Negative account

[euribor_tr4der]

I trade Euribor contracts for a prop firm, im a local.

I got caught on the wrong side of non-farm on the second day of my own account. I had made progress in the following few months by halving my deficit. However in the last 4 weeks I have given it all back and now am back at square 1 !

I feel like im going round in circles, i really want to succeed in trading. Ive been trading in total for around 9 months.

Am I expecting too much in too little time ??

Is there light at the end of the tunnel ??

 

[ben_catt]

I think it's really brave of anyone to give up a guaranteed income to trade for a living. I don't think I could do it.

My trading style is medium length trades on major stock indices like the DOW and DAX. I've lost quite a bit by trying to day trade, didn't suit me at all.

In any case, trading for a living for many seems to be an easy way to make a living. Easy money and all that until you actually try to take any significant money out of the market and then I reckon it's probably one of the hardest things to do.

Do you mind me asking, what kind of trading style do you have and what instruments do you trade?

Ben

 

[TWI]

If you have been at it 9 months there is still some way to go. non-farm can be a real pig I was caught out on the August figure and that really screwed up my month. I hear that an analyst called the wrong figure at on of the shops for the Sep figure and lost some guys there a serious amount of money. Personally I have found the best bet is to make sure you are not working too many orders over the figure and certainly not in the longer spreads. As for recent market action, the entire April-August period this year has been pretty slow in Euribor, I got to the point where I was trading more FX and Indices than I ever have because all the STIRS were so slow. August was the slowest month I remember which is why if you got caught, as I did, on the non-farms at the beginning it was hard work to get it back. It has only been since beginning of Sep that things have picked up a bit again. That means for 6 of your 9 months you have been trading in difficult market conditions.
My advice to you is to take yourself back to basics. Reduce your size to the point where you feel comfortable getting filled on multiple orders, even if this is only 1-10 lots and start to slowly increase volume again only as your confidence returns. The most common problem I have seen for people who are having a hard time is that either they are trading in too big a clip size and so pull orders because they are scared to get filled or they do not put orders in all places where they would and should if they were comfortable with the size. It gets increasingly hard to trade effectively when you are coming from a loss and you are scared to lose more. This is a pure confidence thing you must believe every morning that you are going to take money out of the market, it is a hard state of mind to achieve and hard work to regain after a string of losses but I believe it is essential.
As you will have already worked out, it is often the orders that when getting filled look so bad that end up being the really good ones. All orders look bad when you are being filled, that is why you are getting filled in the first place. It is sometimes useful to take a bit of a view on the bund direction as this will help you to decide whether you should scratch, spread or fly your trades and which way to spread or fly them if you have to to this rather than scratching.
Best bet is to give yourself a point in the future where you will definitely make a decision, I would say you need at least another 6 months before you can really know one way or the other. From now approach the market with the attitude that there is money to be taken out and you are going to be bold about it. Keep your size where you are comfortable and just give it 100% of your concentration and effort. NO FEAR. By the end of the next 6 months you must feel that you gave it everything.

Just my opinion and advice.

Good Luck

 

[zeeuk]

Good advise twalker. I've been trading very aggresively over the past couple of months - nothing is really there in the market and am just doing huge volumes for little reward.

As for NFP, I got screwed on the Aug figure as I got involved a little late when the major stuff had already happened. So on the Sep figure, I was all geared up if an out of line figure was announced. Fig was pretty much in line, but our analyst decided to call otherwise - happened to be one of the guys who lost a lot of money. Wish I was going round in circles!

 

[euribor_tr4der]

I am a backed trader and was at first trading under the companies account for 3 months where I did not have a split. But after the 3 months are up you go on your own account, and are still backed by the firm.

Im not liable for the debt in my account , however in a way it is my debt as I can only draw from my account when it is in positive.

I read your post and must say this is a story that I hear all too often from my friends in prop shops. I am curious as at the beginning of your post you say you trade for a prop shop, but then say you got caught on the second day of your own account. I am guessing you are backed and it is not your own account, as, own account traders, trading with a deficit balance, is a contradiction in terms. Anyhow my advice would be to not expose yourself to so much risk over the extremely volatile period of trading that is the NFP. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of traders who click bigger size over figures, than they trade over normal intra-day price moves, where your risk is easier to manage. At the end of the day it comes down to live by the sword, die by the sword. I guess if you had gotten it right ,it would be glory all the way. Ultimately you have to decide if you are making a career out of trading (9 months is but a blink of an eye) or if you want to go for the fast buck mentality.

