Hello

[TheWinningAttitude]

Hi everyone!

I want to become a career day trader in order to gain freedom from the 9-5, have those days where I make my daily goal in 15 minutes, and learn a skill that will always be a respectable way to earn money.

The first and only book I have read is "How to Day Trade For A Living" 3rd Edition by Andrew Aziz and it was a dose of reality, risk management lessons and trading strategies like VWAP, Moving Average, and Opening Range Breakout.

I intend to spend hours reading through top posts on this forum to guide myself into becoming a day trader who earns a comfortable living by trading only.

For the time being, I am using TD Ameritrade, thinkorswim (just paper for now), and the vancouver-traders chatroom/webinar set up by the author of the book.

I intend to switch to Interactive Brokers, DAS and purchase a subscription to the Trade-Ideas tool after I spend a few weeks to months grinding in thinkorswim, to see if this holds my interest and watch myself become consistently profitable.

I have woke up for the opening bell only four days now, but today I was the most excited to get out of bed. I prep my omelette the night before and put it in the fridge in a bowl covered in saran wrap so breakfast is quick and easy.

I hope to see you around and make some friends on this forum!

 

[WklyOptions]

Minimum Requirements For Trading Success Long-Term

Hi TWA,

Welcome to T2W! Good place to do research and ask questions. Some very good AND helpful Traders here. As you are starting out and beginning your research into the Trading career pathways, let me highlight and alert you to some important "heads up" observations below.

A. Daytrading is a tough career to build Wealth and to generate Income Daily, Wkly. You will be more susceptible to intraday price Volatility spikes generated by the algos. It is estimated that algo trading is > 70% of intraday Volume and Volatility.
B. Stick to highly liquid securities, ETFs, futures, Indices. Consider giving FX a try - you get v good intraday liquidity and excellent Leverage (which can be very damaging if not handled well).
C. Focus on trading systems and plans that can be coded. Focus on plans w positive Expectation (Edge). Use available technologies to help setup your Alerts. Look at highly flexible automation platforms like Ninja Trader, TradeStation, etc (I am not affiliated nor compensated by both). You will NEED automation if you are serious at making $100K annually from trading.
D. Use Automated Alerts services that provide clear Signals and Campaign Management Alerts.

Note: C and D above help to make it extremely efficient for daytrading - your eyes, Mindset, will not be saturated and overwhelmed day in and day out in daytrading.

E. You MUST have sufficient Bankroll. You will have to KNOW your Trading Plan's Performance statistics and then work through to find reasonable betting schedules. You will have to allow for Account Equity Drawdown of at least 2x the Trading Plan's Max Drawdown.

F. You MUST understand your Plan's freq of trades per day, wk, month. Plus know the Avg $ Won vs Avg $ Loss - and then work back to determine more precisely how much Bankroll will be required based on trading freq and Avg $ Profit

G. Don't lock yourself into thinking and believing to trade ONLY ONE WAY. Read the Market Wizards series - you MUST learn and establish your internal References: (1) How profit can be reasonably achieved by the Trading Plan and allocated Bankroll? (2) Are you capable of putting in the time, $$$, passion, and discipline (ability to execute flawlessly regardless...) like the Market Wizards? (3) Toughest Question here = Are you WILLING to DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to succeed in Trading?

H. Alternative Strategies to daytrading: (1) Nicholas Darvas $10K to $2.5M in 18 months on avg of 5-6 Campaigns per year; (2) Jesse Stine $46K to $6.6M in 28 months on avg 8 Campaigns per year (and primarily using Wkly charts).

Again, H above please shown to help you expand to THINK and consider beyond ONLY DAYTRADING.

I. Critical Trader Personality Traits. (1) Building Wealth is in TOP 5 of Values including Saving & Investing >> NOT SPENDING. (2) The SKILL to apply Leverage and Compounding over long term. (3) Have Income and/or Savings to fund Daily, Wkly, Monthly Living Expenses OTHER THAN from Trading Income. Warren Buffett, George Soros, Paul Tudor Jones, Peter Lynch, etc - they ALL had Incomes entirely separate from Trading Income.

J. Anticipate at least 1 yr to learn - and then another 2-3 yrs to achieve Break Even or better.

Trading and its Learning Curve requires Patience and Intense Focus on your long term Vision. Do you have this SKILL?

K. Last but not least - you MUST Learn and Condition your Trading Mindset! It takes conditioning and training and practicing and visualizing - repeatedly Daily - to develop Winning Habits and Winning Beliefs! Study books by Mark Douglas and Ari Kiev.

Consider participating in Trader Mindset Development training like from Van Tharp (IITM), SRP (Immersion). Not affiliated nor compensated by both.

Lengthy message here - but at least hopefully will help you to better FOCUS on your research into the Trading pathways!

