It is IMPOSSIBLE to make money in the markets

The same reason why the other 50,000 of us are here, to be that 0.001 % that makes it.

We're all supposed to be traders who are playing by the "ODDS".. but, taking the trade to be a trader is in and of itself a LOSING TRADE. So, some of the best traders are those who never trade.

 

did you used to trade a system or emotion? did you actually use a tested system? you can not seriously blame failure on brokers commissions. there must have been a flaw in your methodology.

 

successful emini futures daytraders are few and far between......very far........

 

I apologize in advance for the fact that I read the first post and went straight to the end without reading the rest.

Impossible? Absurd statement. If everyone loses, where does the money go? Does it evaporate? Commish is so low that it can't be explained there.

I have 2 ugly losing years, and 17 consistent ones. I'm just your average schmuck as well, no Goldy experience, etc.

It takes:

practice
discipline (I am flat 90% of the time)
money management.

Not easy by any means, but several thousand people do it for a living. Consistently. Most people just blow out before they get good enough, patient enough, or even find a system that works for them.

Jay

 

Could not comment on the ratio. But I do know that there are those who make a nice living out of it. There used to be a time that EOD traders did better than the daytraders but with the markets being what they are I think that no longer holds true. It will return though.

Holmes

 

no doubt there are many who succeed.......there are enormous #'s who don't.......hence the miniscule % stands proven......mark douglas confirms.......the reason for losing is traders are unwilling to work for it......a few years.......

 

The best advice I ever got about trading was:

A. Find a system
B. Prove that it works
C. Trade it.

Now you should be able to get to C before you risk any capital.

Most people never even get to A. Period.

99% of traders will lose all their money before they ever get to A.

Ripely, you've been posting on ET for years. Have you got a system yet?

Have you proven that it works?

Runningbear

 

That is very good advice bear. Simple and absolutely true. You could substitute setup for system if your not a system trader.

 

Trade of a slower time frame. Use a faster tf(s) to take only the signals that make sense on a larger tf. IE in SPX you could look at the 195 min (half day) and when it is in the zone go down to 30 and 5 min. Means alot of waiting around but when you put on a trade - go for a decent r/r (5 or 10-1). Without such filtering - it's a bit of a crapshoot in my opinion - alot of noise to deal with.

 

Good advice, in general, but every system does poorly sometimes, and even poor systems have periods of outperformance. In any case, systems can only tell us what worked in the past. There is no way of knowing in advance whether the system will continue to work as well as it did when it was tested.

Anyone who trades a system had better anticipate periods of significant drawdown. Better yet, trade a number of stocks/futures with a number of different systems that work in different markets (trending, non-trending, etc).