ilir.shkurti
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I had been using MACD, StochasticMomentumIndex and CCI for months, before deciding to simply use price and volume action. Also cleared all indicators from screen, and I have never gone back.
ilir.shkurti
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Tim, I am currently not making this for a living. Waiting for that person that will tell me that he/she is making it fo r a living. and GOOD living...
we shall see
I make this for a living, though I am a long way from 300K as this is my first year. However, I can tell you that the person that steered me in this direction a year ago has been achieving your $300k and better. In fact, his goal for his $300k trading capital is $1 Million per year.
Simple math tells you that in order to make $300k annually, you need an average P/L of $1,500 daily (assuming 200 trading days a year), which is 30 ES points. A fairly experienced trader achieves this with 10 contracts.
If your trading system features a 1:1 R/R ratio (for math's sake of ease) and has a success rate of .7, it means your annual income comes out of the 40% net profitable trades, which means that instead of 10, you must in fact trade 25 contracts in order to achieve your desired $300k in a year. The number of contracts expands significantly with each inflation of the risk factor within your risk/reward.
Hope this mini-analysis helps. Also, I would suggest to not start with a specific dollar amount as a goal. In your way to become a professional trader, you'd essentially put the cart in front of the horse.
Cheers,
Ilir
I find trading price action much more real than trading macd, emas, bollinger bands etc... though I am still using time and tick charts
It is NOT a simple task. I use the order book for entry points.. in most cases I miss the wave especially when things aren't clear.
I will be more than happy to discuss it off the record
It is NOT a simple task. I use the order book for entry points.. in most cases I miss the wave especially when things aren't clear.
I will be more than happy to discuss it off the record
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ilir.shkurti
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I beg to differ with you there. Making a living trading the ES is very exhilarating, but also about the most stressful thing I have done to date. I find it necessary to continually find an escape valve while on a trade or immediately after. I used to YouTube and Hulu a lot, and after finding this place, I Trade2Win a lot. I find value in talking to other people that find it interesting. I also find it very satisfying to share anything that is of value to others.
To the rest of the thread, I read a bit more about the threadstarter's quest here, and as far as I can tell, Aversano, you are trying to reconcile a concept (making money with the ES) with the reality (as in, does it hold, or is it too good to be true).
The answer is yes, there are people who do this day in and day out. There are people who started out daytrading by themselves and now actually pay others, much more formally educated in matters of trading, that execute trades for them and partake into a standard salary and commission. These people also have software engineers working for them, designing automated trade setups. These folks are the top of the pyramid. I know of one through about three degrees of separation.
I know of several who make their entire living from from trading the ES, one of whom I myself trained from scratch, and who now makes a lot more than I do, simply because he is more of a risktaker and is better capitalized. We are talking $75k-300k annually here. These are second rung of the pyramid.
I know of many who grab a hundred today and a hundred tomorrow in between collecting a pension, or before whisking away to a 9-5 job. They essentially play for beer money, and they are the third rung of the pyramid.
Then there are a couple of people I also know, and one of them I also trained. They got in and in the course of a couple of months proceeded to initially make thousands daily but ultimately got greedy and lost their entire capital. They round up the base of the pyramid, and unfortunately, represent the majority of people who have ever entered this world of ES trading.
Hope this longer-than-intended reply helps you reconcile possibilities with actualities in the world.
I say, if you have settled into a method of making, consistently, two points a day, you are golden and you must search for your 'brass ones." Because, my friend, looks like you already have some knowledge that actually has a value if capitalized and paired up with your soon-to-be-mastered confidence. Start slow. From what I understand, you probably already have a lifestyle that requires the $300k you keep inquiring about. That is unfortunate (or very fortunate!!!), because if will significantly dilute the focus your abilities need to develop.
I am now going to casually pimp my own thread here in the Futures section, called 'Trading the Gaps.' Drop in, everyone, say hi or what not.
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My quest continues....
Price action does seem to be the key for me. I find it needs to be as easy to recall/see as is “the color of the sky is blue.” Meaning, in an instant, when focused on the far right hand side of the chart, say/see this is an L1 in an up trend, with an entry here and an exit there, issue the limit entry order, set the limit PT, set the limit SL, watch what the market prints, gladly accepting what it gives you – and sometimes literately this all occurs in an instant. It’s never perfect, it’s never exactly the same, for these are “sort of guidelines” if you will. It’s simple but not easy, it’s stressful as hell, timing is everything and forget about your ego, get out when you’re wrong.
Thanks Muddy, TRO, Joe Ross, Malcom Robinson, Al Brooks, Alan Farley, Edwards & Magee, Murphy, Martin Pring, David Waring, Ryan Watts, NQoos, Jack Hershey and Lance Beggs (I’m sure I missed a few) for showing me the light. Pull backs, SMA 3-9-10-18-22,40-50-60-200 crosses, SnR, Pivot Points, hooks, LH1-LH4, swings, reversals, congestion, BW, coils, NR7, bells, ledges, wedges, trends, triangles, legs, pushes, DT, DB, Twins, TTEs, Failures, episodic events, fractals, 2:1 ratio, 1 tick beyond, 3 bar, time exits, 10:00am moves, etc...etc...etc…(also worth mentioning insider 1 tick trick bull **** and trapped traders) all boil down to and lead to price action. I am of the belief you need volume for true price movement and thus momentum for a move, for a trend. Buy low, sell high – there’s a lot more to this statement than meets the eye especially considering congestion or ranges that consist of 80% of the day. All the while I try to remember; bears win, bulls win, and pigs get slaughtered - don't be a pig. Ultimately, get consistent, then add contracts and scale out. Read Read Read, amazing what is available on the net.
