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Can YOU make money as a professional trader - Redux

  • #21
  • May 4, 2018 9:06am May 4, 2018 9:06am
Yes you are absolutely right. People come into trading in the hope of making huge money. Well it's good to see dream. But the problem is they want it without learning properly. They want to make money just by learning how to make an entry and close entry. They will learn some ready-made strategies available on internet. After sometime they wonder why it's not working. They think the one or two years that need for learning, I can be rich by that time by trading randomly.
  • #22
  • May 4, 2018 10:07am May 4, 2018 10:07am
Rule # 4 Run your own race at your own pace.

Already there has been some discussion in here about different trading ideas. Trading sessions that work, adding to losing positions, trading for a target vs keep trading while you are hot.

In this rule, you need to take a look at your life and make an honest appraisal of HOW you think.

Your life - Do you have a full or part time job that restrict your trading time? If so, you need to use a swing or long term strategy. You will not be able to scalp the markets unless you have plenty of free to watch and wait and then pounce doing this several times a day to earn a living as a scalper.

How you think - Do you see a glass of water as half empty or half full? The half empty types of people (like me) do better at trading ranges and tend to not catch enough trend as we keep seeing the end of the trend too soon. The half full are exact opposite, they see a trend continuing even when it is choppy markets. So do a real assessment on how you think before you develop your trading system or systems (I have 4). And it has to be your system, tested by you to ensure you have an edge and you trust it or them.

Jessie Livermore said you can't trade on Smith's tips because if you buy on their tip, you have to sell when they sell.

Same here with your trading system. It has to fit you. Would you wear shoes that were designed for some else? You could for a short time, but eventually you will do harm to your feet.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
  • #23
  • May 4, 2018 10:35am May 4, 2018 10:35am
Quoting MisterWhite
{quote} I had a USD/JPY carry trade on for the last 3 months. 1 lot. It went all the way to -$5,000, then back up to +$150. I reduced my exposure to 0.25 lot, made $85 plus the carry money. Point is, nothing goes in one direction forever... Except maybe USD/TRY...
Is this one of your normal strategies and did you follow your rules?

None of my strategies involve carry trade as years ago I watched an old chap struggle to build a winning strategy for years before he disappeared. You could almost feel the panic in his posts when he started to "hedge" as his carry trade (was always GBPJPY cause that had biggest rollover at the time) would continue to draw down and he was adding funds to prevent the margin call.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
  • #24
  • Edited 11:10am May 4, 2018 10:47am | Edited 11:10am
Quoting DonPato
{quote} How about Avoid Unnecessary Risk It sound to me like you and I (and I suspect many other here) have made many of the same mistakes. Call it "the learning curve". I have written this very rule various ways in my trading journal. "don't over leverage"; "admit when you are wrong"; "Don't trade when you're angry - emotional". It basically comes down to avoid UNNECESSARY risk. Once your goal for the day/week/month has been met STOP trading for that day/week/month. There is no reason to place any more of your funds at risk when you have made your...
I almost always add to losers and winners but I will explain this later in my rule on entries and exits. I have very similar rules for losing days, get out of the market, out of the markets completely if I am off my game. We will have losing days, weeks, and occasionally losing months.

And you are right that we all make the same mistakes because it's human nature. We need to monitor ourselves to make sure we don't keep repeating the same mistakes.

“I learned early that there is nothing new in Wall Street. There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again. I've never forgotten that.” - Jessie Livermore 1924 AD

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9 450-180 BCE
Ecclesiastes 1:9
  • #25
  • May 4, 2018 10:50am May 4, 2018 10:50am
Quoting yonnie
dont find this opinion very smart...
Sorry to hear that...

Quoting yonnie
...when the going is good, milk it for as much as you can. tomorrow might be different...
So true...the only issue is, for how long will the "going be good"? One day? one week? 10 more minutes? The problem is the "going is good" until it isn't and you never know when that will be. No one ever went broke taking profits consistently. What people go broke doing is trading "while the going is good" even when it has ceased to be good...then they keep trading anyway. Or they go broke holding that once very profitable trade until it stops out with way less than they had if they just set a limit and take your gains and move on.
Quoting yonnie;11025950[B
...[/b]will a farmer ever stop making hay on a good day?
I don't know...I'm not a farmer, and we are not talking about farming here...unless you are talking about commodities. This profession is different from all others...the same principles do NOT apply. We get paid to "sit on our hands and wait" until just the right moment. This applies both to entries AND exits.

