Welcome to the new Traders Laboratory! Please bear with us as we finish the migration over the next few days. If you find any issues, want to leave feedback, get in touch with us, or offer suggestions please post to the Support forum here.
stockmarcus
-
Content Count
18 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
How Long Does It Take to Become a Profitable Trader?
stockmarcus replied to swansjr's topic in Beginners Forum
Second for using a demo account. Lets you practice enough to gain confidence in your chosen trading style. In you're thinking long term, time will be a bigger factor, but for short term trading a demo account is perfect for letting you work out you way. From using real capital before switching to a demo account, it is a good approach. Id recommend a book called "Enhancing trader performance" by brett steenbarger. It creates a good seed to frame trading activities around. If you by chance know a trader in real life talking to them would also be good, as is reading forums. While the 'making it up as you go' approach will leave you with more comprensive experience at the end, it takes forever! You could argue though that this is 1/2 the fun.. Imagine yourself as a successful trader. Starting at a high level, imagine what you would be doing (in terms of trading activities) as that trader, think about where you are now, and from that identify what you're going to need to work and learn. This will chance over time as you progress further and realise you need new things (or some things are pointless), or you find that some approaches work for you and some dont, but its a good place to start. Approaching it as you would if you were starting a small business could also help. -
How Long Does It Take to Become a Profitable Trader?
stockmarcus replied to swansjr's topic in Beginners Forum
I think the answer "as long as it takes" is the only one that will get you there, lol. From having taken some steps towards intrday trading europe, currently i feel like saying - The market gives you profits. Your trading skills are absolutely important but the market has a huge say in what you make and what you dont. - The first step seems to be to learn how to not loose money trading. It all goes uphill from there Its fun -
Been with them for a few months. Haven't done any major trading with them, but their demo accounts and platform (you do give up interest on your opening balance) have been great for learning the ropes of intra day trading. So far, compared to more well known cfd market makers in aus (i have an account with cmc also), noticed that the volatility (on equity indices at least) is greater on the minute bars. The bars are just longer. But their spreads are also lower, so that makes sense.. Its not offensively greater at least. Haven't had any problems with orders. I happy to stay with them for now at least. The only thing that sort of disturbs me is the local number to speak with a broker routes to the us, doesn't look like they have that much of a presence here. Where are some good places to go for broker reviews?
-
Yes, sorry for being vague. Fun but long nights on the markets. From starting to write out a reply, you're right, having an idea of profit targets and stops can keep you profitable. What i was thinking about when writing that you may be experiencing losses during periods of time when indices can be: - More volatile/unstable. Charactized by 'long bars' in opposite directions occuring in a very short period, commonly around open. Its difficult to establish targets when they're like this (though thats probably something im missing) and stops can get shot through. A better way to consider that though is a time to avoid the market. -When the market is flat, or trending unstably. Also times to avoid the market. Theres nothing wrong with a heavily price action based methodology, like any other, if one is sane about it. Indicies within a day can trend or fluctuate alot, so if you stay out when you should, and monitor closely whether your swing trading or in a long term trend, that sounds alright. Personally, i trade very short term. Basic T/A influences my entries and exits quite significantly, but i also need something to help smooth out some of the near the minute voliatility, as my positions are typically very short (seconds to 1/2 hour). Given the shorter positions, its very valuable to be able to asses more quickly if you're 'wrong' rather than possibly allowing the market to correct from some other basis. Indicators seem to help with that. Lately i've been using T/A, bollingers at 1 deviation, a subjective assessment of momentum, and from a recent post here the Awesome Oscillator, to good success.
-
The best online charting and indicator site for stocks
stockmarcus replied to januson's topic in Beginners Forum
Im also interested in a site, but sort of a database of indicators specifically. I'm at the point to have a serious look though the indicators to see what works and where. If anyone knows a site that has a list of them including some background info would be great. Re some previous posts, Not sure about the incredible charts software, but the site also runs a free newsletter/mailinglist. Its surprisingly good for one of those "im doing it for you" sources, has good insights, and basic techincal analysis done for you every few days. My trading is very short term, it works well for me for long term analysis. Also, gft's trading platform is excellent compared to other cfd providers, in aus at least. Just keep in mind their spreads are lower, but the price data is more volatile at the tick level to compensate (which is not necessarily a bad thing). -
Introduce Yourself Here - Don't Be Shy!!
