platform.
I feel like a 14year old driving a car for the first time, terrified yet excited at the same time. :crazy_pilot:
I …
, I was really clueless.
The purpose of this thread is gather advice and guidance as to whether I am in the right position as an amateur trader one year into my career. I remember Mike saying somewhere that it takes the average trader 24 months.
5. Subscribe to a signal provider on Zulutrade (no I promise I wont become a copytrader→ just something to bring in some revenue)
6. Learn the basics of forex trading since I will be subscribing to a forex algo.
7. Determine honestly, what style of trading I am most suited for
8. Persuade Big Mike to remove me from his ignore list ( I still have no clue why I am on there)→ so I can participate in most of the threads on this fine forum. I have nothing against him or anyone on this forum, and if I said anything to offend anyone please accept my sincere apologies.
One year in I'd imagine you have your own beliefs about markets formed. If so, you are the best person to ask what to do next. Maybe I understood your post wrong and you still haven't found something to work with?
Markets change all the time, so there is no one path to follow. If you think you've built a solid foundation then focus on your best trading ideas and see if you can make money consistently.
Reading through your short-term goals, it seems you have a quite unique trading profile with a mix of markets and techniques. Again, unless you prove to yourself your ideas are working or not, no-one will be able to change your opinion. I'm sure you've heard that it's better to stay focused on one method, but it must be your own decision in the end.
my most profound piece of advice is not to look at the market in the same way as everyone else looks at it. do not read the same books on trading as everyone else, and certainly do not trade as everyone else trades. if your inputs are the same as everyone else's, you will have no advantage as a trader and your results will be the same as everyone else's. you will operate with the same heuristics and have the same predictable biases that emanate from those heuristics. and, do not determine honestly, what style of trading I am most suited for! instead determine what style of trading is suited for making the greatest amount of profit under the current regime and market conditions.
OBSERVE the market and its attendant price action. markets are complex adaptive systems, which by nature are non-linear and obscure cause and effect. therefore, it is impossible to predict what is going to take place in the future. nevertheless, when you see something occur you are going to create a narrative to explain what happened -and you will probably be mistaken. cnbc does this on a daily basis and is wrong on a daily basis. so, the trick is to see the market, for what it is, and not what it appears to be. this skill takes years and years of screen time observing the markets, and one's approach to trading has to be constantly updated and modified as the markets change. this is why you will not find the answer on how to profit from trading in any book. as soon as it would be uncovered it would be obsolete.
i personally, never read books on trading. instead, i like to read books on decision and game theory. this helps me to be aware of the factors that distort my judgement. one must be able to eliminate the deleterious effects of emotion, stress, and bias in the decision process otherwise one can throw all one's methodology out the window.
from a previous post of mine...
aside from being under capitalized, the biggest mistake aspiring traders make, is underestimating the amount of knowledge and deliberate practice required to become a successful full-time trader. for some reason, they assume trading is different from other performance related activities, and that they can read a book and step right into the market and make money. unfortunately, this is about as naive as someone sitting down at a table with poker pros, after playing a only few hands online, and thinking they're going to be competitive. ironically, the market and vegas have more in common than one might think. they were both created by the top-feeders for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the bottom feeders. the only real difference is in vegas you get free drinks. the narratives that are used to sell the dream are the same; and like all good narratives, there is just enough of a ring of truth to them, to make them believable. inevitably, they always appeal to our intellect and emotions, yet they only exist for the benefit of those who would like to take our money. understand this very salient fact and you will stand a much better chance of succeeding.
know you have enough Money- if you don't have enough capital to begin with, you're finished, before you started.
know the Market- the trader who has the better (more complete) and more timely (current) analysis will enjoy the greatest edge and have the greatest success- if you don't believe that a comprehensive knowledge of the market is important, you're well on your way out the door.
know your Methodology-it's taken me 8 years of trading electronically (after having been a professional trader for +30 years, to reach my current level of competency. if you truly believe, that you can compete against the most sophisticated traders in the world by drawing trend-lines and channels and employing anachronistic trading methods, you're sadly mistaken, and soon to be broke.
