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The brutal truth of day trading

  • #1,681
  • Jul 5, 2021 4:30pm Jul 5, 2021 4:30pm
Quoting gepards
I pay nothing for now. Peter (Tim? who cares...) explained the "strategy" in general. All for free. It's hard for me clearly understand jet all that concept. But only few days of learning. It is not "get and use" blueprint... you know... It's more way of thinking stuff. But yes I saw several signals from Peter and them were amazing. Please do not offend me because I am positive towards Peter. Time will tell. You see my account attached to TE - all exposed. Peter have his own concerns how he comunicates. He explained to me... long story but I think...
As you see my account 100 usd related to Peter strategy wiped out. It is ok. It was my experiment with manual trading. Tinny fraction of my capital allocated to forex trading. It was "reconnaissance with battle".

I am not a manual trader. I have profitable accounts only with automated systems. You can see in myfxbook some good results.

Quoting gepards
Easy to trade when know trend in long term. For blue-chip companies, long-term trend is UP. Because pension funds buy blue-chip stocks no matter what price. Therefore there is always demand and pressure to go UP.
Tnx to my investors who see potential in my easy & robust system. Backtested 10 years buy the dips on MSFT. Survived covid crash and 2018 usa-china related stocks down trend. Today noticed >90k usd invested in my trading system

I do not post links here and blurred my nickname in FXCopy service screenshot - not a commercial post. Just some good news wish to share in this thread which is full of negativity. You see even with 100 usd account it is possible to earn good money for a living. And not take huge risks. Investors like low-risk trading.

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: msft_investors_90k.png Size: 22 KB


This account from the screenshot is attached to my thread TE. All audited, all exposed & transparent. You can see each trade. Previously in this thread, I described strategy.
  • #1,682
  • Jul 6, 2021 7:21am Jul 6, 2021 7:21am
Quoting gepards
Tnx to my investors who see potential in my easy & robust system. Backtested 10 years buy the dips on MSFT. Survived covid crash and 2018 usa-china related stocks down trend.
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
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I see averaging used. Is there some SL or limited averaging levels count?
  • #1,683
  • Jul 6, 2021 9:01am Jul 6, 2021 9:01am
Quoting joyny
I see averaging used. Is there some SL or limited averaging levels count?
Yes, there is SL 23% (with 100 usd account SL will be 23 USD). Can be opened max 2 levels. See here backtest result 4 moments when SL was hit and all recovered:

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
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All can be scaled proportionally by investor account. See here scaling results from 1k to 22k in 8 years using compounding:

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: msft_scale.png Size: 82 KB


Might be 35% drawdown, sitting in dd max was 3 months. Patience is required to be successful.

If want less dd % then increase the initial account size accordingly. For example, 200 usd account dd might be 17%.

If for some reason MSFT becomes bad company like it was with General Electric from 2017 (corruptive TOP managers, bad money management in the company) then this strategy might not be so good. It still perform good when no trend (flat). But with a steady downtrend like GE from 2017 that can be a disaster. So I am monitoring news regarding MSFT frequently and will shut down trading if serious problems arise with management. 30% stock crash is no problem. When 40% down will analyze fundamentals of MSFT to decide is it ok to bet on recovery. Will see. For now, all future estimations for Microsoft are very optimistic. Sales are perfect.

The potential for MSFT stock price is similar to Amazon (target 3000 usd in 5 years). Besides - Amazon started to go in flat... Bezos step down. Will see how Amazon will go and maybe some part of the money from Amazon stocks will migrate to MSFT.
  • #1,684
  • Jul 6, 2021 11:20am Jul 6, 2021 11:20am
Quoting TraderTim125
"The Risk Is Right When You Sleep at Night" Hi Rick, {quote} This is quite possibly true. Without seeing their accounts (or their drawdown) it is hard to know. What I said in an earlier post is that Profit is proportional to Capital x Risk x Edge From what I have seen, many inexperienced retail traders try to compensate for a weak edge with excessive risk because they focus too much on profit instead of good trading practice. The obsession that I observe time and again on this forum seems to be "Look at how much money I am making" instead of "This...
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...3518/2mp12.jpg row row row your boat, 65 days live, its possible to those who believe
  • #1,685
  • Jul 6, 2021 5:46pm Jul 6, 2021 5:46pm
Hey All,

I been in the game for over 20 years and from my experience, I have seen people succeed and fail trading every time-frame, every market. What I have learned is there is no right or wrong way to trade. There is only successful and unsuccessful.

In my time, I have traded everything from tick charts to weekly and everything in between. For myself, I settle on 4 Hour, Daily and Weekly depending on what market I am looking at. In general I consider myself a swing trader by definition.

There are some truths out there that people do not want to believe.

