How good are you at trading - just be honest

[yellowfloyd]

Ok so i started trading about 4-5 years ago, i was in a comfortable job where day trading from my desk would not be questioned so i started to trade but ended up just throwing money in to the market with no idea what i'm doing on IG index wasting £100's each week gambling. Anyway just from sheer screen time and learning from idiotic mistakes, i started to learn... one thing that was a god send; I randomly met a german guy on skype who had a lot of experience and he became my trading teacher (for free) he's a top guy... i learned to trade breakouts and had some good success on the Dax, Dow Jones and Eur/USD. After a while i became pretty good at day trading, i became profitable, if anyone seen the start of my 1st journal i was having a very high % of successful trades... but despite doing well for a while i crashed and burned and i'm less than break even this year, actually several grand down, in fact i just blown a futures account and i'm back to IG.

So i'm back to being non profitable, however I WILL NOT BE BEATEN BY THE MARKETS.

So, how's things going for you, what do you trade, what's your style and how long you've been trading?

p.s if you'd like to include your current monthly % of gains losses, that would be intersting

Markets moves in cycles and trading accounts often do too. The key is having faith in your overall strategy, confidence in your reasoning for placing trades that go wrong and ensuring your max drawdown (biggest run of losses) never wipes you out. Scale up trade sizes slightly when doing well and scale them down when having a bad run. Everyone has bad runs; it’s about minimising the pain. If you’re back doing well, I’m sure you won’t forget the pain of the past and will protect profits and avoid the same again. Don’t’ get too greedy. Focus on good reward ratios. A friend gave me this link to rules on trading which I’ve found it handy to have on my desk. I’ve been at it a couple of years now and prefer FX over indices. Still playing around but if things keep going well it could be something to fall back or indeed adopt full-time.

 

[Steven2805]

So thought it was about time I update this tread with my latest numbers. Remember am still year 1 live trading.

Jan = BE
Feb = W (0.55%)
Mar = L (-2.00%)
Apr = W (13.20%)
May = W (4.00%)
Jun = W (4.60%)
Jul = L (-2.56%)
Aug = W (8.38%)
Sep = L (-2.00%)
Oct = W (3.43%)

Currently this month am doing nothing right with a massive -9.00% ouch

 

[NVP]

Markets moves in cycles and trading accounts often do too. The key is having faith in your overall strategy, confidence in your reasoning for placing trades that go wrong and ensuring your max drawdown (biggest run of losses) never wipes you out. Scale up trade sizes slightly when doing well and scale them down when having a bad run. Everyone has bad runs; it’s about minimising the pain. If you’re back doing well, I’m sure you won’t forget the pain of the past and will protect profits and avoid the same again. Don’t’ get too greedy. Focus on good reward ratios. A friend gave me this link to rules on trading which I’ve found it handy to have on my desk. I’ve been at it a couple of years now and prefer FX over indices. Still playing around but if things keep going well it could be something to fall back or indeed adopt full-time.

sounds like good advice to me .....

rule number 1 is keep turning up...............the rest is detail.......

N

 

[numbertea]

Last 100 trades: profitable= 70, even= 4, loser= 26. Automated. I'm just starting to recover for all my years losing.

Cheers

 

[lowroller13]

i am also in my first year trading and consider
myself a crap trader, because i keep on repeating the same
basic and well known mistakes.
letting loses run and taking profits too early.
Despite this i am in profit(net).
Next year i hope to become more disciplined and
less emotional once i have opened a position.

 

[Forexmospherian]

Last 100 trades: profitable= 70, even= 4, loser= 26. Automated. I'm just starting to recover for all my years losing.

Cheers

Hi Number tea

With you mentioning the word "automated" - my main question as to be - if you are trading a live account were the 26 losing trades larger in money amount than the 70 winning trades and 4 break even ?

If not and the winning trades made actually more money and you therefore have a net increase on your account - how long approximately did it take in time to accomplish the 100 trades - ie days - weeks or months ?

Thank you and look forward to your answer and GL on the journey

Regards

F

 

[toknees]

i am also in my first year trading and consider
myself a crap trader, because i keep on repeating the same
basic and well known mistakes.
letting loses run and taking profits too early.
Despite this i am in profit(net).
Next year i hope to become more disciplined and
less emotional once i have opened a position.

Well done for accepting your flaws - I too have made many mistakes along the way and fight a constant fight in my head. As soon as my delivers success I feel like I should quadruple my capital outlay, and if I have a bad week I always feel like I should pull the plug on the whole thing! I'm slowly getting used to the idea that a good week can be just as psychologically damaging as a bad one.

My 'ah-ha' moment was when I realised that I needed to completely work out my expectations before I entered any positions. That is to say, not just figure out an initial stop, but consider carefully what my exit strategy would be - not a price target, but what will cause me to get out of the trade.

By making these 'rules' and backtesting them to my own satisfaction, I now have something that can help me win the fight in my head. Whenever I feel over-confident or under-confident, I remind myself of what I've tested. I therefore have a much better idea of what I can expect. I know how bad it can theoretically get, and how good it can theoretically get. In my tests, I can see that unrealised profits can drop dramatically and rise dramatically and it helps temper what would otherwise be overwhelming emotions that would have me super depressed or ridiculously euphoric!

