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Living in China, trading for a living 18 replies

1 trade per pair per year 6 replies

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Trading for a living

  • #421
  • Oct 31, 2025 10:07am Oct 31, 2025 10:07am
Quoting Thadfinch
{quote} Let’s see how that USDPLN signal plays out.
The signal alerts when the first 2 conditions are met. Then the other subsequent conditions must be met to actually enter and those subsequent conditions never materialized so this was a no trade as shown below:


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  • #422
  • Oct 31, 2025 10:13am Oct 31, 2025 10:13am
Quoting sharingan9
{quote} The signal alerts when the first 2 conditions are met. Then the other subsequent conditions must be met to actually enter and those subsequent conditions never materialized so this was a no trade as shown below: {image}
Just got a signal on EURPLN though. Lets see if it develops into an eligible trade.

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  • #423
  • Oct 31, 2025 11:00am Oct 31, 2025 11:00am
Quoting medici
{quote} {quote} Yes, I know the general kind but haven't kept up to date. It's been a while. But I'm sure many still use TT (Trading Technologies) as a generic trading platform. The algo world has a lot of specialised tools for every little bit all the way to specialised networking facilities for high-speed transmissions of orders. Still, it can still be run by somebody's Excel spreadsheet with some Excel Add-ins written in C++ pulling the strings. At least, I've written such add-ins many years ago that took a lot of cpu power...
Thanks. Good info. I've heard of TT.

Today I tried trading the DAX manually, based on my discretion, using a classic candlestick chart, but once again I realized such "style" is not for me. 4 losses in a row. I don't think a less volatile market would have helped me any more. I was also monitoring the E-mini futures contract and GBP/USD but they all looked equally chaotic. I've watched/traded on a 5-minute chart.

There's just absolutely no structure most of the time? It just goes up, down, up, down, up, down with price going all over the place. If I try to trade a breakout from a range, it goes down. If I try selling tops or buy bottoms, it starts going in the opposite direction :/

Maybe if you look on a Weekly Chart but that probably doesn't help me in realizing shorter-term goals like a profitable min. monthly or quarterly result.

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  • #424
  • Oct 31, 2025 11:36am Oct 31, 2025 11:36am
Quoting sharingan9
Ok. Looking at a short of sgdchf but its a daily R1 so we will see how much we get from it.
Get the signal, confirm other conditions are met, take the trade.

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  • #425
  • Oct 31, 2025 11:40am Oct 31, 2025 11:40am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Today I tried trading the DAX manually, based on my discretion, using a classic candlestick chart, but once again I realized such "style" is not for me. 4 losses in a row. I don't think a less volatile market would have helped me any more. I was also monitoring the E-mini futures contract and GBP/USD but they all looked equally chaotic. I've watched/traded on a 5-minute chart.
I happily confess that I am no good at trading with traditional time-based charts. Too much noise most of the time. Sure, it's easy when the markets are really moving, but then anything goes. And DAX I try to avoid. Too low liquidity and too much algo manipulation as a consequence.

GBP/USD is very tradeable with the methods I've indicated here, but perhaps not this afternoon. Out of the e-minis, the YM is the easiest to trade, even on a 1 minute chart, I believe, even though I'd prefer a time-independent price representation - tick, Renko, or range bar charts.

Quote
There's just absolutely no structure most of the time? It just goes up, down, up, down, up, down with price going all over the place. If I try to trade a breakout from a range, it goes down. If I try selling tops or buy bottoms, it starts going in the opposite direction :/

That varies, of course, but trying to trade the way you seemed to do here - discretionary based on patterns that you happen to be noticing - is doomed to fail. You need a plan using patterns that you know repeat, and then not stick your neck when you see the market just bobbing up and down. And it's Friday, and the last day of the month - generally contexts to avoid.

Quote
Maybe if you look on a Weekly Chart but that probably doesn't help me in realizing shorter-term goals like a profitable min. monthly or quarterly result. {image}

Yes, in the short-term the short-term trend beats the long-term trend. in the long-term the long-term trend beats the short-term trend.
  • #426
  • Oct 31, 2025 11:50am Oct 31, 2025 11:50am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} .....and GBP/USD but they all looked equally chaotic.
Using the method suggested earlier there would have been this TSI divergence reversal trade. Entry around 3.45 pm CET. 20 pips for 14 pip risk. Not sure I would have been tempted.
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  • #427
  • Oct 31, 2025 11:56am Oct 31, 2025 11:56am
Quoting medici
{quote} I happily confess that I am no good at trading with traditional time-based charts. Too much noise most of the time. Sure, it's easy when the markets are really moving, but then anything goes. And DAX I try to avoid. Too low liquidity and too much algo manipulation as a consequence. GBP/USD is very tradeable with the methods I've indicated here, but perhaps not this afternoon. Out of the e-minis, the YM is the easiest to trade, even on a 1 minute chart, I believe, even though I'd prefer a time-independent price representation - tick, Renko,...
Here's the chart with my explanations and my thoughts.

