How good are you at trading - just be honest

[Doomberg]

Ok so i started trading about 4-5 years ago, i was in a comfortable job where day trading from my desk would not be questioned so i started to trade but ended up just throwing money in to the market with no idea what i'm doing on IG index wasting £100's each week gambling. Anyway just from sheer screen time and learning from idiotic mistakes, i started to learn... one thing that was a god send; I randomly met a german guy on skype who had a lot of experience and he became my trading teacher (for free) he's a top guy... i learned to trade breakouts and had some good success on the Dax, Dow Jones and Eur/USD. After a while i became pretty good at day trading, i became profitable, if anyone seen the start of my 1st journal i was having a very high % of successful trades... but despite doing well for a while i crashed and burned and i'm less than break even this year, actually several grand down, in fact i just blown a futures account and i'm back to IG.

So i'm back to being non profitable, however I WILL NOT BE BEATEN BY THE MARKETS.

So, how's things going for you, what do you trade, what's your style and how long you've been trading?

p.s if you'd like to include your current monthly % of gains losses, that would be intersting

 

[piggybridges]

Opened an account with about 1k after watching my dad turn 8k into about 120k.
I lost it all.
Done lots of 12hr days studying an learning about charts and technicals.
Put £300 into an account and turned it into 5k!
Thought I had discovered the holy grail and began trading bigger size.
Lost the whole account!
More learning and studying. Traded a futures account and made a few K.
Carried on trading futures and some spreadbetting whilst being employed.
Have been making an income of sorts for a good while now, but whilst holding down a full time job.
It's very tough.

 

[VielGeld]

I'm better than 90% of traders out there!

...

 

[NVP]

Hey there

been involved in Trading since my first job in the early 80s....Won a little and lost a little over the years..........have to say I do better now than the old days .....in hindsight my worst years were always off the back of poor self-management and self-awareness where I was not focused 100% on my Trading due to other life distractions ...but I was doing it anyway - poor decision !

After returning to the game in the early 2000's (stopped due to work and family committments for a while) when I do get a chance to trade now I can finally have the maturity to focus on all the things we know we have to do ......and it helps !

I would say to anyone Trading like life is a marathon and not a sprint ......so keep plugging away and it will come in the end .......and a little age under the belt does help

as Oscar wilde once said :-

Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

N

 

[Doomberg]

Thanks for the replies guys, i had another **** up today.... had a £25 a point short on the Dow Jones since last night, got in to healthy profits by this afternoon and closed.... then longed Gold that had fallen a huge amount, longed at £40 a point with a 'great' entry. Once again, wonderful profit but then it goes against me (as usual) and i lost all my gains, and a significant sum.... i don't know how to feel, i could of walked away earlier 4 figures up but instead i got bummed by the market again

 

[trendie]

Thanks for the replies guys, i had another **** up today.... had a £25 a point short on the Dow Jones since last night, got in to healthy profits by this afternoon and closed.... then longed Gold that had fallen a huge amount, longed at £40 a point with a 'great' entry. Once again, wonderful profit but then it goes against me (as usual) and i lost all my gains, and a significant sum.... i don't know how to feel, i could of walked away earlier 4 figures up but instead i got bummed by the market again

once you closed out the Dow trade with a 4-figure return, did you Gold trade seek to risk your earlier gain?
Did you put any of the Dow profit aside?
Would you still have risked £40 a pip on Gold if the Dow hadnt closed on a profit?

If you had not taken the winning Dow trade, and Gold was your first trade, how much would you have risked?
At what point would you have taken Gold profit?
At what point would you have taken Gold loss?

Are you upset at losing the Gold trade, or giving away the Dow profit on the Gold trade?

PS: Dont feel down-hearted. It's only Monday!

 

[brewski1984]

Been trading about 2.5 years, I've been struggling to get past the breakeven stage for over a year now. I win some trades then I give all my profit back. Taken a bit of a break recently to tweak the system a little bit although I can't deny I haven't taken the odd gambler here or there

 

[the hare]

Thanks for the replies guys, i had another **** up today.... had a £25 a point short on the Dow Jones since last night, got in to healthy profits by this afternoon and closed.... then longed Gold that had fallen a huge amount, longed at £40 a point with a 'great' entry. Once again, wonderful profit but then it goes against me (as usual) and i lost all my gains, and a significant sum.... i don't know how to feel, i could of walked away earlier 4 figures up but instead i got bummed by the market again

Do up you still realistically believe that you should be making money every single day or every week, or every month ? or every quarter ?

 

[Vasco da Banana]

Assuming most of us aren't so rich throwing cash away doesn't matter much, these tales of woe illustrate that the main thing you need to do is manage the money properly and have realistic expectations. Do that and you may not make profit for years, but you also won't lose much. Sorry to be boring.

 

[Vasco da Banana]

the problem is most realise this after having lost money they cannot afford to lose and then it becomes a constant story chasing losses a.k.a. adding to them

i dont buy this you wont lose too much....what about opportunity costs, time lost that could have been far better spent and all of this for what?

Trading is probably a waste of precious time in any case, but at least you might stay solvent long enough to learn something by using small stakes and managing risk.

 

[Doomberg]

once you closed out the Dow trade with a 4-figure return, did you Gold trade seek to risk your earlier gain?
Did you put any of the Dow profit aside?
Would you still have risked £40 a pip on Gold if the Dow hadnt closed on a profit?

If you had not taken the winning Dow trade, and Gold was your first trade, how much would you have risked?
At what point would you have taken Gold profit?
At what point would you have taken Gold loss?

