Are there any full time traders here trading 100% mechanical systems. By mechanical I mean you see something happen via indicators and take the trade. Where discretion is not part of the equation.
I’ve always been told if you want to learn learn form those who are already successful in the business.
I’m really struggling with trading this year and last. It seems like I only make wrong decisions or when trades are good all the small losses overtake the larger wins. You’d think if someone can be consistently wrong with work and perseverance the opposite would occur.
If you have the time and heart to do so please extend a helping hand to a struggling person in need.
Why don’t you upload images of your trades and tell us your strategy, maybe some of the experienced traders here at BP can help you pointing out any mistakes…
Here are two charts 5M with a 1 day moving average and 1H with 3 day ma. Most systems look great after the fact. If there was a way to filter lets say half of the bad trades I’d be happy trading either one of these.
The point I’m trying to get across is how do you filter the good trades from the bad?
You’ve been around here almost as long as me (and alright: you’ve not posted the ‘crap’ that I’ve posted hence the lower post count of yours)!!! LOL!!!
By now SURELY you should be profitable???
Anyway: whether you know it or not or whether you like me or not (my ‘style’ I mean) my own forums were started for EXACTLY your reasons given when starting this thread. They contain TRIED AND TESTED AND PROFITABLE SYSTEMS. ONLY a FEW (not a few THOUSAND of ‘new trader inventions’ that work for a week or two and then go ‘tits up’). I’m a firm believer that ‘anyone can trade’. The only thing that is out of my control is their discipline. That unfortunately has to come from self. I cannot trade on fundamentals or ‘feelings’ or my ‘knowledge of the markets’. I NEED to have a VERY clearly defined set of parameters i.e. ‘when this shows do that’ and ‘when that shows do this’. That’s what I present on my forums. And the only reason I have my OWN forums is because nobody wanted to ‘cut me some slack’ and create a forum here for the trading of CFDs on Stocks, Futures, Commodities, etc. And I’m not trying to ‘steal’ BabyPips Members either. I contribute HERE more than I do on my OWN forums (at least that’s been the case since I started those forums in April last year) and will continue to do so. Some of my stuff: most experienced traders who are already profitable with their own trading systems or methodologies will not be interested in. Not will the ‘get rich quickers’ would be interested. But take a look anyway. There’s no charge (not YET anyway but at SOME point, as the membership grows, I HAVE to cover costs but that’s ‘a long time coming’ still). Also: there’s GUARANTEED no spam or any nonsense like that. And, well, although the forums were SUPPOSED to be ‘geared’ ONLY for the trading of CFDs (as described) FOREX has ‘crept in there’ now too. I’m not complaining. I just don’t trade FOREX. But if you want to be profitable trading purely mechanically then I believe I have what you’re looking for. Take a look. If it’s not your ‘scene’. No harm done. They can be found at: techtradercentral.proboards.com.
For those that want to do it ‘their own way’: carry on. I just don’t see the point of reinventing the wheel is all.
I haven’t been trading all this time. Over the past two years I probably have a cumulative live trading time of 4-6ish months if that. It’s been a hobby not a life style and that is what needs to change. I totally hear where your coming from though. As far as other types of trading I haven’t really looked into anything besides forex and futures.
Yesterday was a emotionally tough breaking point (as you may have noticed lol). I’ve totally lost all trust in indicators. Which has lead me to believe, to be a truly successful trader a firm understanding of price action is needed. All that aside I will be happy to check out your forums.
A little advise though, you may want to get a domain from godaddy, then start doing some search engine optimization to get ranked in google. It’ll help your forum and grow your members a lot more than posting in other forums will. Domains are cheap, .com are only $10 dollars per year and .info (harder to rank in google) is .99 per year. This is coming from someone with internet marketing experience.
Once you have a domain redirect it to techtradercentral.proboards.com so when someone types in techtradercentral.com they’d land on your forum. If that domain is the one you choose. This way you can keep your current forums. Anyways I’ve rambled enough about marketing lol.
Johnny, just keep it simple… trust me on this one… you just need PA and S/R to be successful.
I use indicators but as a way to gauge market sentiment…
Drop all indicators and understand supply/demand and price action first
To get a grip on this kind of knowledge you can search sam seiden videos at fxstreet.com and there is a good thread about it at FF by kenneth lee (also a BP member), just download the pdf in the first post
I am going to use your chart, to show you a short trade I took
you have to be aware of the daily trend, then you take trades according to the trend…
First spot a consolidation area and then a long candlestick showing that price moved fast from that area, in this case the consolidation area became resistance, when price returns to that area, you can look for PA (in a smaller time frame in order to get a good short trade
Forget the moving averages and channels that I have in my chart just focus in the horizontal levels.
Why this works most of the times? Because it shows a “imbalance” level or area where buyers overcome sellers and viceversa. So you can take advantage of that information.
Ditch lagging indicators and start learning price action, its not that hard when you start to understand it on chart, yes you will need screen time but its worth it. Price is the king.
Lagging indicators are for example moving averages if you enter trade when they cross, you are already too late, it will work only in strong trend and that happens only 20% of the time, when your MA crosses and you enter its high probability you are entering just before retrace/correction in price aka big boys are getting out of trade, locking pips, closing positions etc.
Price is the king because it doesnt lie. You can say price is the lagging indicator of executed trades but those trades are executed by big boys aka market movers so following them is right thing to do because everybody who knows how to trade will follow them too and move price in that direction. Simple.
no. we do not need trade full time. we need anlysis market. when we has great trend we should get fast decision. we will take profit or lose in our plan. if you follow market fulltime i think you will be tired .
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I am as technical a trader as you will ever meet.
But I use “discretion” in the interpretation of most indicators.
I do use triggering, and those triggers do take trades precisely
when their multiple conditions are all true.
But I am the one who uses human judgement to set the threshold
levels and the trigger parameters. Then I “arm” the trigger, and
don’t really “forget” about it, but certainly allow it to do its thing
as I programmed things.
For example, if price snaps 1 pip in 1.5 seconds, down, then I might
execute a “snap Buy”, but if price continues to drive down, my trigger
automatically protects me and strikes precisely when the price snap move is
over, at its maximum.
But only a human can really integrate information properly, and the OP’s
original idea of just being “mechanical” about it means, to me, that it is
fully able to be automated. If the human doesn’t add value, what good
is s/he ??
So I prefer to call my trading “computer assisted” rather than attempting
to fully automate everything. I think my brain evaluates opportunity better
than any algo could. (I could definitely be wrong about that, but I’m the
human, so I CALL THE SHOTS) LOL
“I’ll be back !” (thinly veiled Terminator reference
It’s free, simple, been around for a long time, the thread is active and it works. As far as discretion, there’s a little discretion in every trade. Take this strategy; you scan the pairs to see which ones qualify and 2 pairs qualify. Unless you want to take both trades, you will have to exercise some discretion and pick the one you think will give you a more positive result.
You can say price is the lagging indicator of executed trades but those trades are executed by big boys aka market movers so following them is right thing to do because everybody who knows how to trade will follow them too and move price in that direction. Simple.