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- The trend looked upwards = 1st BUY order.
- 2nd BUY order = (attempt to increase the position)
- 3rd BUY order (Already slightly annoyed. Thoughts, "Now the trend is going in the opposite direction, so what's the point of the damn "trend" if it changes the moment you enter the trade").
- The "trend" indicated it was about to reverse again. 4th BUY order (It has to work eventually...)
- No, not really. Closed.

See how good trying to trade with the "trend" works for me? Not only was my win rate. 0%, but my risk and trade management were also disastrous because, as I said, there was no plan in advance and price simply going all over the place. I can't trade like that. The only result is that I burn money and waste my time needlessly staring at a crappy chart where the price changes direction every minute. I have no idea how people with this "feel-good" style achieve lasting success or even survive a week.
  • #428
  • Oct 31, 2025 12:14pm Oct 31, 2025 12:14pm
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Here's the chart with my explanations and my thoughts. {image} - The trend looked upwards = 1st BUY order. - 2nd BUY order = (attempt to increase the position) - 3rd BUY order (Already slightly annoyed. Thoughts, "Now the trend is going in the opposite direction, so what's the point of the damn "trend" if it changes the moment you enter the trade"). - The "trend" indicated it was about to reverse again. 4th BUY order (It has to work eventually...) - No, not really. Closed. See how good trying to trade with the "trend" works for me? Not only...
I can understand your frustration....but, like you say, no plan. And trading without a plan never works. And the way you think of "trend" is likely to get you screwed repeatedly in intraday markets.

A few concepts of ICT would have enabled you to trade this profitably. Or plain Wyckoff theory. What happened at top some would, in ICT terms, call a Silver Bullet setup for a short. I'll post a few words on that when I have the time, but now weekend. Hoch die Hände, Wochenende!

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  • #429
  • Oct 31, 2025 12:15pm Oct 31, 2025 12:15pm
And another fifth BUY attempt for today. Didn't even set a stop loss. I'll just let it run, maybe over the weekend. I'm really annoyed that I crashed my ORB plan, which had at least been profitable so far, with a single manual discretionary day without a plan. I have no idea how many points I'm down. But -1.3% for today, and the week was actually pretty good overall. I needed another +0.5% for my initial capitalization with Darwinex. I probably won't manage that now. The month is over.

I'm going to treat myself to a bottle of wine now and continue working on my three different five-year plans. Perhaps a career as a garbage collector would be more suitable for me.

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  • #430
  • Oct 31, 2025 1:22pm Oct 31, 2025 1:22pm
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Here's the chart with my explanations and my thoughts. {image} - The trend looked upwards = 1st BUY order. - 2nd BUY order = (attempt to increase the position) - 3rd BUY order (Already slightly annoyed. Thoughts, "Now the trend is going in the opposite direction, so what's the point of the damn "trend" if it changes the moment you enter the trade"). - The "trend" indicated it was about to reverse again. 4th BUY order (It has to work eventually...) - No, not really. Closed. See how good trying to trade with the "trend" works for me? Not only...
Your initial entry was way too late my friend and your subsequent entries are right after the perception changes to bearish since bullish trend hit its target. Buddy trends can end at any time. I call it trendend. Perceptions of value can change quickly so get in when a new perception has just been formed. I took your exact trade setup and mapped out where your entry should have been according to 3 Keys auction logic. You should long closer to the interpretation that caused the up move in the first place. See your exact setup below with notes that show the same setup Ive been showing. Read notes carefully:

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  • #431
  • Oct 31, 2025 2:33pm Oct 31, 2025 2:33pm
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Here's the chart with my explanations and my thoughts. {image} - The trend looked upwards = 1st BUY order. - 2nd BUY order = (attempt to increase the position) - 3rd BUY order (Already slightly annoyed. Thoughts, "Now the trend is going in the opposite direction, so what's the point of the damn "trend" if it changes the moment you enter the trade"). - The "trend" indicated it was about to reverse again. 4th BUY order (It has to work eventually...) - No, not really. Closed. See how good trying to trade with the "trend" works for me? Not only...
Here's my chart with explanations, showing why the trend was down throughout, and what 150 points short you missed by having too nearsighted a focus.