know how to Make-Money- there is a big difference between knowing how to trade, and knowing how to make money. the latter is about doing whatever it takes to get the job done. it's about trading the right markets, in the right ways, for the right reasons. in other words, you don't trade a market , because you like its trading hours; you choose to trade a market because its the best vehicle for making the most money. and you trade it in the way, that affords you the highest probability of making the most money.
know yourself & your Mentality - there are a variety of different stressors, emotional/personality flaws, and biases, that effect a trader's ability to make objective decisions. be smart enough to know you're dumb enough, that you don't know everything. The successful performances are those that really aren't about you- don't let who you are get in the way of your trading success.
one last general piece of advice - consider the source of the information you seek. as daniel patrick moynihan once said, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not their own facts. most books geared to the retail trader, are out-dated, irrelevant, ineffectual and misguided - and quite frankly, so are most of the posts you read on this forum. once again, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but only a few posters on this site are sufficiently qualified to render one. you can also choose to try to show everybody how much faith you have in your own methodology, even if it's never been profitable, or you can use the forum to learn from others who have actually been successful. if you really want to learn, find ways to assess information systematically and surround yourself with experienced, knowledgeable, and proven people, who will challenge your opinions; even when they tell you something you don't want to hear..
This should be required reading for everyone who intends to create the next vendor thread and ask others' opinions on it. Hint: if you didn't become rich from reading the last 500 vendor posts, your shiny new finding won't get you there either.
Sadly, it wont register with those the message is most intended for. If I could monetize every time some one starts a post with "I bit the bullet and bought.....".
You have already come a long way based on your post 1 year ago and today. So you are definitely on the right track.
I will just draw from my own experience and say that this is one if not the most important areas to focus on outside of the actual trading edge you are looking for - and that is, you as a person and your values. I had to short almost all of my ego and go long with size on humility and most importantly, trust myself because the answers lie within yet we almost always look outside. This applies to life in general first, and then to anything else including trading. There are a lot of more experienced traders here that can point you in the right path regarding developing your own edge and I just wanted to point out that you are on the right path based on just these 2 posts of yours.
@tigertrader has just given you what you are looking for. It really is up to you to believe it now or later. Focus on the last paragraph a lot.
Are you thinking of signing on some autotrading on a Zulutrade bot or someone manual trading? Those "top 10s" change all the time. Sometimes they change hands/ownership.
I had recall seeing someone post they lost like -50k on Zulutrade bots posted on these boards like 5 years ago.
Just my opinion, maybe try to find a well rated/testimonial trading room where the host is a decent trader who trades his own calls.
otherwise the rest of your plan sounds good. just my cents.
I'm not the wordsmith Tigertrader is so I'll simply say I agree with everything he said. Beyond that is never taking trades from other people and really learn price action and s/r levels. You can examine various methodologies but backtest anything you consider and verify it works for you.
Along the lines of what tt said, what works for the other guy may not work for you...just keep digging until you see something that can consistently make money when YOU are doing it(on paper/sim initially)). I'm pretty much just a PA guy though I do look at Ichimoku as well for particular setups.
Fear, anxiousness and greed are something that you need a handle on( if you don't already).
If you exhibit any of those to a level that makes you deviate from your trading plans you MUST find the cause and deal with it, TT mentioned lack of proper funding as a source of some of those problems...there can be any number of factors that can screw you up. Just make sure you have a clear head and "peace of mind" when you trade.
Not quite to sure what you mean by beliefs......but I have observed, and believe, that price does bounce of certain levels (for instance, I have observed that the weekly pivot is very respected) .
Yes I am seriously considering signing up with a signal provider on Zulutrade (where it is free as compared to C2).
Of course, preliminary research suggests that there is lots of slippage and lag time, but I am thinking of 'auto trading' for a week and seeing how bad/good it is.
I dont want to turn this thread into a zulutrade thread, so I will create a seperate thread on ZT.
I want everyone to know I do not intend on becoming a copytrader, my focus is still on understanding market structure and trading.