Truth. The mechanics of trading are easy to learn and understand if you have some basic knowledge of the markets.

Truth. Controlling yourself while trading is difficult. That is why 95% lose.

Truth. Every trader has lied about a success or failure. Ego is a b***h.

Truth. Day trading is what brokers want. Out of the 500 votes I see on top, 86% identify as day traders or scalpers. Happy brokers.

Truth. Brokers hate swing, position, investor class traders. They do not make much money from us.

Truth. Some of you just do not have it in you to trade. Move on.

Truth. People who blame brokers for losses need to grow up.

Truth. Trading is a business and should be treated as such.

Truth. There is no real FAST way to make money.

I could go on but you get the point.

I will say that I personally know traders who make money day trading. To be fair, the successful ones I know do hyper specialize. For example, a colleague of mine is very good at day trading the Russell 2000 E-Mini. She likes it because it fits her life and she fully understands what it is made of, how it moves. Another friend only trades the first 3 hours after London opens strictly on the GBP/USD. Are they trading wrong? I would say no considering they make a good amount of their living from trading profits.

All in all, if you can make consistent profits that grow year over year and you are able to adjust to the changes in the markets, you are trading correctly. It does not matter what you are trading or even how, what matters is are you really making money or just playing around. Only YOU know the truth.

Good luck

- Ric
Be humble or get humbled
  • #1,686
  • Jul 6, 2021 9:23pm Jul 6, 2021 9:23pm
Quoting riclater211
Hey All, I been in the game for over 20 years and from my experience, I have seen people succeed and fail trading every time-frame, every market. What I have learned is there is no right or wrong way to trade. There is only successful and unsuccessful. In my time, I have traded everything from tick charts to weekly and everything in between. For myself, I settle on 4 Hour, Daily and Weekly depending on what market I am looking at. In general I consider myself a swing trader by definition. There are some truths out there that people do not want to...
Hi Ric

You made some great points in your post, but one in particular I feel is the reason most traders fail.

Truth is they never specialize in anything so are very average in everything.
If you are average, its going to be very hard to make consistent profits as a trader.

As an example, I trade just one time frame, one pair, one strategy.
So I trade the M1 chart only without any higher time frame references looking at trading only liquidity imbalances on EURUSD.
On occasions I will trade imbalances on AUDUSD & Gold but 95% its EURUSD.

My angle has always being "Understand the pair you trade better than your partner"

Cheers Rick
Trading thin liquidity at the boundary of the charts
  • #1,687
  • Jul 6, 2021 9:54pm Jul 6, 2021 9:54pm
Quoting RickM
{quote} Hi Ric You made some great points in your post, but one in particular I feel is the reason most traders fail. Truth is they never specialize in anything so are very average in everything. If you are average, its going to be very hard to make consistent profits as a trader. As an example, I trade just one time frame, one pair, one strategy. So I trade the M1 chart only without any higher time frame references looking at trading only liquidity imbalances on EURUSD. On occasions I will trade imbalances on AUDUSD & Gold but 95% its EURUSD....
Truth is most ppl specialise in nothing. All they do is guessing. They become losers and naysayers. This and that can't be done.
Know what you trade
  • #1,688
  • Jul 6, 2021 9:56pm Jul 6, 2021 9:56pm
BUT

These two simple rules would make many traders profitable very quickly.

The first one I still break to this very day. I had to install a money jar in my trading den and it still doesn’t work.
Every time I average down, I place a $10 note in the jar in an attempt to stop this action. Last week I had earned $160 for myself ha ha.

Rule 1…. Never average down
Rule 2….. If the trade is wrong. Get the hell out.

Cheers (how can I spend that $160)
Trading thin liquidity at the boundary of the charts
  • #1,689
  • Jul 6, 2021 9:58pm Jul 6, 2021 9:58pm
Quoting RickM
BUT These two simple rules would make many traders profitable very quickly. The first one I still break to this very day. I had to install a money jar in my trading den and it still doesn’t work. Every time I average down, I place a $10 note in the jar in an attempt to stop this action. Last week I had earned $160 for myself ha ha. Rule 1…. Never average down Rule 2….. If the trade is wrong. Get the hell out. Cheers (how can I spend that $160)
I NEVER average down. One signal one entry with fixed stop loss and tp placed by the EA at time of entry. Price either hit SL or 15pips tp. If there's no 15pips tp no point execute trade.
Know what you trade
  • #1,690
  • Jul 6, 2021 10:08pm Jul 6, 2021 10:08pm
Quoting BWilliam
{quote} Truth is most ppl specialise in nothing. All they do is guessing. They become losers and naysayers. This and that can't be done.
Hi Buddy

You nailed it yet again.
Don’t forget to drop into the Cave.

