Fail Better

Don't quit your job until you can triple a demo account, and then the same with a small live account.

It's amazing how needing to make money from trading will affect your psychology.

Thanks for the advice guys don't worry I will not be quitting my job anytime soon and I will need to do more than triple my account before I did. Its just its hard for me to even trade the tweets because you need so many markets open to trade them so I'm just trying to trade the daily at the moment that has gone quite well today but you need big stops bit of a nightmare. Just wondering if anyone else was in a similar situation.

Yep - I've thought about this a lot... And it's simply a case of accepting where I'm at and dealing with it accordingly. Here's what I've decided to do and some of the thinking behind it.

I appreciate that (for all sorts of reasons) I'm not yet in a position where I can trade full time. My primary focus is to change this although it's a longer term goal. I've given it two years and now just accept that's how long it might take (or more) to (a) get consistent (b) find enough capital to back this up. If something's worth doing it's worth doing well and worth doing right. No stress - just patience. It's character building

OK, it sucks BUT it's also character building!

Pick one or two markets only and get to know them really, really well. So in one case I've picked the DOW which I can look at from 18:00 till 21:00 i.e. when I'm not working. If there are no setups then there are no setups.

However I believe that becoming extremely familiar with one or two markets and making money from them will help keep me focussed. I you know (for example) that the DOW very often reverses sharply at 15:00 (UK) and then again later in the session depending on the size of the move and over what time etc. I could also trade the FTSE out of hours based on correlation to the DOW but the number of points available is less.

I do all the research and mark up the charts anyway, even if I miss the move I'll still learn something when I review it. It's all about familiarity. If I'd been slightly more organised I'd have seen the bounce off 12880's this afternoon or better yet do your analysis and put some price alerts in.

Spend more time researching/looking for good entry points. See if the market validates your thinking even if you've not had the opportunity to get your trade on. Think about using limits with smaller size maybe?

Most platforms will let you send SMS or email on price levels to yourself for FREE. Might also be worth putting in the reason why you're getting the alert! I've done this and then had problems remembering why I've got a text telling me the price has got to 'x'

Keeping the job going and focussing on 2 or 3 markets is what I'm doing. This keeps me out of dogshit trades and means I don't get involved in setups and positions I don't understand. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

I'm coming to appreciate this more each day. Patience pays all day long

Keeping the job going and focussing on 2 or 3 markets is what I'm doing. This keeps me out of dogshit trades and means I don't get involved in setups and positions I don't understand. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

I'm coming to appreciate this more each day. Patience pays all day long[/quote]

Great post Robert.......I for one have cut down the number of mkts I watch drastically and may cut it further. Some people I know are doing very well JUST trading the FTSE so it does pay to build your knowledge for specific markets. As you say the name of the game is patience - and planning your trades properly.

That's good advice Robert, and it works.

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...HF05032012.jpg

Not a good trade even though I've managed to get out unscathed.

I've traded here just to be in a trade and not miss out, should have had my a#se handed to me on a plate...... got away with it.

Robert as has already been said great advice and almost exactly what I'm trying to do now although I'm watching a lot of markets on the daily I'm only watching 1 during the day and right now I've picked the s&p for the same reason you have as well for US time and I like the way it moves it moves better than one of those eastern european strippers in browns for sure. I did pick the dow at first but it is obviously pretty volatile same with oil which has big moves in the us session. what you said about the FTSE though you can obviously adjust position size accordingly for the smaller moves. I assume as well you are looking for different setups beyond rrs and sfps as you are just watching 1 market? I'm doing the same and thats the reason I picked the s&p it seems to give some fairly consistent nice entries but I'm only starting watching it at the moment so still a long way to go.

I wish you all the best of luck and I would be keen to hear more about how your getting on and what sort of setups your looking for on the Dow as like I said I was trying to trade the Dow in the evening for a while and I know its possible it was just impatience on my part. There is a guy on T2W who from what I saw on his posts learnt the dow very well and was pulling a lot of money from it spread betting he showed us a screen shot 1 day of 17 winning trades in a row think he pulled about 2-3 grand out that day. I've got the links if you want to have a look I'll pm you.

I've been at this for about 2-3 years but I was doing what Mark douglas calls the black hole of knowledge just trying to read everything which is actually counter productive so now I'm just reading here and watching charts and 1 other daily thread and thats about it. looking for the sfps and rrs.

trader 8080 and Robert are you getting my PMs it doesn't look like they sent?

Yes mate - just sent you the worlds longest reply now going to sleep tho!

Cheers

Robert

Account size has to be taken into account. Easier to triple a £50 account than a £5,000 account.

And why do you think that? If you risk 2% each time, it is no matter how big is you balance.

There is psychological pressure trading a big account if you need to feed your family with your trading.

also risking 1 buck or risking 1.000 is quiet a difference.

And (if) when you get into a losing streak of let's say 5 losers in a row you are down 5.000. Keeping your head right and executing the next trade fearless can be a challenge.

Edit: My trade of the day. Not very rounded but solid level and in same direction as ongoing trend.

http://content.screencast.com/users/...181763d/gu.gif
green-dotted line: entry
red-dotted line: exit
white line: Sl above it

Psychology comes into play when trading a larger account.

Today has been interesting
SILVER.... retrace?
http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...ER06032012.jpg

USDCAD.... looking for an sfp up here
http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...AD06032012.jpg

AUDUSD.... an express train
http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...SD06032012.jpg

GBPUSD....and some say markets are random
http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...SD06032012.jpg

Somehow I've got the feeling Tom will be out in Hoxton Sq this weekend:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...-up-203-752576

Hi Traders,

Wanted to share with you a nice potential long setup building up on usdcad.
We have got here clean level, all we need is rounded retest.

I know this thread is not about trendlines but significant break of this daily downward trendline will be additional confluence and will make me more confident in taking this trade.

Cheers,

Chris

There'd really be some weird 'Top Gun' like face off if this all got overly competitive... Let's turn to Mr Tarantino for the full behind the scenes run down...

Just sayin

long aud d1 on a sugar fox papa (sfp)

lol y i love to trade news not---- nothin like fkn urself

Possible NZD/USD short if price makes it up there...

+ 2 hits of the level at 1355.4 (blue elipses)
+ confluence with fibo 38.2
- red elipse: does this break invalide the setup?