Since I graduated in May I've been lucky enough to have a lot of free time to work at trading. In that time I've done some reading (Methods of a Wall Street Master, Trading In the Zone, part of Markets In Profile) and spent a lot of time looking at charts. It was sort of an epiphany for me when I came across Feb's System II which employs some of the same methodology found in Methods of a Wall Street Master. Without going into the specifics too much (you can search the forum if you're curious) I finally had that feeling of trading with a system that seemed to click with me.
Without going any further I'll say I've only demo traded it for the month of July so far. Since I'm not doing much else I've tried to be very diligent about it. Monday-Friday I begin trading the Euro at 8 AM and watch it pretty closely until 12. I would say the benefit of this is that already I'm starting to get a better "feel" for this currency and how it moves.
After about a month I'm beginning to feel like what Mark Douglas calls a "boom and bust trader". I seem to get a few wins which bring my equity up then many small losses which eat away at what I've won. At best I can't seem to do better than breakeven and it's possible as time goes on I may consistently lose.
What makes this most frustrating is that I've been doing well when I practice previous months in Forex Tester. If you aren't familiar with the program it essentially lets you trade any data from the last 10 years or so in realtime or sped up. I've tried to be extremely honest in trading Feb's system this way. I know how easy it can be to "cheat" on your results, rewinding the tape to change the way you traded something. The months I've done so far have been encouraging and I feel I've learned so much.
So finally here is my question: why do I come up with good results trading in the simulator but not in the demo? Some obvious ideas right off the bat:
-I only have one month of results trading this system "live" in a demo account. This isn't enough to draw any meaningful conclusions. The reason I want some feedback anyway is because I'm feeling frustrated as I've come out ahead every month I've traded in the simulator. I know liquidity dries up in the summer in the stock market, does this happen in FOREX and could this have an effect?
-Trading a simulator, though useful, is not equal to trading a demo account which is not equal to trading a live account. As strict as I've tried to be in trading the simulator it's not the same as trading in realtime. Also, because I put so much pressure on myself to succeed, trading a demo account for me probably approaches the stress others experience trading live. In the simulator I can actually relax and just trade without fear. Reading Trading In the Zone has gotten me thinking about that a lot. Still I think after getting the hang of it in the sim I've adapted what I've learned to the demo.
Well thanks to anyone who read all that. Any thoughts are appreciated. If you want to tell me I'm a dummy and I should wait more than a month before I start drawing conclusions well that's allowed too.
Ian
Without going any further I'll say I've only demo traded it for the month of July so far. Since I'm not doing much else I've tried to be very diligent about it. Monday-Friday I begin trading the Euro at 8 AM and watch it pretty closely until 12. I would say the benefit of this is that already I'm starting to get a better "feel" for this currency and how it moves.
After about a month I'm beginning to feel like what Mark Douglas calls a "boom and bust trader". I seem to get a few wins which bring my equity up then many small losses which eat away at what I've won. At best I can't seem to do better than breakeven and it's possible as time goes on I may consistently lose.
What makes this most frustrating is that I've been doing well when I practice previous months in Forex Tester. If you aren't familiar with the program it essentially lets you trade any data from the last 10 years or so in realtime or sped up. I've tried to be extremely honest in trading Feb's system this way. I know how easy it can be to "cheat" on your results, rewinding the tape to change the way you traded something. The months I've done so far have been encouraging and I feel I've learned so much.
So finally here is my question: why do I come up with good results trading in the simulator but not in the demo? Some obvious ideas right off the bat:
-I only have one month of results trading this system "live" in a demo account. This isn't enough to draw any meaningful conclusions. The reason I want some feedback anyway is because I'm feeling frustrated as I've come out ahead every month I've traded in the simulator. I know liquidity dries up in the summer in the stock market, does this happen in FOREX and could this have an effect?
-Trading a simulator, though useful, is not equal to trading a demo account which is not equal to trading a live account. As strict as I've tried to be in trading the simulator it's not the same as trading in realtime. Also, because I put so much pressure on myself to succeed, trading a demo account for me probably approaches the stress others experience trading live. In the simulator I can actually relax and just trade without fear. Reading Trading In the Zone has gotten me thinking about that a lot. Still I think after getting the hang of it in the sim I've adapted what I've learned to the demo.
Well thanks to anyone who read all that. Any thoughts are appreciated. If you want to tell me I'm a dummy and I should wait more than a month before I start drawing conclusions well that's allowed too.
Ian