Trading thin liquidity at the boundary of the charts
  • #1,691
  • Jul 6, 2021 10:30pm Jul 6, 2021 10:30pm
Quoting RickM
BUT These two simple rules would make many traders profitable very quickly. The first one I still break to this very day. I had to install a money jar in my trading den and it still doesn’t work. Every time I average down, I place a $10 note in the jar in an attempt to stop this action. Last week I had earned $160 for myself ha ha. Rule 1…. Never average down Rule 2….. If the trade is wrong. Get the hell out. Cheers (how can I spend that $160)
Rick, spam that like other supposed traders spam BS.
If you are good at something, never do it for free--Joker
  • #1,692
  • Jul 6, 2021 10:32pm Jul 6, 2021 10:32pm
Quoting BWilliam
{quote} Truth is most ppl specialise in nothing. All they do is guessing. They become losers and naysayers. This and that can't be done.
They do specialize in something.

Excuses.

I learned this very young: Excuses are tools of the incompetent that build monuments to nothing, and those that excel in them seldom achieve anything else.
If you are good at something, never do it for free--Joker
  • #1,693
  • Jul 6, 2021 10:51pm Jul 6, 2021 10:51pm
Quoting RickM
(how can I spend that $160)
Doesn't sound like much of a punishment if you're just going to turn around and spend the average down money on yourself. I'd probably donate it to a charity of some sort.
  • #1,694
  • Jul 6, 2021 11:28pm Jul 6, 2021 11:28pm
Quoting gepards
{quote} Yes, there is SL 23% (with 100 usd account SL will be 23 USD). Can be opened max 2 levels. See here backtest result 4 moments when SL was hit and all recovered: {image} All can be scaled proportionally by investor account. See here scaling results from 1k to 22k in 8 years using compounding: {image} Might be 35% drawdown, sitting in dd max was 3 months. Patience is required to be successful. If want less dd % then increase the initial account size accordingly. For example, 200 usd account dd might be 17%. If for some reason MSFT becomes...
Hey gepards!

1. Sitting in drawdown longer than a week is not acceptable.
2. 35% drawdown is also not acceptable. If you had that much draw, you sat through a deep pullback. Why not trade it?
3. Backtesting is the bane of all traders. You are modelling the past and expecting the future will be the same.

I would like to talk about it. It might be helpful to us as traders. Are you willing?
If you are good at something, never do it for free--Joker
  • #1,695
  • Jul 6, 2021 11:39pm Jul 6, 2021 11:39pm
Quoting RickM
Rule 1…. Never average down Rule 2….. If the trade is wrong. Get the hell out.
Averaging is just a tool. If have SL for all opened levels total drawdown then it is safe approach.

Problem is when all levels must be closed. You still have money on account and you can afford to open 3 more levels but you have to close all and accept loses.
  • #1,696
  • Jul 6, 2021 11:57pm Jul 6, 2021 11:57pm
Quoting RickM
BUT These two simple rules would make many traders profitable very quickly. The first one I still break to this very day. I had to install a money jar in my trading den and it still doesn’t work. Every time I average down, I place a $10 note in the jar in an attempt to stop this action. Last week I had earned $160 for myself ha ha. Rule 1…. Never average down Rule 2….. If the trade is wrong. Get the hell out. Cheers (how can I spend that $160)
Hi RickM,
Makes me wonder.
Was this averaging for which you paid a $ 160 penalty fine a gain or a loss?
  • #1,697
  • Jul 6, 2021 11:59pm Jul 6, 2021 11:59pm
Quoting Anotan
{quote} Doesn't sound like much of a punishment if you're just going to turn around and spend the average down money on yourself. I'd probably donate it to a charity of some sort.
It started in December when I had two bad trading days.
My wife suggested a gold coin fee into the coin jar to help remind me to follow my trading plan.
Four months later I was still taking a few averaging down trades when I should have cut the trades.
I upped the amount to $10 per trade.

That’s a good idea, a I’ll do that in August.

Cheers
Trading thin liquidity at the boundary of the charts
  • #1,698
  • Jul 7, 2021 12:56am Jul 7, 2021 12:56am
tnx jmn5611 for constructive questions!

I observed various assets - currencies, indices, commodities, stocks. Observations were done with EAs... a lot of EAs... hundreds (maybe thousands) of optimizations and backtests and I saw some characteristics of assets.

Quoting jmn5611
1. Sitting in drawdown longer than a week is not acceptable.
When I invest in other projects I might sit in drawdown for about 1 year. So a week or several month's drawdowns is not a big deal for an investor. This might be the difference between business owners and employees. Most employees can't afford drawdown for more than 1 week. They live from paycheck to paycheck without savings. Business owners have deeper pockets to finance new project development. To pay salaries. To buy stuff needed for projects development. Business owners can wait... And this is a must-have skill - patience.

