TraderBG

Hey Yacob I don't know about per week, but I never risk more than 2% per trade and most of the time less than that.

Thanks I appreciate your replies. I guess all that matters is the bottom line. It just seemed like 50% didn't sound right for a profitable system. Oh well I'll keep it as is. Thanks again

I have a question about keeping stats on trades, mainly concerning break even trades. Most of my break evens end up being 1 or 2 ticks loss while some 1 or 2 ticks profit. How do you record these? Do you record these as a loss or record them in a seperate category? I've been treating them as losses even the ones that end up a small profit, simply because my idea didn't play out. With this, my win rate is only 50% even though my profit is up quite substantially (which I know is what really matters). But if I didn't record these as losses my win rate would be more like 75% which sounds more accurate considering how much I'm up in my account. In short, I'm just curious to know how other successful traders keep score. Thanks

I'm very interested in finding a more reliable provider. I also have iqfeed but I havent had it long enough to say how good it is. Can you recommend a more reliable feed?

Thanks, firewalker. I have esignal, but my charts had some gaps and spikes in it so I wanted to make sure some of my key levels were correct.

Can you also verify for me the low put in back in Oct 2002. I have 767.25 on Oct 10 2002. Is this correct?

That was quick. Thanks a million!

I've been having errors on my chart data so can someone tell me the monthly OHLC for the month of September on the ES. I'm trying to calculate monthly pivots. Thanks

Many thanks to you all for the encouragement and help. It's really just the beginning so I still have a long way to go but I'm glad I'm off to a good start.

I promised an update for when I went live so here it is. It was a good week. 16.75 pts monday 11.25 Tues, -3.25 Wed, didn't trade Thurs and had no signals today. 5 trades in all. Slightly better than my average considering I took Thursday off. My slippage and fills were better than expected. As I mentioned before my emotions were my main concern since I've read so many others mention how things change dramatically when making the transition from sim to live. Surprisingly I saw very little difference in my thought process and decision making. I stuck to the plan, never felt the urge to chase and really thought nothing of my loss. I'm testing the waters with two contracts and probably won't add to that until things calm down a little bit. For those who missed my first posting, I've been SIM trading for over 3 years with over 1600 sim trades taken before I went live. I mention this so any newbies don't build any unrealistic expectations based on this post. I'm simply updating those who helpfully replied to my first thread. Thanks again

Thanks for you response. What do you mean by jock courses? And screentime perserverance and pain management...are those real courses?! If they are, I'm there! I'm very hesitant to take classes from non-formal sources like online trading academy and places like that. Is that what you were referring to?

HAHA! So true and yet hilarious at the same time

Excellent responses guys. Much appreciation!

I'm still a sophomore in college and have not yet decided what I will major in. I want to make efficient use of my time and make whatever I major in work for the betterment of my trading. Starting out I was leaning towards economics and finance obviously but I'm noticing how much of a role psychology plays in the market. So I'm curious what other traders think. What would you choose and why? And yes I know that no degree in the world teaches trading and only screen time makes a trader so no need to reiterate this to me but since I'm already getting a degree, which one can be utilized the best? ps I'm currently a daytrader and will probably always be but I do hope to one day incorporate swing trading into the mix. Thanks for any advice

I spent a little over 3k on mine including the 4 monitors and a few trips to geeksquad. I just spent another 250 after taking it to geeksquad to fix some unknown issue with my video cards. I really wish I hadn't gone this route. I just want a Dell!

I finally spoke with someone at my brokerage who knew what they were talking about and the problem was they hadn't enabled my futures trading for whatever reason but they fixed it. They had me a little worried there to say the least considering my whole strategy is based on the ES. It's all good now though. Thanks for your responses.

I've just now got my account funded and ready to go. However, I see that the ES contract is non-shortable. I had no clue this ban applied to futures. I talked to one of my broker's representatives on the phone and this guy was truly clueless but said it was indeed non-shortable. I don't exactly trust his judgment so is this true or is he full of it?

Just found your FX thread Wasp. Great stuff. I'll be following along.

zdo, I really didn't know what to look for myself because I really don't know a thing about it but I had a computer engineer help me out and then had it confirmed by Geeksquad and they OK'd it. It wouldn't be such an issue if I knew more about computers.

Wish I had heard of these guys before I built my computer. I've had nothing but trouble with mine.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to start following the CC closely because it's something I'm highly interested in. I had a look at the thread in the link you posted BrownsFan--very interesting indeed. I like what I see here so keep up the great work guys.

From the moment I started learning to trade I've heard of candlestick patterns. The concepts of price patterns I have no trouble grasping but I'm curious why such a pattern as an engulfment candle works or even a single doji on a time-based chart? Like for instance if price opens a tick or so above the close of the previous candle, and just so happens to be engulfing that candle at the time the candle closes why would that signal anything? Because a second or two later it may not be engulfing. What does the fact that it opened a few ticks higher imply and what is it about set time intervals that is significant? I can understand a few consecutive dojis meaning that supply and demand are coming in balance but I'm having trouble grasping why a lone candlestick might work. Is it because so many people look for it to happen thus self-fulfilling the prophesy or something else entirely?

SoulTrader, if they hit me too hard with a tax, I might be your new neighbor

The last thing I need is to pay anymore taxes! It's hard enough to make a profit as it is.

Great read DrPhoenix. Thanks for posting.