How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

[bevok]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Tom,

As you'll know from my prior posts I think you're dicing with ultimate death averaging down, especially when you write things like "so even if im wrong price would retrace eventually". Having said that I do admire your persistence. That post was perceptive and if you keep those factors in mind it may keep you humble enough to succeed and get out at the right time. The other thing you should add (and it seems you've been suffering from it) is the effect of costs. There are a lot of traders who have a reasonably good method but get killed by commissions. That's the reason successful daytraders are about as common as virgins in a brothel - I hope you're one of the exceptions!

 

[tommason]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

its all boil down to when u should not avg down.
without this i would not survive. although sometimes i got caught up to forget checking the fundamentals. certain days/week and time when u should not do it. this is when avg down technique should be avoided. I mentioned that specific times in my thread if u read it.

yes my comm is high because i scalp. thats common for scalper. so i try to make enough each day to cover it and still earn profit.

thanks for the advice.

Tom,

As you'll know from my prior posts I think you're dicing with ultimate death averaging down, especially when you write things like "so even if im wrong price would retrace eventually". Having said that I do admire your persistence. That post was perceptive and if you keep those factors in mind it may keep you humble enough to succeed and get out at the right time. The other thing you should add (and it seems you've been suffering from it) is the effect of costs. There are a lot of traders who have a reasonably good method but get killed by commissions. That's the reason successful daytraders are about as common as virgins in a brothel - I hope you're one of the exceptions!

 

[tommason]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

I just finished my final on Wednesday. I was trading on Monday before that and suddenly my internet stop working and i have to reset my freakin landlord's modem and router . This cost me a half on my trading account to around 16k roughly.it was horrible internet ****ing connection!!

so I got a little stressed out cause it happens right 2 days before my final and made bad trades on the next day which is Tuesday. so I only ended losing 2/3 of my account balance on Tuesday to freakin roughly 10K. the next day on Wednesday i couldnt trade because of my final.
so I trade to made my account balance back to normal level on this Thursday and Friday which is today . I end up making almost 10K just in 2 days. it was really hard work since I must trade overnight and in the morning as well.
I know its not easy task to make that kind of money with less buying power.
I would go out of country this Sunday ,so I wouldnt be able to trade a lot since internet connection is horrible in my 3rd world country.

Ill keep you guys posted. and will attach my broker statement and today's avg down techniques. you can see I trade overnight from Thursday and Friday as well look at the time of my trade in the picture attached.

hope you will learn how to not to lose your coolness if accident like mine happened to you. My experience might help your psychology.

 

[pboyles]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

I know you don't use stops but do you think that even having a 'disaster' stop in place would have helped you here?

 

[tommason]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

I use mental stop if you read my posts.
u know most people get their stop filled thats why i dont use fixed stops.

actually I would hold my position if I do not have class that day because price already sold off pretty bad that I will get 1 tick profit at least. which it did go back up after the next market open around 6 pm CT in the same freakin day.

I just know how price react. I've been observing it for past 2 years.
for example, if you see my last 2 days trade this week (Friday & thursday), I traded overnight because when the market close around 3pm CT it was sold off pretty bad. so I was buying those EMINI back if you see I bought back around 7-8 pm. (u can see it in my chart that I just attached an hour ago).

thanks for asking question

I know you don't use stops but do you think that even having a 'disaster' stop in place would have helped you here?

 

[pboyles]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

I use mental stop if you read my posts.
u know most people get their stop filled thats why i dont use fixed stops.

actually I would hold my position if I do not have class that day because price already sold off pretty bad that I will get 1 tick profit at least. which it did go back up after the next market open around 6 pm CT in the same freakin day.

I just know how price react. I've been observing it for past 2 years.
for example, if you see my last 2 days trade this week (Friday & thursday), I traded overnight because when the market close around 3pm CT it was sold off pretty bad. so I was buying those EMINI back if you see I bought back around 7-8 pm. (u can see it in my chart that I just attached an hour ago).

thanks for asking question

Yes I understand, but in the circumstances should you not have put in a stop at the level of your 'mental stop', then if you have a technical issue your stop is still there. In other words if you're thinking 'I need to get out if it goes down to 1100' then why not just put the stop in there?