Good luck and don't hesitate to keep asking here at T2W!

WklyOptions

 

[WklyOptions]

Hi TWA,

Forgot to add ----> great Call Sign!

Now time to see if you can FOCUS and COMMIT per your Call Sign!

WklyOptions

 

[TheWinningAttitude]

Thanks for your wisdom Wkly.

If this was easy, everyone would do it. Only those with the desire, patience and dedication thrive trading. Swing trading, options and forex are of interest too. I made some random swing trades and option purchases in the past when I was taking trading less seriously. I'll look more into the automation softwares. If they are what I think they are, they sound too good to be true.

I also have programming background with Java and some web scripting languages like JavaScript and PHP.

At the end of each day, I know what matters is that I traded well and followed my rules, not whether or not I made money. I believe if I trade well and follow the rules, the money will come. I'm excited and will use my patience for benefit.

 

[tomorton]

This is good attitude TWA, what you say about following your own rules is on the money. Bearing in mind that trading is a probability game, you have to expect that maybe 40% of your trades will fail. If a trade hits your stop, was it a bad trade, a mistake, were you cheated by the broker? No, not if you followed your own rules - it was just an inevitable statistic.

 

[Quantt]

Let me give you another option to consider: why not trade a longer time frame and try to automate the trading, so you won't have to stare at monitors all day long, personally for me it was like switching one 9-5 job for another and as Warren Buffett once said: "If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die."

 

[TheWinningAttitude]

Are there any computers you guys would recommend I get? I'd like to use three twenty-four inch 1920x1080 screens simultaneously. I don't want to go over $600

 

[TheWinningAttitude]

I made my first winning trade in a paper simulator. Think or Swim showed me a descending triangle, which turned into a symmetric triangle. I read this as a signal that downward momentum weakening because the support level broke, and a breakout was impending.

I bought at .76789, set a limit at .76955, and set a stop loss at .76409 and went to bed. I didn't calculate the buy and sell numbers based on risk/reward though. Picture of the set up is below.

http://imgur.com/a/lGKDu

I ended up buying a Dell Inspiron 3668 with the graphics card upgrade, and am hooked up to three 1920x1080 monitors.

 

[NVP]

good luck in your journey ..........its a long long road that really never reaches its destination as theres always something to learn ...........but worth it for those that persevere

N

 

[TheWinningAttitude]

Lost $200 in the simulator. It was only $150 and I started over trading, hoping I could catch a quick swing in the right direction. I knew I was over trading but was so sure of myself.

I incorporated bollinger bands in my tool set yesterday. I have been trading on 9EMA/20EMA cross overs, MACD histogram and crossovers, and stochastic full crossovers.

I'm changing my strategy to start pursuing less, but higher probability trades. I will start to look at the bollinger band and if the price is near an extreme, I will start looking at my other indicators for signs of a reversal. I'm calling it the bollinger band bounce.

I'm literally clicking through charts and looking for this set up.

I'm trading mostly Forex, but have entered some swing trades on stocks in the mean time.

 

[Quantt]

Lost $200 in the simulator. It was only $150 and I started over trading, hoping I could catch a quick swing in the right direction. I knew I was over trading but was so sure of myself.

I incorporated bollinger bands in my tool set yesterday. I have been trading on 9EMA/20EMA cross overs, MACD histogram and crossovers, and stochastic full crossovers.

I'm changing my strategy to start pursuing less, but higher probability trades. I will start to look at the bollinger band and if the price is near an extreme, I will start looking at my other indicators for signs of a reversal. I'm calling it the bollinger band bounce.

I'm literally clicking through charts and looking for this set up.

I'm trading mostly Forex, but have entered some swing trades on stocks in the mean time.

Trading the simulator is good and let us know how it is going and just keep in mind all those are lagging indicators...

 

[TheWinningAttitude]

This week I decided to trade more than study. For the last few weeks I was 80:20 study:trade. This week I reversed the numbers.

I rode a strong short on the EUR/MXN and profited $175 based on the bollinger band break. All my other trades have been a loss or minor win and I'm down $400 on the simulator.

I bought the book "High Probabaility MT4 Strategy" by Jim Brown on Amazon. It looks reliable when looking at pst performance so I intend to keep MT4 open and check the hourly and 4h charts for the signal.

I'll be spending the weekend studying theory and try to 50:50 my ratio of tidy:trade next week. I felt more fulfilled with more study.

Software I'm looking for a MT4 trading bot to grow capital while I learn, and looking for a forex market scanner.

 

[mpups]

I made my first winning trade in a paper simulator. Think or Swim showed me a descending triangle, which turned into a symmetric triangle. I read this as a signal that downward momentum weakening because the support level broke, and a breakout was impending.