Good Luck

 

[Mr Spud]

I must say I'm slightly surpised by what I would describe as professional traders being prepared to hold positions over the US figures ...on something like the bund you can see a 30 point spike when figs are released...how can you manage the risk in something like that ?
IMO holding over data announcements is tantamount to gambling and surely thats what we are trying to avoid ?

 

[stevet]

when you are on the front line of the battle - you can ride the first tank in - dont mean you wont get blown up though!

 

[henry766]

yes it is a battle !!

 

[Mr Spud]

Stevet..... I think you'll find the ones left at the end of the battle are the ones hiding behind the tanks !

 

[stevet]

the ones left are the ones who know what they are doing - and they can stand right up front safely - and the ones cowering behind the tanks are only doing so because they screwed up and **** themselves

 

[zeeuk]

Hey, it's fun going in first! Feels good - sense of power, never have enough ammo though!!

 

[PeterTT]

I know two guys working for a major German investment bank in the city on their STIR desk. They, their area in the bank, and I (!)made out like bandits last year on running the uptrend in all interest rate futures. It was very easy money, however, September last year it started to change. The trends lost all consistency. NFP has become a real lottery for interest rate futures. This year they are well below budget as they keep getting whipped around. This has hampered alot of funds too as they can no longer just sit long of Bonds and accrue in a nice gain that they then leverage off of. This all adds to the volatility as no one will run a position for long as they cannot afford a loss. I agree with Twalker that it might be better to look at some other markets such as stock indices.

Peter

Peter

 

[Mr Spud]

'feels good sense of power' oh dear .........
There are old traders and there are bold traders but there arent any old bold traders
if you trade like a gunslinger then you're the one that eventually gets carried out feet first
why do prop traders mostly trade spreads ? because they can see that there is limited risk in spread trading .....anyone shooting from the hip over US figures release is eventually going to get their head handed to them in a bag ..and IMO after over 6 years of trading that includes the immediate aftermath of the figures release too....no-one can tell how the figures are going to be interpreted so any trades made immediately afterwardsare just pure gambling too .....

 

[stevet]

all trading is gambling - nothing wrong with that - casino operators are in the gabling business - as are bookies etc - but they run the business so the odds are to their favour - as do professional traders

they are always opportunities in markets - some unrecognised for a time - where the odds appear unfavourable - but someone somewhere will have found a leading indicator that works for a long enough period to offer good profits and then they walk away when it turns south

quite often a gun slinging trader will be shrugged off by conservative traders who are just waiting for him to blow up - but a lot of the time - the gun slinger has the balls because he's down his homwork and he has just found that slight edge over everyone else and he knows that that is the time to bet the house before the risk reward narrows - and funnily enough -he forgets to mention what the edge he has found is!

 

[zeeuk]

There are no old traders, full stop. Well at least in the stuff I trade.

Agree with tsuntzu to agree to disagree........! However legging spreads, which I often do can not be classified as 'calmer waters'

I love trading in the volatility after big figures, I'm not normally good enough to catch initial moves. Manage to take a slice in the pinging around, although not in recent weeks. As a F/T trader, you do most times have a feel for what markets expect and possible reactions.

 

[Mr Spud]

I'm sure there are people out there who do successfully trade in the aftermath of the figures and just because I havent been succesful at it doesnt mean I should assume that others cant be ..so point taken ...but to get back to the original point actually HOLDING over figures seems to me to be a classic case of being right 4 times out of 5 but when you're wrong you lose 8 times as much ! for instance on the 3 Sept this year US figs came out at 13:30 ...Bund spiked between 115.15 and 113.69 thats 146 points ...be on the wrong side of that little lot and its 1460 euros per single contract ! of course if u had a sell at 115.14 or a buy at 113.70 then you're laughing but I can only imaging a tiny %ge of traders were able to do that ..of course it can be done and I'm sure people do it but in my risk averse world its not for me ! ...I like to sleep at night

 

[The General]

eurtra4er - which firm u at mate ?

 

[zeeuk]

tsuntzu, how do you get anything in the Gilt? It's just so thin, hardly any liquidity. It seems most of the guys just smash the Bunds on out of line figures.