 

[tommason]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

you know somehow ninjatrader is weird
I cannot put just stop because I have to put exit target at the same time and I dont like that.
If i put both at the same time and I remove the exit target, the stop would be gone as well. that's very inconvenient.

I use to trade with tradestation platform and I can just put stop without exit target or just put exit target without stop. It does not have to be altogether. u know what i mean right ?

do you know how to solve this ?

by that was Gold trading not emini SP that I was losing on Monday

Yes I understand, but in the circumstances should you not have put in a stop at the level of your 'mental stop', then if you have a technical issue your stop is still there. In other words if you're thinking 'I need to get out if it goes down to 1100' then why not just put the stop in there?

 

[pboyles]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

I think there is a way to change the ladder to set a stop order by using the centre mouse button or scroll wheel. I have a laptop so can't do it that way myself, I just use the custom exit bracket. One workaround could be to set your take profit to several hundred ticks and then move it later. I agree it's difficult and is much simpler on any other platform I have used.

 

[tommason]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

I am not even talking about the ladder.
I just want either exit or stop by itself no combination of both.
and I want also to be able to put stop after I put my entry. not at the sametime when I put my entry.

I can do all this with tradestation.

my way of trade is so much different and if I use fixed stop I wouldnt be where I am at now. the only bad thing about my technique is very high drawdown & scewed up if internet is down.
the good thing is my accuracy is v high above 85 or 90% or even higher. even yesteryday and today I had not losing trades at all.

it is just right for my pscyhology.

I think there is a way to change the ladder to set a stop order by using the centre mouse button or scroll wheel. I have a laptop so can't do it that way myself, I just use the custom exit bracket. One workaround could be to set your take profit to several hundred ticks and then move it later. I agree it's difficult and is much simpler on any other platform I have used.

 

[pboyles]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

By the way did you see that Global were offering commissions as low as 1.50 RT if you subscribe to X trader at four or five hundred a month. Might work out cheaper for you given your number of trades.

I always meant to ask you what is the most number of contracts you have traded in one go and are you getting any slippage on your bigger trades?

 

[tommason]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Here are my statement this week as promised.
down from 28900 to low 10k. up again to 20k so far. what a ride!
I didnt trade on Wednesday morning except at Wednesday night after my final.

darn that internet connection!!!
my landlord internet is kinda slow recently i dont know why.
I need to call optimum cable find out what's happening.

 

[tommason]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Thank you for the information
however, I have paid indicator and other indicators that will work on ninjatrader only and cannot be transferred to other platform.
I bought this ninja fully licensed few months ago to get its OCO order but I dont use it cause it's useless. Tradestation OCO is much much better.

platform fees are not worth it for me.

oh yea im following up on our previous conversation about OCO without stop and exit comes up together.

Yesterday the ninja customer service told me about OCO order has to be done with third party programming consultant. I do not think this customer service understand my question. I emailed them back that I can do this w/ Tradestation free platform. how come I cannot do this with fully licensed $1000 ninja platform. That's ridiculous.

By the way did you see that Global were offering commissions as low as 1.50 RT if you subscribe to X trader at four or five hundred a month. Might work out cheaper for you given your number of trades.

I always meant to ask you what is the most number of contracts you have traded in one go and are you getting any slippage on your bigger trades?

 

[pboyles]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Thank you for the information
however, I have paid indicator and other indicators that will work on ninjatrader only and cannot be transferred to other platform.
I bought this ninja fully licensed few months ago to get its OCO order but I dont use it cause it's useless. Tradestation OCO is much much better.

platform fees are not worth it for me.

oh yea im following up on our previous conversation about OCO without stop and exit comes up together.

Yesterday the ninja customer service told me about OCO order has to be done with third party programming consultant. I do not think this customer service understand my question. I emailed them back that I can do this w/ Tradestation free platform. how come I cannot do this with fully licensed $1000 ninja platform. That's ridiculous.