I bought at .76789, set a limit at .76955, and set a stop loss at .76409 and went to bed. I didn't calculate the buy and sell numbers based on risk/reward though. Picture of the set up is below.

http://imgur.com/a/lGKDu

I ended up buying a Dell Inspiron 3668 with the graphics card upgrade, and am hooked up to three 1920x1080 monitors.

hi TWA

i was interested in the chart you posted, thanks. You had a winning trade at this time which is good but the lines on the chart are somewhat irrelevant here, they dont seem to relate to the price action you were trading at the time.

 

[NVP]

Are there any computers you guys would recommend I get? I'd like to use three twenty-four inch 1920x1080 screens simultaneously. I don't want to go over $600

I use a few cheap,laptops plugged into old 40 inch Tvs......I will upgrade at some point but it works at moment

N

 

[NVP]

This week I decided to trade more than study. For the last few weeks I was 80:20 study:trade. This week I reversed the numbers.

I rode a strong short on the EUR/MXN and profited $175 based on the bollinger band break. All my other trades have been a loss or minor win and I'm down $400 on the simulator.

I bought the book "High Probabaility MT4 Strategy" by Jim Brown on Amazon. It looks reliable when looking at pst performance so I intend to keep MT4 open and check the hourly and 4h charts for the signal.

I'll be spending the weekend studying theory and try to 50:50 my ratio of tidy:trade next week. I felt more fulfilled with more study.

Software I'm looking for a MT4 trading bot to grow capital while I learn, and looking for a forex market scanner.

You need to be looking for a system that ensures you run your profits .....then if your win rate is even down in the 40% or less you should stay ok

 

[NVP]

Trading the simulator is good and let us know how it is going and just keep in mind all those are lagging indicators...

Everything is lagging in trading .....every new price tic in any market means all else is history :smart:

 

[Quantt]

Everything is lagging in trading .....every new price tic in any market means all else is history :smart:

it's all about the perspective, isn't it

 

[TheWinningAttitude]

I picked three trades last night before I went to bed, and all were up about $50 in the morning. 3/3 is a good start to a strategy.

I'm thinking out loud, so here's my system I'm looking to test, modify and make this work consistently unless there's reason to abandon it.

I set up the Zig Zag indicator at 2,0,1.5, 5. I go a year back on the daily chart, and mark price levels for support and resistance

I make sure that both the 1H and 4H Zig Zag are in the same direction, and have been going in that direction for a fair amount of time (not looking to trade fresh turns of direction). This is crucial and if they don't match I go to the next pair.

Does the RSI on both 1H and 4H go in the same direction as the Zig Zag?

Is the Stochastic on both time frames agreeing with the Zig Zag?

What about the 9EMA and 20EMA on both time frames? Are they approaching a crossover?

Does the MACD agree with the direction of the Zig Zag on both time frames? Is it going to cross over? Is it over or under zero?

Does the CCI agree on both time frames?

So I'm looking at

1. RSI direction 1H
2. RSI direction 4H
3. Stochastic 1H
4. Stochastic 4H
5. 9EMA & 20EMA crossover 1H
6. 9EMA & 20EMA crossover 4H
7. MACD 4h > 0
8. MACD 1H > 0
9. MACD 4H crossover
10. MACD 1H crossover
11. CCI direction 1H
12. CCI direction 4H

12 different criteria after the pair passes the Zig Zag filter.

I'm also writing notes on each pair and time frame so I can be more specific with each pair once I have enough data. One of the notes I have are "AUD / CAD Notes
1H CCI > 100 and a Long MACD Cross looks reliable"

I'll start collecting data on which signal came before the other after I make a consistent strategy, measure the likelihood of success in each situation, and adjust volume I open accordingly.

A lot of work to be done, but persistence, focus, hard work and patience will pay off.

 

[TheWinningAttitude]

I'm reading The Market Wizards and on page 99 in the interview with Randy McKay discusses, he discusses his strattegy to stay in business when on a cold streak. He decreases his volume when he goes on a cold streak and gradually increases it back. I like the idea and am putting it here for reference.

I've increased my trading volume to 10 lots and made $600 over night on the simulator. I'm focusing on not over trading.

Another tip from the McKay chapter - "McKay doesn't try to gauge whether the fundamental news is bullish or bearish. Rather, he focuses on the market's response to the fundamental news. For example, if the market is shrugging off a barrage of bearish news, McKay would view that as evidence of an impending bull move."

McKay also believes in immediately getting out of a position that has gone sour.

 

[TheWinningAttitude]

I don't think I've been over trading, but the last couple days I've looked at the charts in all the time frames way too much. Over watching is what I'd call it.

I switched to real money and after 4 trades I'm up $5 and using the smallest lot size.