stockmarcus replied to trading4life's topic in Beginners Forum
Hi Geoff, Im also from Aus, and learning european indicies and the euro currency pairs. Backtesting is an interesting one.. for intraday work it seems quite difficult, i haven't seen anywhere you can get historical intraday data (on non us markets) at the tick or minute level. An application called Ninja Trader seems highly regarded, the interface is a bit obtuse but it has some powerful features including simulator functionality and the ability to develop strategies in c#. Who's your broker/market maker? If they provide software to trade though, thats probably a good start, and wont cost you too much in money and learning an app you wont be able to easily apply when actually trading. marcus -
Subjectively for me: For intraday (very short term trading) trading with just support and resistence can work, but you'll more than likely loose more than gain due to the nature of the trades and volatility (which you're trying to trade). The price action short term is invaluable for indicating the momentum of the market. How active the price is as its moving places works as an excellent final call on getting into or out of a position. If all your other basis points to a trade, but the price action isn't also enthusiastic about it, its a no go (or exit! Currencies, at least the euro pairs, seem more purely technical than the indicies. Its probably worth trying a few rounds in the simulator of euro/yen trading off just SR and being disciplined about cutting your losses when a position fails. It runs enough when you're successful where this might work Ultimately for euro indicies on an intraday basis - i like having something to cut out the noise. probably essential. - all markets seem to have their days when they're channelling happily and wide enough to trade in the channel (is that swing trading?), or trending stably off SR. - for the days that aren't, its probably worth doing something else, or finding an indicator to help you adapt
-
For intraday trading (and being a beginner) mine are: - Hitting the wrong buttong for buy/sell. When the market says you need to be be in as close to now as reasonable for some reason i got this wrong. - Getting in the market when its flat or untradable. Thankfully, i dont do this anymore, starting to learn about a whole heap of new mistakes, with scaling into positions
-
Hey, thanks for replying. I can appreciate its a very subjective question. The basis for the question was attempting to calculate the number of contracts i can trade given, 1) trading funds, 2) an number of points for average maxiumum loss*, and 3) a good percentage risk per trade for intraday trading. No of CFD index contracts = (trading funds adjusted for currencies * good risk percentage) / average max loss, given that cfd index contracts move in $1 local currency per point, which would result in that max loss value not (often) being greater than that suggested percentage of trading funds. Will take the 1-2% from general wizdom, thanks. I like being conservative so was thinking 1/2 a percent to limit that risk, but my skills are getting better, 1% doesnt sound bad. Will keep in mind trying to quanitfy my edge based on performance. Not sure if id adjust my trading amount based on that metric though. *or better, from an idea of whats the maximum distance i can get out in when the trade is incorrect. Using european indices and my current trading style, 10 points is a safe average maximum. My trading strategy (and the behavior of the ftse and dax) usually let me get out at a much smaller loss, but 10 points would be an absolute 'youre wrong'. And i generally (try to ) avoid getting in near market open. I use minute bars and trade as often as there are price patterns which could lead to a profitable transaction. Just in case, im currently using a practice account with 5k US. Improvement in technique has been good. Recently got to 5 consecutive days profit. No not using real money yet When i do use real money, balance trading balance will be about the same.
-
Hey, Just would like to ask a subjective question to see what other people do. For intraday trading what percentage of your trading funds do you put a risk? Im learning the equity indices, and have started to think that 0.25-0.5% sounds reasonable, given 15+ trades in a session. How does that sound to experienced traders? There are points that feed into this question im sure: - How good your strategy is - How easy is it to contain losses in your market etc. Thanks
-
Just an add to the first few posts hinting at 'just look', technically speaking: A sideways market is when - A trend is consolidating (in contrast to when a trend is reversing) - The market is literally flat (its rangebound with very little price range) - Its rangebound in some wave pattern (as dissected in the previous post) ? Anything else? Just from looking at your chart adjusted to relevant timeframes, what is it doing? For intraday trading at least, just looking can be very effective based on how volatile your market is on a particular day. Ive been finding that the european (and likely hang seng too) indexes on 'average' volatility days, visual inspection of the price ticks is great. As soon as the volatility lowers or increases you have to change out of easy inspection mode. Another way of saying is perhaps any market at a certain volatility can be inspected for sideways or trending price patterns. Which opens a whole can of worms for days that arent trending just right.. ps. that post yesterday about pulling out compoent waveforms is pretty interesting. If i was more familar with maths, sounds like a good lead to derive something. But as with visual inspection (and probably every other trend identifying technique) works only in a specific set of cases.
-
Probably looking at trading goals in the same way businesses view their goals is helpful. - Keeps you focused (im the worst for going down information tangents, keeping a point to time in mind cuts this down a bit) - Allows you to measure your progress, to see if you're actually getting anywhere - If you're not meeting your goals (or the timeframes you set to meet them) gives you the point of reference of where you want to be. You can then assess where you are now and whats the gap between the goal and your current state, and adapt what you're doing, or the goal. (to make a better and more realistic goal, this is a valid option because we're motivated to better our trading). A good point that once you reach a goal, you don't stop, whats the next goal? Limiting yourself by stopping what you're done doesn't sound healthy. I'm in the learning phase, and setting goals for my dimensions of activity (for each daily time in the market or in research) is invaluable for keeping focused and also fully appreciating whats gained out of time spent with the markets. Goals should be in relation to what you're trying to achieve. e.g. 'explore 2 indicators a week', or in another dimension 'develop a strategy that returns x points a week'. Mine are currently in a number of dimensions - Market experience (im looking at short time frame trading) - Indicator research/strategy development - Software infrastructure
-
A random from last night watching europe do it, another obvious clue is just look at the prices, around your favorite time period. The channel literally goes sideways.
-
I picked the European indexes as they're open outside of business (working) hours in Australia, and they feel more 'technically' stable than the other indexes. Im probably mentally comparing it to the local All Ordinaries, for an intraday timeframe it does all sorts seemingly random things, only 2-4 large moves (if you're lucky) throughout the day.
-
I ended up making an account with them. Their platform is definitely the best out of the cfd providers, available in Australia at least. All the (non DMA) cdf providers seem to be their own market makers, all of the cfd providers in the fine print state that the prices are "based on" the underlying market, but do not give the exact criteria. Ive noticed differences between different cfd providers, but its not enough to be offensive, at least with stockmarket indices. Im keeping an eye out how the fills behave over time, thats the only area im still 'curious' about with them.