Half time those so called support people havnt a clue. I wanted to freeze the DOM to put orders in, no way they said, can't be done, then I looked at it again and saw something called static Dom. This was exactly what I was asking for but they didn't have a clue. Probably the best solution is to find a ninja trader forum and post there

 

[pboyles]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Try here http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/forum/index.php

 

[DionysusToast]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Thank you for the information
however, I have paid indicator and other indicators that will work on ninjatrader only and cannot be transferred to other platform.
I bought this ninja fully licensed few months ago to get its OCO order but I dont use it cause it's useless. Tradestation OCO is much much better.

platform fees are not worth it for me.

oh yea im following up on our previous conversation about OCO without stop and exit comes up together.

Yesterday the ninja customer service told me about OCO order has to be done with third party programming consultant. I do not think this customer service understand my question. I emailed them back that I can do this w/ Tradestation free platform. how come I cannot do this with fully licensed $1000 ninja platform. That's ridiculous.

I use both - I think there are pro's & cons. One of the things I don't like about TS is that you can't trade from the chart & adjust your orders from the chart. This is pretty cool in Ninja. I do know someone using Ninja that does 10-20 lots & has a single stop loss and then 5 levels of exit orders, so the limit of 3 exits on an ATM strategy can be worked around.

With TS you can set up your OCO's but I don't think you can have lots of templates of OCO strategy like Nijna. For instance, you may have one for a scalp order and one where you think you may get a runner.What you can do with Tradestation, you can have a piece of code that puts your OCO's in according to whatever criteria you want, which is what I do. Once my order is filled, there's a program monitoring this which places my exit orders. It's pretty neat but not for everyone as not everyone can code.

My opinion is that all trading platforms are 90% solutions - they all have failings. I prefer TS to Ninja but I do still use Ninja with my IB account. Using TS for futures is very costly because you have to pay for so much data whereas with Ninja & Zenfire your data fees are effectively free. If you wanted to use TS to do ES, NQ, YM, Crude, Gold, Beans, Wheat - you'd be getting hit with a lot of data fees.

 

[pboyles]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Have you considered trading any Eurex products? I know you are in the US but you also mentioned trading overnight in a previous post. Contracts like the Bund and Eurostoxx offer high liquidity and the commissions are very low, about Euro1.50 per RT.

They start trading from about 2am ET (if my maths are correct) and keep going until about 4pm ET. You should have them on ninja trader, FGBL 0910 and FESX 0910 are the current contracts. In my opinion they are easier to trade than the ES. This might give you some better options for overnight or early morning trading.

 

[DionysusToast]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Have you considered trading any Eurex products? I know you are in the US but you also mentioned trading overnight in a previous post. Contracts like the Bund and Eurostoxx offer high liquidity and the commissions are very low, about Euro1.50 per RT.

They start trading from about 2am ET (if my maths are correct) and keep going until about 4pm ET. You should have them on ninja trader, FGBL 0910 and FESX 0910 are the current contracts. In my opinion they are easier to trade than the ES. This might give you some better options for overnight or early morning trading.

Actually, I'm in Asia and US markets are open at the end of my day.

I hadn't considered the Eurex products until very recently and I plan to subscribe to the feeds in August after my summer vacations. It would be nice to trade in my afternoon.

I may look you up again once I get that done if you don't mind...

 

[pboyles]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Actually, I'm in Asia and US markets are open at the end of my day.

I hadn't considered the Eurex products until very recently and I plan to subscribe to the feeds in August after my summer vacations. It would be nice to trade in my afternoon.

I may look you up again once I get that done if you don't mind...

Yes no problem,

 

[tommason]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

gees im still in my country for vacation now. internet connection is horrible that my ninjatrader charts would not show at all. so I use pfgbest.com to see the lagging minutely and daily charts to trade plus the level 2.
I did very few trades only 5 days I think and was able to grow net $5k so far. I was amazed I could win even without my workspaces.
ill update u guys sorry for no news ill be back on august 18. still a long time, but still profitable.
let me know if u guys have question

 

[bedsit]

Re: How to win trading & when not to trade (I have 1 month real live record so far)

Hi Tommason.

Have a nice holiday!

I was on holiday not long ago for a month. Although I took the laptop I didn't do any trading.
I was just spending all that hard earned money (pips).