The other benefits from this kind of work is that once the task is done, (ie you've met your goal) you can get up, turn the damn machine off and spend time how YOU like to...family, friends, hobbies, and enjoy life on a sailboat while others are "making hay".

This also has the added benefit of preventing OVER trading which (in my experience) has taken good profits and dumped them in the toilet all because I felt I was being "lazy" because I was done early. This feeling came mostly from my wife who thought I was in my office "playing video games" and should have a "real job". So I wanted to prove to her that this would work...guess what? It didn't and I no longer have those profits...or that wife.

In the end its your choice...I (for one) started this business to enjoy MORE free time not kill myself sitting in front of the computer. I could've stayed where I was and done that. This "job" (read: business) allows me to make the same amount of money in 1-2 hrs a day and then enjoy what I was put here on earth to enjoy, not be a "monitor slave".
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  • #26
  • May 4, 2018 10:52am May 4, 2018 10:52am
Quoting newbegger
Rule # 4 Run your own race at your own pace...
Amen Brother

See my previous post.
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  • #27
  • May 4, 2018 11:04am May 4, 2018 11:04am
Quoting yonnie
{quote} dont find this opinion very smart. when the going is good, milk it for as much as you can. tomorrow might be different. will a farmer ever stop making hay on a good day?
My mother used to say "Strike while the iron is hot". She was a farm girl and was talking about shoeing horses. And it is a good philosophy. But trading is very strenuous activity with staring at screen, keeping emotions in check, following your trading plans. It can wear you down and trading while tired is sure way to give back the profits. If I still feel well rested and not euphoric after I've hit targets I will continue on. If I feel like I am the king of the world, I take my profits and RUN
Ecclesiastes 1:9
  • #28
  • May 4, 2018 11:09am May 4, 2018 11:09am
Quoting yonnie
hi JustPipping, I dont think you get what I`m saying. If you cant make it work for the NY session, ofcourse you would not carry on. But what about your profitable London session? what would happen to your P&L if you decided that as soon as your reach your goal of 50 pips for that session, you quit for the day? that would not be very smart is it.
yonnie, If you can make 200 pips 3 times a week while trying to limit your drawdown, that makes a pretty decent living.
I try to work as systematically as possible and be very strict wich trade i take at what time point at certain candle closes.
So i do understand you but its not my tradingstyle. Strict 15 pip sl 50/80 pip target is what works for me.
Was slipping off the edge but i held up.
  • #29
  • May 4, 2018 11:29am May 4, 2018 11:29am
Quoting fxproUSA
{quote} ROFL hilarious ... i needed a good laugh .... so typical of newbie traders .... my sharp ratio os 3.9 and 80 % success rate !!! #1 rule in trading as a professional ... drill this into your brain EVERY DAY! STOP THINKING AND FOLLOW YOUR DAMN INDICATORS, PERIOD! # 2 take your ego out of the equation .,... ex. revenge trading and judge the situation dispassionately. they dont call me the dragon slayer for nothing ... ego maniac you say lol i can prove it ... i sheer sheeple everyday and i can prove it !!! are u " in the game" for the thrill...
Nice rules you have for you. I am stating my rules to help new traders or the "Almost There" traders to use it if it works for them. Some of my rules don't apply or may not work for others.

I also like to post my rules for me. I read them every morning before I go to work but they seem to come to life when I post them online.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
  • #31
  • May 4, 2018 11:45am May 4, 2018 11:45am
Any professionals here ?

If so how many pips you average monthly ?


Kind regards,

Goose
  • #32
  • May 4, 2018 1:08pm May 4, 2018 1:08pm
Quoting goose4
Any professionals here ? If so how many pips you average monthly ? Kind regards, Goose
It really depends on what you set as your goal and/or purpose for trading. My day trading is for income. Thus 1% is the daily goal. That is usually accomplished in 30pts. Lately the futures market has been so volatile that a 150 or move is nothing so I have been able to achieve the weekly goal in one or two trades. So tell me...why should I put any more at risk when the goal has been met?

Savings/growth is a little different...I use spot fx for that and the goal is 20-50% annually. That often plays out about every 6 months. I use much smaller position sizes and larger time frames to accomplish this so as to free up time. So this requires more pips to accomplish... usually between 500-1,000.
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  • #33
  • May 4, 2018 3:29pm May 4, 2018 3:29pm
The 2 things that made me profitable:

  1. Cutting my losers short while letting my winners run.
  2. Analysing my performance, CONSTANTLY.

I trade stocks, btw.