As for your last trade: trading DAX while the US equities markets are open can be tricky due to correlations. Better to trade the US indices during those hours.
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  • #432
  • Oct 31, 2025 4:37pm Oct 31, 2025 4:37pm
Quoting Thadfinch
{quote} Let’s see how that USDPLN signal plays out.
Quoting sharingan9
{quote} The signal alerts when the first 2 conditions are met. Then the other subsequent conditions must be met to actually enter and those subsequent conditions never materialized so this was a no trade as shown below: {image}
Quoting sharingan9
{quote} Just got a signal on EURPLN though. Lets see if it develops into an eligible trade. {image}
After the EURPLN signal all of the additional conditions were met so I sold:

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The spread on this pair is crazy though but spreads should be normal come next week. Same setup. Also had a signal on USDSEK

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  • #433
  • Edited 5:38am Nov 1, 2025 5:12am | Edited 5:38am
Quoting medici
{quote} Here's my chart with explanations, showing why the trend was down throughout, and what 150 points short you missed by having too nearsighted a focus. As for your last trade: trading DAX while the US equities markets are open can be tricky due to correlations. Better to trade the US indices during those hours. {image}

Thank you so much for taking the time to mark and explain the chart. Yes, looking back, I made pretty much every mistake in the book. I tried to trade in real time based on what I thought I saw at the time, and that turned out to be a bad idea. That's just how it goes. As I said, I'm not good at manually analyzing charts and then trading based on them. The first mistake was even trying.

Mistakes

- No predefined plan with clear entry and exit rules that I could backtest beforehand and that offers a positive expectation.
- No well-thought-out risk management
- No time management; instead, I traded at random times of day. As you said, the last trade was even for the DAX during the US session, without considering that it was the last day of the month, etc.
- No emotional control during active trade management; I tried to control trades based on feelings instead of clear rules.
- And probably much more.

I've already looked into the ICT Silver Bullet thing some years ago, but it's too subjective for me, and generally, I'm not particularly convinced by these ICT concepts. I have no idea what a fair value gap is, nor do I want to know. As far as I know, these are terms that were coined by ICT, probably because they sound "fancy" from a marketing perspective, even though they're likely all things that have always existed in the markets under different names long before the ICT hype.

This all just reinforces my "belief" (haha) that, as I said, I'm not a good subjective chart reader/trader. I don't want to trade based on gut feeling in real time and actively manage trades instead of following a clearly defined plan/strategy that considers all the important elements, such as a clearly defined entry signal, an exit signal, risk management, time management, etc. Not to mention WHAT market I should even be trading and whether it will work within the trading time I have available leading to the minimum goal I have to make. I only tried trading the DAX on a whim because the chart happened to be open.

As I said, I have absolutely no plan, and there are so many concepts and strategies, but none of them will help me if I don't know exactly what I have to do and whether they can lead to the necessary goals. I'll take a closer look at your Renko strategy in the next few days. Perhaps it's something that can give me more structure/a daily routine, and maybe even be automated. I'd rather not waste any more time trading like I did yesterday, just burning money and, even worse, wasting my time.

As if that weren't enough problems, there's also the whole drama of "alpha decay," etc., and people who say strategies suddenly stop working. Then I wonder, what's the point of trying to find a strategy that might work for a few months only to completely fail a while later? I don't have the time or inclination to constantly adjust and search for new strategies. If such a strategy doesn't exist, maybe it would be better to have several automated trading systems in one portfolio or something, but I'm already having trouble finding even a single halfway decent system (apart from the ORB, which is at least somewhat profitable so far).

I'm starting to really think that trading for consistent profits is practically impossible. One should be wealthy beforehand if one wants to make a "living" from it, and probably won't even attempt to be consistently profitable with one thing in the long term, but instead might try to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible, in order to then invest it in some ETFs, Fonds, Stocks or whatever with no leverage and a long-term horizon.
  • #434
  • Nov 1, 2025 8:52am Nov 1, 2025 8:52am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Thank you so much for taking the time to mark and explain the chart. Yes, looking back, I made pretty much every mistake in the book. I tried to trade in real time based on what I thought I saw at the time, and that turned out to be a bad idea. That's just how it goes. As I said, I'm not good at manually analyzing charts and then trading based on them. The first mistake was even trying. Mistakes - No predefined plan with clear entry and exit rules that I could backtest beforehand and that offers a positive expectation. - No well-thought-out...
Right, and what are you going to do about all of that?
  • #435
  • Nov 1, 2025 9:46am Nov 1, 2025 9:46am
Quoting medici
{quote} Right, and what are you going to do about all of that?
Yes, that's a good question. As I've mentioned before, I think that without direct help from someone who knows what to do to achieve the results I need, I won't be able to progress further in trading. Otherwise, I probably would have achieved them by now after all this time. Therefore, I'll probably have to accept the idea that I can't make a living from trading and see what else I can do.
  • #436
  • Nov 1, 2025 10:02am Nov 1, 2025 10:02am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Yes, that's a good question. As I've mentioned before, I think that without direct help from someone who knows what to do to achieve the results I need, I won't be able to progress further in trading. Otherwise, I probably would have achieved them by now after all this time. Therefore, I'll probably have to accept the idea that I can't make a living from trading and see what else I can do.
But various people here have offered direct help in the ways they see fit, but you have taken none of it on board. And you need to accept that even with direct help, you need to do your own work, and build the skills needed to achieve your goals. You have shown no tendencies to want to do that.