Quoting jmn5611
2. 35% drawdown is also not acceptable. If you had that much draw, you sat through a deep pullback. Why not trade it?
Good question! Before trading any asset you have to do some analysis. Pullbacks... ok. What moment do you decide MSFT have a pullback and you need to exit BUY (with losses) and start to SELL ? 5% price down? 10% price down? When to start to SELL MSFT stock?

When stocks go down there is always some "red news"... for example, bad earnings report. Some disasters with the environment. Some accidents in factories. When shit happens (and it happens in 100% of businesses frequently) then there is some kind of reaction in markets. Price drops. Bill Gates divorced... drop 5%. Exchange servers hacked - again some % drop.

When you observe history you see how deep pullbacks +/- are. In the case of Microsoft operational issues - pullbacks no more than 5-15%. 15% very rare. If the global stocks market crashes (2008, usa-china, Covid) then yes MSFT stock can crash max 50%. Covid crash was less than 30% for MSFT. Here for a global crash, you need SL. But for minor pullbacks you can stay with opened BUY and wait (or open additional BUY because - hey, the good stuff just get cheaper).

I would never go against the trend with SELL. For MSFT longterm trend is UP. Only BUYs. Pullbacks are relatively short-living for MSFT and other strong/good companies stocks (FB, Google, CRM etc).

Most important criteria for good company is what? TOP management. Apple, MSFT, Oracle, Google - all have very good/skilled TOP managers. When that change - that is a very RED signal to observe. Because with bad (or corruptive management like in General Electric was) - there are bad deals and weak pushing on problems solving and bad strategical decisions. When a company changes CEOs - this is the most important point needed to observe. All the rest issues - no worries if good managers. Good CEOs will deal with any obstacle. CEO's charisma will give energy to all employees.

Quoting jmn5611
3. Backtesting is the bane of all traders. You are modelling the past and expecting the future will be the same.
Optimization/backtests is must-have. This is how you learn an asset. You see statistics on how deep pullbacks. When better to set SL. When better to exit a trade. This is an experience you get in several hours simulating several years. You simulate forward tests also. So to avoid over-optimization what is the issue you mention.

If you don't look at the past... what chances are you understand the asset? You must have some expertise... in anything you do. Optimizations/backtests provide that knowledge.

I do in my regular business estimations and risks calculations for any new project based on previously done projects info. The same in trading. Without backtest/optimizations you are blind.
  • #1,699
  • Jul 7, 2021 1:02am Jul 7, 2021 1:02am
Quoting joyny
{quote} Averaging is just a tool. If have SL for all opened levels total drawdown then it is safe approach. Problem is when all levels must be closed. You still have money on account and you can afford to open 3 more levels but you have to close all and accept loses.
Hi joyny

Yes it’s a tool but used by average traders to disguise bad entry’s.
You can include me in that group as well as I am guilty in a handful trades a week of averaging down as well (I average 200 trades a week).

Any one can be a average trader and average down all day long but doesn’t our equity accounts deserve more respect.

Your example is valid if we have discipline to follow it.

Cheers
Trading thin liquidity at the boundary of the charts
  • #1,700
  • Jul 7, 2021 2:39am Jul 7, 2021 2:39am
Quoting gepards
tnx jmn5611 for constructive questions! I observed various assets - currencies, indices, commodities, stocks. Observations were done with EAs... a lot of EAs... hundreds (maybe thousands) of optimizations and backtests and I saw some characteristics of assets. {quote} When I invest in other projects I might sit in drawdown for about 1 year. So a week or several month's drawdowns is not a big deal for an investor. This might be the difference between business owners and employees. Most employees can't afford drawdown for more than 1 week. They live...
Finally! A smart guy!

1. If you are an investor, that is fine. A trader will not sit through a week of drawdown. I will not sit through a day if the pull back exceeds a certain level. As background, I work in the medical field, and no, I do not touch any patients unless I have an instrument in my hand. No, I am not licensed to practice medicine. I put that in there because I can afford to trade, and I think you should know that, so that we can continue to have robust conversations. You put work in your post without being adversarial and I deeply appreciate that.
2. It sounds like your pockets can handle this. You can hold a long and buy puts or simply go short in another account. You can also put on a broken wing butterfly or set up a condor or a calendar spread expecting that you will not hit the strike that will cost you some money.
3. I hear you about backtesting. I have never found a backtesting software since 1999 that will accurately model. And even if I did, it is still a model. You can do that on excel if you understand some statistics. Just my take.
If you are good at something, never do it for free--Joker
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