Are you upset at losing the Gold trade, or giving away the Dow profit on the Gold trade?

PS: Dont feel down-hearted. It's only Monday!

Hey mate, at 1st on gold i actually just risked 10 points at £40 a point so it was a £400 risk and my entry was at a sensible level of 1405, it was looking to establish good support at 1400 for over an hour, at 1st it edged up by 20+ points and then fell back to 1405, it battled at this level for a while again, but broke under and then fell another 50 points.... and of course i moved my bloody stops as the market fell.

My plan was to risk 10 points at support of 1400 and hope that this would establish as serious support, and then hold for a long time.... it "could" of happened, but just didn't lol. But i feel much better today

 

[Doomberg]

Do up you still realistically believe that you should be making money every single day or every week, or every month ? or every quarter ?

Well, at one point i was under the assumption that a good day trader should be doing 100%+ a month.... but i'll be honest, that was a VERY good 6 months. The markets changed and i've struggled to adapt. What's your opinion? Surely if a day trader is good, and make daily trades they should make a profit each month / quarter, or is that just unrealistic? Right now i'm probably 5k down for the year tbh

 

[neil]

Well, at one point i was under the assumption that a good day trader should be doing 100%+ a month.... but i'll be honest, that was a VERY good 6 months. The markets changed and i've struggled to adapt. What's your opinion? Surely if a day trader is good, and make daily trades they should make a profit each month / quarter, or is that just unrealistic? Right now i'm probably 5k down for the year tbh

If you persist in £40 trades then why not examine your past trades and work out if taking profits at 10 points etc would be better profit wise for you rather than letting things run ( and do you move your stops when in profit to lock in some profit?)

 

[Doomberg]

If you persist in £40 trades then why not examine your past trades and work out if taking profits at 10 points etc would be better profit wise for you rather than letting things run ( and do you move your stops when in profit to lock in some profit?)

Hi Niel,

Yes my most successful style has been trading breakouts for 10-30 points but i guess sometimes greed is a factor, i really need to work on that. Anyway i'm back trading today, took a low risk trade risking £200 on a Gold long but worked up to £40 a point with margin, trade is as below:

 

[Doomberg]

Hi Niel,

Yes my most successful style has been trading breakouts for 10-30 points but i guess sometimes greed is a factor, i really need to work on that. Anyway i'm back trading today, took a low risk trade risking £200 on a Gold long but worked up to £40 a point with margin, trade is as below:

Ok, i scaled up to £100 per point and locked in a 4 figure profit.. was going to let it run but it has found resistance at 1400, i don't want to risk it. If it breaches 1400, i may long again with a stop at 1395

 

[NVP]

Thanks for the replies guys, i had another **** up today.... had a £25 a point short on the Dow Jones since last night, got in to healthy profits by this afternoon and closed.... then longed Gold that had fallen a huge amount, longed at £40 a point with a 'great' entry. Once again, wonderful profit but then it goes against me (as usual) and i lost all my gains, and a significant sum.... i don't know how to feel, i could of walked away earlier 4 figures up but instead i got bummed by the market again

the market is the market ...........its nothing personal......its always right.........build systems that are more in tune with the market(s) you trade......and only trade on really good signals with rising momentum....and remember that a market doesnt ever straight line .........it will cut up and down like a knife.....so give yourself room to breathe.... or alternatively cut and run more on specific and realistic targets per trade ....or both !

N :smart:

 

[Doomberg]

the market is the market ...........its nothing personal......its always right.........build systems that are more in tune with the market(s) you trade......and only trade on really good signals with rising momentum....and remember that a market doesnt ever straight line .........it will cut up and down like a knife.....so give yourself room to breathe.... or alternatively cut and run more on specific and realistic targets per trade ....or both !

N :smart:

Thanks for the advice buddy and after a good day my chins a bit higher, just spotted a good Dow trade as below, hope it hits target but may close early

 

[Doomberg]

Spoke to soon, i just lost all of todays profits... in fact i blew the entire account (again)

 

[timsk]

. . .then longed Gold that had fallen a huge amount, longed at £40 a point with a 'great' entry. Once again, wonderful profit but then it goes against me (as usual) and i lost all my gains, and a significant sum.... i don't know how to feel, i could of walked away earlier 4 figures up but instead i got bummed by the market again

Hi Doomberg,
I'm assuming that you didn't exit your Gold trade when it was showing a good profit because your analysis suggested there were further gains to be made? That understandable. What I'm struggling with is why you didn't cut the trade when it returned to break even or there abouts? From what you say, it sounds to me as if you need to work on your risk and money management approach. At £40 p/p, you could easily have taken half off the table and moved your stop to b/e on the remaining half. How about trying something along the lines discussed in this post: Phil Newton's Range Break Out strategy Alternatively, hedge your position with another instrument. If you'd done that at any time between the trade being in profit and returning to b/e, you'd have closed out at b/e at worst and, quite probably, with a small profit. Given what you've said, you could even have closed the Gold leg around b/e and allowed the hedge to continue to run.

I understand perfectly that all this is much harder to do in practice than it sounds in theory but, equally, if you're letting good trades turn bad - then you really need to do something, IMO.
Tim.

 

[Doomberg]

Thanks Tim, you're right... i need to learn when it's time to let go of the trades... i don't really understand hedging tbh, but i need to learn when it's time to let go, and also when it's time to stop trading when ahead, once again today i made great profit and gave it all back -.-