The Phoenix Scenario

[waza1960]

1. IGMarkets has paper trading. Just open a demo account.

Have in the past as well as live account they were the ones who got my hard earned $ .

2. You'd be cutting it pretty close for IB's minimum to open an account ($US10,000), so don't buy too many more books if you want to go that way.

Thats my thought also and I'm not lookiing to spend anymore on education just review what I've got.

3. No-one needs TWO kidneys...

not that desperate yet lol

D.R. Barton Jr. wrote:"Allow yourself and your strategy the luxury of time. And don’t be surprised if lower stress and greater profitability follow close behind." Maybe you should look into your mindset (the psychological aspect of yourself) before you proceed. Evaluate yourself. Evaluate your trading plans. You may need to change a few techniques. And this may save you from sabotaging yourself again

.
Agree with this although I don't need to evaluate myself any further however trading plans still need evaluation.
I know what went wrong the first two times won't be making those mistakes again .As long as I don't make different ones

 

[professor_frink]

Agree with this although I don't need to evaluate myself any further however trading plans still need evaluation.
I know what went wrong the first two times won't be making those mistakes again .As long as I don't make different ones

What were the mistakes that you made the first 2 times waza?

 

[waza1960]

What were the mistakes that you made the first 2 times waza?

The first time feb to april 07 I was a typical newbie trading with no money management and I was running my own business and under a lot of stress. I thought if I could make some money I would scale down the business and scale up the trading.In hindsight I was completely compromised as a trader and only knew a small amount about the market. The classic part of the situation was that after the first week I was up 3.5k thinking this was great even though life experience told me it was too good to be true.
1st Lessons learned:You must have proper money management above all else in trading,Don't trade if your not in a calm and relaxed environment and get yourself educated about the market before you trade.
The second time was last year when in the process of winding up my business and trading on the side I became convinced because of fundamentals that the Dow and the Aus $ were going down so I was shorting both on and off from about august to november last year.
2nd lot of lessions learned:A lot of self evaluation and,Trading on fundamentals is not my style.

 

[professor_frink]

The first time feb to april 07 I was a typical newbie trading with no money management and I was running my own business and under a lot of stress. I thought if I could make some money I would scale down the business and scale up the trading.In hindsight I was completely compromised as a trader and only knew a small amount about the market. The classic part of the situation was that after the first week I was up 3.5k thinking this was great even though life experience told me it was too good to be true.
1st Lessons learned:You must have proper money management above all else in trading,Don't trade if your not in a calm and relaxed environment and get yourself educated about the market before you trade.
The second time was last year when in the process of winding up my business and trading on the side I became convinced because of fundamentals that the Dow and the Aus $ were going down so I was shorting both on and off from about august to november last year.
2nd lot of lessions learned:A lot of self evaluation and,Trading on fundamentals is not my style.

thanks for sharing waza

So if fundamentals aren't really your style, are you finding using technicals much better(even if it's just paper trading at this stage)?

In regards to trading in a calm and relaxed environment, that won't happen with only 12K so I'd be looking at selling a kidney, or just rent out parts of your body by the hour/evening if you can get away with it, and try and get some more capital if you really want to do it properly.

Have you found anything that you are good at yet, or failing that, just some area of trading that you enjoy? IMO you'll want to find what your strengths are and then start trying to build on them

 

[Trembling Hand]

In regards to trading in a calm and relaxed environment, that won't happen with only 12K so I'd be looking at selling a kidney, or just rent out parts of your body by the hour/evening if you can get away with it,

lol

1st Lessons learned:You must have proper money management above all else in trading,

Waza I fear you actually haven't learnt whats important. Money management is just taking care of business - like making sure you open the door at 9:00 am if you have a retail shop. Yes its important and you have to do it but doing that one thing, like making sure you open the door, will not guarantee success.

Try answering the question again for us.

And as a hint its not,

get yourself educated about the market before you trade.

There's lots of people around here that know all the "stuff" about trading yet there's not the same amount that make $$'s. go figure

 

[brty]

TH,

There's lots of people around here that know all the "stuff" about trading

Would that be....

Cut your losses and let your profits run.
Buy high sell higher.
Never catch a falling knife.
The trend is your friend.

others??
I do almost the opposite to all the above, I must be a bad trader.

brty

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Yes its important and you have to do it but doing that one thing, like making sure you open the door, will not guarantee success.

There's lots of people around here that know all the "stuff" about trading yet there's not the same amount that make $$'s. go figure

So TH, if its not opening the door and knowing the stuff and being educated before you trade, what is it that makes you successful? Expectancy, patterns and skill?

 

[waza1960]

So if fundamentals aren't really your style, are you finding using technicals much better(even if it's just paper trading at this stage)?

Yes I find that T/A suits me I have always used it to some extent but I will use it more in the future.

In regards to trading in a calm and relaxed environment, that won't happen with only 12K so I'd be looking at selling a kidney, or just rent out parts of your body by the hour/evening if you can get away with it, and try and get some more capital if you really want to do it properly

I still think there's a way of achieving this(not selling the kidney lol) have to find a market with the lowest brokerage costs/smallest lot sizes.What about fx micro account,eminis remember I'm not in a hurry to make money.

Have you found anything that you are good at yet, or failing that, just some area of trading that you enjoy? IMO you'll want to find what your strengths are and then start trying to build on them

I'm heading towards system development using Amibroker/Howard Bandy's books.I'm good with computers,Mathematics etc so I feel this approach suits me.