Having the ability to build indicators, make automated systems, and understand computer software at the lowest of levels - there are still situations with this problem that simply defy logic. Consider what I just typed above – I do not know of a way to build software to consider/apply all of those items and more to a given data feed to come up with a decision – many times they will contradict one another based on a given focus. My mind sees this but I simply cannot program for it given today’s readily available techniques and practices. Furthermore, the ability to get at the data stream from where I sit will always lag the market makers so I'll always be at a disadvantage when defining logic that applies at the limits of this problem.
Ironically, watching what the marketing is printing (even looking at 100 year old charts) and acting accordingly simply works. Trade what you see. If you cannot see it, adjust your focus – adjust your charts; timeframe, ticks grouping, volume grouping, range setting, or whatever…simply adjust your focus until you see the moves you know and understand. Don’t ask what to look for, only you can know what this means. Others can only give you ideas, just like the above mentioned have done for me.
And then comes the need of brass ones... indeed that’s what it boils down to. Believe in yourself. Believe in your plan and stick to it. If you have studied it, coming to the same conclusions over and over again – believe in yourself. I have come to a point in my quest where in live-simulated trading using Ninja I can get my consistent points/ticks. But when real $ comes into the equation something still is not quite correct for me. I know it's me and it’s just another hurdle to overcome on my quest to doing this for a living. This too will come with time and experience.
Thank you for invigorating my insatiable, addictive thirst of doing this for a living. I've read so many sites that beat around the bush on this topic. It is great to hear success stories.
Price action does seem to be the key for me. I find it needs to be as easy to recall/see as is “the color of the sky is blue.” Meaning, in an instant, when focused on the far right hand side of the chart, say/see this is an L1 in an up trend, with an entry here and an exit there, issue the limit entry order, set the limit PT, set the limit SL, watch what the market prints, gladly accepting what it gives you – and sometimes literately this all occurs in an instant. It’s never perfect, it’s never exactly the same, for these are “sort of guidelines” if you will. It’s simple but not easy, it’s stressful as hell, timing is everything and forget about your ego, get out when you’re wrong.
Thanks Muddy, TRO, Joe Ross, Malcom Robinson, Al Brooks, Alan Farley, Edwards & Magee, Murphy, Martin Pring, David Waring, Ryan Watts, NQoos, Jack Hershey and Lance Beggs (I’m sure I missed a few) for showing me the light. Pull backs, SMA 3-9-10-18-22,40-50-60-200 crosses, SnR, Pivot Points, hooks, LH1-LH4, swings, reversals, congestion, BW, coils, NR7, bells, ledges, wedges, trends, triangles, legs, pushes, DT, DB, Twins, TTEs, Failures, episodic events, fractals, 2:1 ratio, 1 tick beyond, 3 bar, time exits, 10:00am moves, etc...etc...etc…(also worth mentioning insider 1 tick trick bull **** and trapped traders) all boil down to and lead to price action. I am of the belief you need volume for true price movement and thus momentum for a move, for a trend. Buy low, sell high – there’s a lot more to this statement than meets the eye especially considering congestion or ranges that consist of 80% of the day. All the while I try to remember; bears win, bulls win, and pigs get slaughtered - don't be a pig. Ultimately, get consistent, then add contracts and scale out. Read Read Read, amazing what is available on the net.
Having the ability to build indicators, make automated systems, and understand computer software at the lowest of levels - there are still situations with this problem that simply defy logic. Consider what I just typed above – I do not know of a way to build software to consider/apply all of those items and more to a given data feed to come up with a decision – many times they will contradict one another based on a given focus. My mind sees this but I simply cannot program for it given today’s readily available techniques and practices. Furthermore, the ability to get at the data stream from where I sit will always lag the market makers so I'll always be at a disadvantage when defining logic that applies at the limits of this problem.
Ironically, watching what the marketing is printing (even looking at 100 year old charts) and acting accordingly simply works. Trade what you see. If you cannot see it, adjust your focus – adjust your charts; timeframe, ticks grouping, volume grouping, range setting, or whatever…simply adjust your focus until you see the moves you know and understand. Don’t ask what to look for, only you can know what this means. Others can only give you ideas, just like the above mentioned have done for me.
And then comes the need of brass ones... indeed that’s what it boils down to. Believe in yourself. Believe in your plan and stick to it. If you have studied it, coming to the same conclusions over and over again – believe in yourself. I have come to a point in my quest where in live-simulated trading using Ninja I can get my consistent points/ticks. But when real $ comes into the equation something still is not quite correct for me. I know it's me and it’s just another hurdle to overcome on my quest to doing this for a living. This too will come with time and experience.
Thank you for invigorating my insatiable, addictive thirst of doing this for a living. I've read so many sites that beat around the bush on this topic. It is great to hear success stories.
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It has been quite a while since my last post here and for a good reason. I no longer question my ability to trade, I am no longer looking for confirmation from others.Things have changed. I have found my missing link thank to a colleague of mine.My focus was adjusted and needless to say there are no indicators on my chart.... not even volume, I use a tick and a time chart, T&S and the order book (level2). My ego is still there, but my conscious is constantly fighting it. It is a process that takes time.
I know I am on the correct track, will I have the strength to keep walking it, I cannot guarantee that, but I will definitly try.
Thank you All of the above and Computers Sciences for teaching me to be logical, it is helpful while trading but definitely not my key.
You can follow my new thread here http://www.trade2win.com/boards/futures/88556-es-emini-trading-gap-others.html
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My quest continues...
I know I am on the correct track, will I have the strength to keep walking it, I cannot guarantee that, but I will definitly try.
Thank you All of the above and Computers Sciences for teaching me to be logical, it is helpful while trading but definitely not my key.
You can follow my new thread here http://www.trade2win.com/boards/futures/88556-es-emini-trading-gap-others.html
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My quest continues...