Thus the question: What are you going to do about all that?
  • #437
  • Nov 1, 2025 10:48am Nov 1, 2025 10:48am
Quoting Noisy
As if that weren't enough problems, there's also the whole drama of "alpha decay," etc., and people who say strategies suddenly stop working. Then I wonder, what's the point of trying to find a strategy that might work for a few months only to completely fail a while later?
I've been using the same strategy for over 20 years. It continues to "work" because the controlling and operational forces of the forex have not changed in that time. Their technology and their methods have changed, but the underlying rules and processes have not. I can't speak to trading equity indexes (I invest in equities but don't trade them) or bonds (most of my trading group consists of successful bond traders who would confirm what I am telling you), but trading foreign currencies requires a great deal more work and study than simply finding a strategy. Your experiences up to now seem to confirm this. Think carefully about your next move.
  • #438
  • Nov 1, 2025 11:08am Nov 1, 2025 11:08am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Yes, that's a good question. As I've mentioned before, I think that without direct help from someone who knows what to do to achieve the results I need, I won't be able to progress further in trading. Otherwise, I probably would have achieved them by now after all this time. Therefore, I'll probably have to accept the idea that I can't make a living from trading and see what else I can do.
I said I wasn't going to post again and I hope this doesn't make you feel worse. Take a break, a week off from this forum. Then, after the break, try going through a training manual I'm putting together. I think it will help, but you will need a break, as saying no point, I've seen this type of talk before. If I put the keys to a vault in front of you, when you're feeling like this, you won't see the vault. Take a break, don't go anywhere near this forum or trading for a week or two. Everything I've written in that thread is all that you need to do this for a living, I'm not bullshiting; there is complete detail in it, but you need to be positive and commit some time to it, bit of patience and if you want it that much, you can do it.
  • #439
  • Edited 2:22am Nov 2, 2025 1:07am | Edited 2:22am
My trading account is called "No Point Trading". You're not ready to see the vault, after a break you will see the door is wide open

(I know you will be reading forum today)
  • #440
  • Nov 3, 2025 12:29pm Nov 3, 2025 12:29pm
Quoting medici
{quote} But various people here have offered direct help in the ways they see fit, but you have taken none of it on board. And you need to accept that even with direct help, you need to do your own work, and build the skills needed to achieve your goals. You have shown no tendencies to want to do that. Thus the question: What are you going to do about all that?
Hi All,

I don't think it's entirely fair to say that I haven't shown any inclination to do the necessary work. It's just that I haven't made much progress with everything I've tried so far I've looked at all the approaches that have been explained here, but I'm not getting anywhere. My energy/hope is therefore somewhat depleted.

I can't understand Thtpro's ideas and have no idea how to use them to create a concrete trading model that will get me to my goal. Your suggestion of the ORB version (TradingView) is something I haven't tried/backtested yet, but it's still on my to-do list. The Renko approach on GBP/USD sounds tempting, but as you said yourself, there still seem to be many unresolved questions where I can't make any progress on my own and where you only said you couldn't offer direct and on how I could create a concrete trading plan with rules that could be backtested and, if necessary, allow for manual trading on a daily basis during the times available to me.

What T721 suggested in relation to GBP/USD and liquidity sweeps, also seems too rather unclear to me, similar to the ICT Silver Bullet thing and other "SMC" concepts. GEFx has only offered some general advice, such as that it requires a lot of work, or comments that I should leave it alone and stop posting here. I also can't glean anything useful from what Sharingan9 has shared here so far here either. I don't see any system/strategy that I could implement from it, and on top of that, he seems to be trading currency pairs that I've never even heard of. M31 mentioned some kind of "vault" that I'm not ready for yet. Have I forgotten anything?

Otherwise, there is some other good general advice and comments here.

As I said, I finally NEED to find something I can do that suits my style (more systematic than discretionary) and that I can simply execute in a disciplined manner, potentially enabling me to achieve the goals I need to reach (generate +2% a month under manageable risk and possibly compatible with prop companies). For me it's not about doing this for fun or because I have too much time on my hands or want to sacrifice it, but specifically about generating a repeatable income that I can live on. I'm 40 now and don't wish to spent another X months/years searching, trying, testing without even earning basic minimum wage. It's simply not worth the time. Life is short and I've already missed out on enough.

Otherwise, the ORB system I purchased for MetaTrader 5 seems to be working so far. I updated to a new server today to optimize on latency and, in parallel, I've been working with FIX API and algorithm programming in Python, as well as futures trading platforms. I plan to try another prop trading challenge with the ORB system soon.

I'm still open to anything that will get me to my goal faster and better than a purchased algorithm but yeah...
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