Seeking pro advice: FX, options, futures, and the glass ceiling

Seeking some advice from pros only who have worked through their demons, achieved 'the mindset' and consistency, and who have some experience with futures or options. I would greatly appreciate sincere advice on breaking through the glass ceiling

After 5 years of intense study, with the help of key people and threads on this excellent forum, I have 'found my voice' and crystallized my trading style and money management spreadsheets and have become a breakeven intraday fx trader (charting with no indicators) with a strong understanding of how supply & demand control the markets. Trading psychology (why i love trading) has brought my mind to new places in terms of being realistic about the markets and life in general. I have plenty to learn, but at least it is no longer an emotional game for me. I use M15/M30/H1/D1 charts (H1 primarily). I feel I almost have the trifecta now. I know with a little help that I can do this, and I love doing it.

THE DILEMMA
After heavy wins and losses over the years my discipline and methods have evolved. Yet my results are only breakeven mostly because I find it hard to work the forex from the PST time zone (west coast US). This means that London opens at midnight, and the Lo/NY overlap is from ~5am to 9am, both difficult because of a demanding day job and new baby. My trading style is hands-on discretionary (with rules) but overnight stop outs are driving my average down. It is not about needing larger stops; I feel I just need to be able to manage positions actively. my trading style requires high liquidity times of day and I think if i could just trade from 12a-3am PST consistently I would be fine.

I am strongly considering moving toward options and futures for the better risk control and market hours, respectively. Is the complexity of these worth the move from spot forex (which I am very comfortable with now)? I suspect that options combined with my trading style would send my risk/reward through the roof in a good way. disadvantages: different risk models, higher broker/software fees, having to change brokers (i really like mine). but these can be overcome.


I hope you are getting an idea of how close I feel I am to having the pieces in place, and how frustrating it is to not be able to manage risk better than trading overnight using huge stop losses (seems archaic to me). I do not have stars in my eyes anymore, I have a strong discretionary methodology that just needs tweaking. I would like to be fulltime within two years. I just need some direction before I go live with my next account of probably only $5k. This is what I have to work with. I think funding and market times/timezones are my biggest obstacles and I find myself at a numb, nebulous place in the face of these seemingly insurmountable obstacles and need some perspective beyond my trading and my books.

If anything I have said inspires or confuses you please lmk. I hope we can generate some dialogue that helps others too.

Thanks for reading and good trading.

it sounds like we have a similar trading style and face similar difficulties. i definitely don't have a new baby, but living on the west coast has always made it tough for me to trade the best times. for a while i was doing exactly what you suggested, actively monitoring the market and trading from 11 PM to 3 AM, then waking up a few hours later for work. ultimately i grew tired (literally) of this and looked for a new way to trade

the past few weeks i've been analyzing all the pairs around 11, then setting limit orders on only the most high probability opportunities usually on a 15 minute chart. multiple time frame analysis has helped me a lot here. my win/loss ratio actually increased because i am only taking the most high probability setups, and i get to sleep a lot more. of course, the first thing i do when i wake up is check charts. the past couple weeks i've been somewhere around 80-90% winners

anyways this has been my solution to a similar problem. like yourself, i am looking into other markets but still happy trading forex for the time being. i know it's not the answer you were looking for, but maybe it can help

You need to find or rearrange "real job" work around the times that you believe you must trade.
Then you can take your $5,000 and build it for two years.

For me, I work in the evenings.
(I am definitely underemployed but the schedule allows me to trade prime time European-US overlap.)

If you can survive and profit for 6 months or longer consistently...
you might be "on your way".

Until you do that, you will always be left wondering...
You will essentially be working two jobs (trading and then going to "real" work).
With a new baby and wife/girlfriend who needs attention also, I do not envy you.
It will be very difficult.

If you manage to triple or quadruple your $5,000,
then I imagine your family will be more supportive of you becoming a "full-time" trader.

Until then, unfortunately, you will be deemed a "dreamer" with fanciful notions.

Keep in mind, no matter how good you feel nor how confident you are in your abilities,
there is still a good chance you will not be able to provide consistent income from your trading.

I always wonder about higher time frame traders (+15 min TFs or higher).
I suppose you CAN watch many pairs like tlindle does.
Even so, how many trades do you make a week? a month?
What kind of expectation (or profit factor) do you have?

Going from spot fx to futures will not help you much. I trade both and you will quickly realise that the main action happens more or less at the same time in those markets .... if you are serious about your trading you need to find a way around this. It will probably involve less sleep or strange working hours - but focus on the reward ahead of you. Once you are ready to quit your daytime job .. you will be happy that you did

thanks this is already very helpful that people are confirming the challenge of fx trading from the west coast US time zone. also good to know that futures markets would not change this very much (currencies are currencies and move the at the same time whether futures or fx). i suspect futures would give me the chance to trade e-mini s&p and other NY markets but that still involves being up at 5am PST. tweaking the day job is what i need to do, thanks for spelling this out for me Intu, the perspective is very helpful

over the last few years i have tried every sleep/work schedule known to man. a new baby definitely puts more 'structure' around when you are available to work (any job). but placing limit orders at night before bed works well enough most of the time so i will continue. it is a compromise that may get me where i want to go if i am careful and take only the best entries (like you tlindle). i have to say that the discipline of putting on a trade and committing yourself to sleeping soundly no matter what is going on with your trades (vs dreaming about them, waking up to check them, etc) also helps keep a healthy detachment. but when you are stopped out by 5 pips it is frustrating. wake-up alerts...?

setting basic price alerts can help. i looked into programming signal-based alert indi's but my style is very discretionary and my programming limited. i would be interested in working with a programmer who is also into volume-based (naked chart) trading.


my other curiosity is reducing risk by getting into options. i think there are brokers who offer options on forex? unfortunately my (excellent) current broker ATC (a front end for FXCM UK which aggregates 10 interbanks) offers the excellent quality tick volume i need for my trading, has lightning fast fills, great support, etc. but doesn't offer options on fx or futures. any opinions on options?

thanks all, and if i can offer any help with anything i've mentioned please do not hesitate to ask

Saxo is probably your best bet for fx options, but I personally think you're barking up the wrong tree. Trading options requires a whole different set of strategies, as well as opening up a bag of new ones but it won't get you off the hook in terms of best times to trade. Just as there's an optimal time to open a spot position, there are optimal times to buy or write options.

Better is to look at opportunities around the time you're trading - eg ranging & pivot based strats over asian vs breakouts over Lon/NY

I've read about sleep studies that show it's possible to feel rested as long as you're sleeping in multiples of 90 minutes and get at least 7.5 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period. You probably have to adapt to it.