Waza I fear you actually haven't learnt whats important. Money management is just taking care of business - like making sure you open the door at 9:00 am if you have a retail shop. Yes its important and you have to do it but doing that one thing, like making sure you open the door, will not guarantee success

I see what your saying TH and agree, I guess what I was saying was that with such a small trading account I will need very good money management and since I have failed in those areas in the past it is very relevant to me.But I agree that money management and education are only steps along the way, of course a lot of money is made by trading educators so it is not surprising that this area's relevance to trading is exaggerated.

Try answering the question again for us.

Well here's my list of important areas to study/lessons to be learned.I will leave the more experienced to prioritize the list:
Getting to know the characterisitcs of the market/security your trading intimately.
Chart time and more Chart itme
Studying the probablilities of patterns/ price action reacurring.
Positive Expectancy.
Designing properly back tested systems to lessen the psychological impact of trading.

 

[nomore4s]

Waza,

What time frame do you plan on trading?

 

[Trembling Hand]

So TH, if its not opening the door and knowing the stuff and being educated before you trade, what is it that makes you successful? Expectancy, patterns and skill?

Taking the biz example just because you can open the door in the morn or make sure you have staff behind the counter etc, will not mean you should go into business.

What tells you you should go into business is a break-even analysis. That your returns from sales exceed expenses & depreciation & leaves some over for profit/growth. Then from there the smart biz owners know/find out what will effect that break-even level and are ever watchful of changes & improvements.

Waza blew up twice not because he used crap MM or that "Trading on fundamentals is not his style" or he forgot that "the trend is your friend" or owning Amibroker or any other gumph you want throw in there. It all boils down to he blew up because he went into business without having any evidence that he was on the right side of break-even (sums of wins exceeds sums of losses + expenses). Nor under what circumstances put him on the right side.

How many times have it been said about back testing, forward testing and simming so you know you will be successful and why/when before you lay a dollar down?

If you have a lazy hundred thousand or two laying around you may survive the forward testing with real $'s risking 0.5% per trade BUT if you're skilless & luckless and in a hurry you will just blow another $10,000 account.

 

[waza1960]

Waza,

What time frame do you plan on trading?

Short term: Intraday to a couple of days max I have the time and I want the frequency.

 

[MRC & Co]

Eva Diaz is marketing tool of CMC LOL it's so bad, she has strings in her back leading to their head office! She wrote a book on CFD's, just about every second and thrid word was CMC or Market maker.... LOL Eva Diaz!

Some of this crap is a good as I am seeing at ForexFactory ATM!

LOL. Owned.

 

[professor_frink]

Short term: Intraday to a couple of days max I have the time and I want the frequency.

Looks like you at least have a logical place to start your journey waza. Good luck with it

 

[Trembling Hand]

Short term: Intraday to a couple of days max I have the time and I want the frequency.

Ok here is a tip to keep you in the game. Throw standard money management out the door. 1% -2% risked per trade is simply BS. Have that as a daily stop. 6% as a weekly stop. 20% as a stop all together and go back to sim.

Every day your job is to protect capital and get away from the daily stop, once you have 1-2% in the bag each day then start swinging. (that is of course after you KNOW you are profitable after many months)

 

[Mr J]

I do almost the opposite to all the above, I must be a bad trader.

I'm certain TH hates trading cliches, even though some of them are true :.

So TH, if its not opening the door and knowing the stuff and being educated before you trade, what is it that makes you successful? Expectancy, patterns and skill?

Knowing what? Being educated in what? You need to trade to learn these things, or at least put in screentime.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Knowing what? Being educated in what? You need to trade to learn these things, or at least put in screentime.

Not sure what you mean here? Are those questions directed at me?

I agree 100%, you need to trade, get the screen time, read what I was replying to, I was asking TH what he thinks it is.

[rant]
Trouble is, 90% of us don't know the actual HOW TOs of things I believe, its all very well drumming this BS into them/us, but then what? So we know that we must do this or that, doesn't mean we know how to. Hence why trader after trader goes down the same path, they may think they are on the right path but only to find out that its all a waste of time and a "BS cliche" and gets pummeled by the likes of TH, those that really know what they are doing. I think its a case of if you're lucky and hard enough to stay in this game, then you eventually discover what it takes after hours and hours of experience/testing/blowups/sorting through the BS, not after reading some "good advice" on the net. I wonder how many traders actually change their ways after reading a good blog post/article? Its only until they get smashed by the market and it effects them hard that they start changing. Myself included.
[/rant]

 

[waza1960]

This is some thoughts from" Reminiscences of a Stock Trader" that may be of
relevance here:The Types of traders-The newbie:who knows nothing and everybody including himself knows it.
The next or second grade of Trader:thinks he knows a great deal
and makes others feel that way too . He has studied not the market itself but a few remarks about the market made by the next grade of Trader above him.He knows a few ways to keep from losing money that get the raw beginner and it is this type of trader that provides most of the profit to the
brokerage firms.It is this trader who is always quoting the various rules of the game and knows all the don'ts that ever fell from the mouth of the old Stagers exept the principal one don't be a sucker!
Its hard not to think that a lot of posters belong to the above group and
that this is the reason that TH gets a little frustrated.