  • #34
  • May 4, 2018 8:23pm May 4, 2018 8:23pm
Quoting newbegger
{quote} Is this one of your normal strategies and did you follow your rules?
Yep! I like to cover the interest in my day trades with carry trades. OANDA bills continuously. I tend to only take carry trades that are going in the direction it needs to, to pay me interest. I typically don’t trade on margin.
  • #35
  • May 4, 2018 9:08pm May 4, 2018 9:08pm
I have few simplest rules but stick to them seriously.
If I see this and this and this, I will act like this and this this.
Lotta times traders are confused to buy or sell. I eliminate 1 of this (buy or sell), by having a bias at Daily Open. By having a definitive bias, I might loose few trades, buy I'm eliminating a bigger confusion. If the Price is above Weekly and Daily Open I BUY ONLY. Opposite is true for sell trades.
As somebody said rightly Once I collect my pips for the day, I take break. I have to Live as well, apart from trading.
Cheers
  • #36
  • May 4, 2018 9:45pm May 4, 2018 9:45pm
Quoting DonPato
{quote} Sorry to hear that... {quote} So true...the only issue is, for how long will the "going be good"? One day? one week? 10 more minutes? The problem is the "going is good" until it isn't and you never know when that will be. No one ever went broke taking profits consistently. What people go broke doing is trading "while the going is good" even when it has ceased to be good...then they keep trading anyway. Or they go broke holding that once very profitable trade until it stops out with way less than they had if they just set a limit and take...
I thought this thread is about professional traders, not the amateurs you are talking about in your post.
as long as the market is in my favour, I keep going.
there will be plenty of days, when nothing much happens and I`ll just shut down the computer then.
two different opinions and everybody can take from it what works best for them.
  • #37
  • May 4, 2018 10:42pm May 4, 2018 10:42pm
"try to avoid risk"
every bad things happened to do not maintains this.
  • #38
  • May 4, 2018 11:52pm May 4, 2018 11:52pm
[quote=DonPato;11028490]{quote} you never know when that will be. No one ever went broke taking profits consistently. What people go broke doing is trading "while the going is good" even when it has ceased to be good...then they keep trading anyway. /quote]

Your post is very revealing about your nature or the nature of whom you speak. Your attitude reflects your weakness and how that weakness controls you or them. Just because you or they don't know when to stop, doesn't make anyone else not know.

I would be remiss if I did not add, this does not mistake you for a bad trader, a loser, etc. This is not an insult, nor is it indictment. It is a statement, like my admission of being horrible at math. It is reminiscent of you lacking a certain perspective.

It's like a trader saying, "Moving averages are worthless!" because he found a method that is better. Meanwhile, many traders have used and continue to use moving average as the base of their trading plans. What's missing: Any method requires good trading and good trading requires discipline. How the discipline is mapped out, depends on the trader.

Good trading requires that self discipline. When we overcome such weaknesses - weaknesses that vary from each of us and guide our early perspectives - we lose the emotional desire to exclaim such mischievous profundities in generalizations while knowing that some things remain true. Some things really are universal with trading, like the math that concludes account explosions.

When we become emotionally detached such conversations become boring or annoying. Yet, it is a reality for all of us from time to time.
  • #39
  • May 5, 2018 1:13am May 5, 2018 1:13am
Quoting newbegger
First off, some housekeeping. Let's face the facts before we get too excited and start counting are millions. 80% of new businesses fail in first 18 months 90% of new businesses fail in first 5 years and according to Inc. magazine, 96% fail within first 10 years. Grim stats indeed and this should tell you this is not an easy endeavor, to run a successful business. And if you want to make money as a trader, you are in the business of speculation. Before I leave this thought, you should be aware that the markets are rigged. Yes, the markets are a...
Thanks for posting this newbegger! Good stuff Sir and please keep it coming.
  • #40
  • Edited 6:09am May 5, 2018 5:48am | Edited 6:09am
If you want my "advice"..

think well before taking a decision..

if you're going to deposit 50 dollars, think about it 5 times.
if you're going to deposit 500 dollars, think about it at least 50 times.

And so on..

how long will it take to decide ? who cares! better safe than sorry.
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