Scalping the Index - Pointers Please

[barney]

From my experience... and many would agree... messing around with demo accounts NO WAY COMPARES TO TRADING WITH YOUR OWN REAL MONEY.... hands down... full stop... end of argument...

Its a completely different game...

Any jack or jill can take a $100K demo a/c and do ludicrously large trades and not feel the slightest worry... cos it's only monopoly money if you lose it...

Try doing large trades with YOUR OWN REAL $100k... then we'll see if you are an action or talk kind of person...

'Aint that the truth ...... I traded my $100,000 (real money) account and ended up with about 15% of that left ............... I had the ballz, but no brains .............. after much soul searching and self realisation, I now am getting closer to having the (some) brains, but am now struggling with having "the ballz" part .............

Demo accounts are basically useless unless you can treat them like they are your own cash ............... who can do that ??? ............. well I lost a crapload, and still have trouble feeling the "pain" on a demo account ........... nothing quite like stuffing up with your hard earned to teach you a lesson!! ..........
Trading is like life in a lot of ways ................ those who have lost, and then learn how to win/or even simply not lose anymore (with humility) are the real winners .......... Those who have never lost, are either a) very clever (or liars) , or b) in for a rude surprise .....................

My current aim with trading, is to eliminate the "rude surprises" .......

My hat goes off to TH for his obvious "experience" ............. that experience would not have come cheap I know !! .............

 

[Trembling Hand]

Demo accounts are basically useless unless you can treat them like they are your own cash ............... who can do that ??? ............. well I lost a crapload, and still have trouble feeling the "pain" on a demo account ........... nothing quite like stuffing up with your hard earned to teach you a lesson!! ..........

Sim are very valuable if used right. The $$'s should never be the aim. It should always be on process.... position sizing ...taking stops....learning to hit the odd ripper.... Learning how to read the market....learning a plan that works and most importantly learning how the plan actually acts. So as soon as you hit a bad patch you know what is going on and don't lose your head and control. As you already have seen a rough patch in sim mode you know that if you continue with correct process you will get back on track.

Doing what druss has done is so damaging that I would think he has no hope. When he starts with real money he has in the back of his head that he went from $100,000 to $200,000 of pretend money by throwing all position sizing and risk management out the door. He has not only wasted his first 6 months training but most certainly set a thought process up that will undermine his trading for a long time.

Practise is very very important. Have a look at the Olympics. Most athletes spend 40- 60 hours practising a week for 10 years or more to get to that level of performance. I believe trading is no different.

Perfect practise makes perfect performance.

Druss denial makes great fodder for the zero sum game. When you coming over to the SPI with real money :

 

[skyQuake]

When he starts with real money he has in the back of his head that he went from $100,000 to $200,000 of pretend money by throwing all position sizing and risk management out the door.

I did something similar when i started traded with real money - ie basically made ****loads in the first few months and became arrogant as hell - I was the smartest guy in the world, physical manifestation of awesomeness, god's gift to women etc... Talking to someone in that state of mind is a waste of time as I can attest to
He'll come back when hes blown his first account and ready to learn.

 

[Timmy]

OK so I am thinking of becoming a commercial pilot ... is there some forum I can go to where I can get sage advice from those who have extensive experience on flight simulator games on their pc but don't actually fly any aeroplanes? Geez....

 

[Trembling Hand]

I gather THs 'unconventional' methods are simply large volume fade plays, or at least fade plays at that. Generally they provide a very tight stop.


BTW, are all your 100-300 round trips generally on more than one index? I still don't get how somebody could do that many on one index in one day, I just don't find nearly the set-ups. I am extremelly interested to learn these things a lot more in-depth soon. Guess if you are scalping a few ticks here and there it is possible, but you really must be going mainly by the order book for that quantity of round trips on one index I would gather.

Sorry with all the excitment I missed this.

Thats what I meant by unconventional set-ups/entries. Everyone (most?) are looking to take trades that equal the average range etc. Most of my entries have little to do with traditional chart set-ups and more to do with having others pay the spread for me. Then I just run a O-4 tick (mostly 1 tick) stop behind my entry and move it for every tick my way. Until its well into the money then I give it a little wiggle room.

Non-conventional, maybe even random but it works. Something I have not been able to prove with "tradition" chart patterns without large stops.

 

[julius]

Hi All,

I find simulated trading invaluable for practising intraday trading skills.

I switch over to the paper trading a/c around lunch time on the SPI - my mind tends to wander 2-3 hours after the open.

Of course if you are dishonest or undisciplined then paper trading can't save you...

IMO if you can't turn a consistent profit on a trading sim then you have no hope when it comes to real $dollars.

 

[alwaysLearning]

Sim are very valuable if used right. The $$'s should never be the aim. It should always be on process.... position sizing ...taking stops....learning to hit the odd ripper.... Learning how to read the market....learning a plan that works and most importantly learning how the plan actually acts. So as soon as you hit a bad patch you know what is going on and don't lose your head and control. As you already have seen a rough patch in sim mode you know that if you continue with correct process you will get back on track.

Doing what druss has done is so damaging that I would think he has no hope. When he starts with real money he has in the back of his head that he went from $100,000 to $200,000 of pretend money by throwing all position sizing and risk management out the door. He has not only wasted his first 6 months training but most certainly set a thought process up that will undermine his trading for a long time.

Practise is very very important. Have a look at the Olympics. Most athletes spend 40- 60 hours practising a week for 10 years or more to get to that level of performance. I believe trading is no different.

Perfect practise makes perfect performance.

Druss denial makes great fodder for the zero sum game. When you coming over to the SPI with real money :

hi TH, great post.

I've been demo trading for the last few months using Oanda (Forex trading). At first I thought I'd stuff around doing any ol thing but then I read some stuff at traderfeed and the guy said basically that simulation was very very important as was going through the learning curve in the right way.

I opened a $1000 oanda demo account and trade with 1% risk per trade. I am struggling with stops and reward to risk ratio though--it isn't easy but I am aware of it and trying to get it right.

In April, I saw that CFD post where you went from 1k to 50k in one week and I couldn't beleive it at first but then it gradually sunk in that that type of thing is possible and in a twisted way, that's what hooked me into researching trading. Glad I stumbled on that thread