 

[numbertea]

Hi Number tea

With you mentioning the word "automated" - my main question as to be - if you are trading a live account were the 26 losing trades larger in money amount than the 70 winning trades and 4 break even ?

If not and the winning trades made actually more money and you therefore have a net increase on your account - how long approximately did it take in time to accomplish the 100 trades - ie days - weeks or months ?

Thank you and look forward to your answer and GL on the journey

Regards

F

I was trading my account live, automated trades placed by my system. I overlooked it must of the time via emails from my PC to my phone. I didn't interfere with the system at all during the 70 days for this run of trading. I averaged positive 2.3 handles per trade. I have revised my entries over the past week to only include trades with 3 handles plus average expectancy now and that will bring my expected number of trades down to about 60 trades in a 60 day period. I'm going to be up and running Monday again.

I feel amazed and bewildered by my present successes. I just want to say that it is possible... Don't give up.

Cheers

 

[Jack Tidwell]

How good am I at trading?

I'm better than 90% of traders out there!

...

I am better than 90 percent of traders. But only 9 percent are winners.

You CAN'T take that to the bank.

My candidate in the election won most of the votes but because of the system the other candidate won the electoral college. I CANT take that to the bank either.

Bummer. Close but no cigar.

Lesson: Hmm. Quit now, get down, forget about the big time, watch tv, and just live on other people's money. Or keep your mouth shut, marry rich, play tennis, and sail. And then die happy...ish.

 

[LiquidGenius]

Terrible actually. probably about -95% since I started

 

[disciplinedmoney]

I'm doing terrible too, down about 20-25% in 3 months.

Things I'm going to change:
1) back to fake money paper trading
2) get more focused and make trading a routine (sleep by 11, up by 6am)
3) put in more work (specify my trading plan and memorize it and practice it more)

 

[Npard23]

I would consider myself good enough to turn a profit and make a living selling my advice. I hit anywhere between 50-65% of my trades correctly in a given year and return 5-20%. My strategy is designed to have low volatility to attract institutional investors (beta between -0.33 and 0.33) and be mostly market neutral. My specialties are commodities and emerging markets.

However, there are things to work on (like getting stopped out to early on winners). That's one of the fun things about trading as there is always something new to learn.

 

[Traderallen]

Well 243% in nine months, I say i'm starting to get pretty good.

 

[peakoil]

Well your mighty 243% in nine months is certainly impressive. More power to you! Despite your drowning out another voice (heralding also from 'the minority camp'), heard to decry, "Trousered ~ YTD wins, 18%" (avg'd across multiple a/c's, incl. 2 nett consecutive 'losing' months)

With perseverance, thoughtful selection, scaling both ways, 'appropriate' loss cutting (*V controversial viewpoint: not all paper losses, by any means, are worth cutting!), a lot of patience and an open mind to learning, it can be done!! BTW, it's argued - if your'e holding for more than 2 weeks forget DFB's, and use futures only! To those in the majority camp: don't give up! But don't sit there wondering "why you?" either! Find the reasons and moreover learn from them. This voice lost consistently for many many years after starting. And there are no guarantees. Nonetheless always seeking to learn from mistakes and misfortune is an invaluable discipline. + Finger's crossed. And... didst this one mention 'patience'?

 

[NVP]

it all boils down to fine tuning your approach and then screentime and practice ............


as the famous golfer Gary player used to say :-

"The more I practice the luckier I get"

Trading is all about experience - like anything in life

N

 

[NVP]

Well 243% in nine months, I say i'm starting to get pretty good.

I saw recently some great videos and tuition from you TA...hats off to you my friend

and naturally a strengthmeter as well in the mix

N

 

[peakoil]

@ NVP - Excuse me, but you've roused my curiosity:

Are you suggesting that "Traderallen" is allegedly up 243% - partly or mostly because he used your so called 'strengthmeter" within his trading plan?

 

[Svetlana Korj]

I have a different case. I havesmall experience in tradingby any results. But I aspire to it!

 

[tomorton]

Made some very special winning trades over the years and had some good runs, but I always saw the account(s) being slowly eroded by stops getting hit.

By late last summer I had dropped all the clever TA and trade management that I had proved I was not clever enough to work. I was left with trend-following (or following the herd if you like). I'm now making money consistently from the forex majors.

I only enter about 15 trades per month, but I am optimistic for the future -
the more trades per month, the more profit I make
losers are way smaller than winners.

It has been the hardest journey to get to something so simple.

 

[Pid]

I don't think any trader who takes a wage thinks they are particularly good. I make a living from trading and have been doing so for years but i def wouldn't consider myself a market god or that i have "cracked" it. If i don't get stopped and take on a losing trade at least once a day then something def doesn't feel right. As a full time trader i have accepted there are days the market gives, the markets take - and the days the markets are going to give me a sore ass. If i was to allocate myself a particular skill it would be that i am able to quickly identify what kind of day its going to be for me and i am then able to trade it accordingly.

To be a trader is like being a recovering addict - i am constantly on top of my psychology and discipline and am fearful that if i allow a single lapse of lack of patience, anger or revenge to take hold then i know i can give up days/weeks or even months of hard work in an afternoon.

This is one of the best videos i have found re psychology and it doesn't have anything to do about trading.