HMB

(...after market oscillating in rel. wide range... SnowFlake +150% or so may reboost tech sentiment... Fed "anxiety" should keep (short) sellers in check...)

...enjoying the ability to experiment risk-free in the demo account - adding an "emergency budget" of 10 for cases when attractive opportunity incidentally emerges after loss limit hit... - going long NDX with minimum stop distance and stop below day low after perceived probably successful retest of said low...:

...through the newest fake bottom while I was writing...:

interesting, thanks - using PSAR for trend makes sense to me at this stage, that's what I want to do, RSI worked horribly on the 10 sec chart, better on one min chart, want to keep watching it and use as a restriction: don't go short/long when it shows a buy/sell signal at this stage I'll take a step back and put more focus on money/risk management rules again, in particular three which I've hopefully learned quite well the last two days: - for the time being, better never increase exposure once trade open, stick to minimum size, unless profit already locked in with (guaranteed) stop - never let a winning trade turn against you, better close with at least a small profit before it moves back through breakeven (also mentioned in one of the videos you shared), if possible - if obvious breakout, lock in profit with stop adjustment and let it run (a while...) and of course strictly adhere to daily loss limits.. staying away today in anticipation of directionless markets waiting for Fed would have been wise, I guess... will keep trying the short-term price action trades, but maybe better to use the risk capital for fewer trades with wider stops when opportunities seem clearer... not sure, (yet)

this looks like another retail rip off by Wall Street to me...: range widening = stop hunting after the open. then fake bottom, and breakthrough for more stop hunting... then range widening.. then another top (probably fake..) and bottom above the earlier low (risky...) lesson: don't trade before 11:30 am Eastern...

thanks dmedin - will review this... on the 10 sec chart the last 10 minutes look a bit like Whipsaw Wednesday to me... 1 minute chart would have made more sense the right trade would have been long with a wider stop earlier... focusing on money management rules: don't let a profitable trade turn against you - close at least with some minimum profit... if there's an obvious breakout, let it run and move the stop... traded too much on this - after cheating myself by adding yesterday's winnings to today's loss limit - so hit that as well.. calling it a day (again...) not good

interesting... inspired by your comment and some of dmedin's recent feedback, I compared the parabolic SAR for a roughly 90 minutes period yesterday when it worked well with the 30 minutes before the market kicked me out today. using 1m and default settings, there's a very obvious difference: in the successful period I went only short when the PSAR was red, and long when it was green, today I did (by coincidence) the opposite. But the worst loss came when I went short although standard RSI showed a buy signal. think these are two simple conditions to add, will try it out (still looking at other oscillators, but find RSI relatively easy to understand - it's just a smoothed ratio of average gain to (average gain + average loss) in %)

many thanks! - great observation - will take my time to analyze this in more detail later

this morning it didn't work at all. first missed the turn, then tried to jump on it, then reversed again... it's not about taking the loss, it's being down which is the most uncomfortable thing... hit my loss limit for today quickly, then. wiped out yesterday's gains fully. funny - think it feels very similar in the demo account - maybe because I just switched. was incredibly tempted to continue - but now trying to take this as serious as possible in sim mode and call it a day (a bit earlier than planned...). I'm like worrying I lose any "skill" if I take a one day break now.... think those are exactly the type of moments in which I made the fatally wrong decision in the past again and again (to not strictly stick to any kind of loss limits and continue, although already being emotionally messed up... - instead of sticking to the plan (if any...), taking a break and trying again with a cool head after a day or two

ok, closed the trade and entered Dec future long instead (stop 12800). (R2 here = closing/intraday ATH, I guess..? will watch out for that..) looking forward to the money rolling in... happy to split the virtual demo funds...

..how much of my virtual capital should i allocate to this trade?

ok. moved the stop higher like you said. so stop distance is like 5% or so, think that makes sense

I see - TP = target profit...

...not now after Kim Kardashian watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix and decided to freeze her Instagram account...

trying it with Dax in demo... define swing low, 5 days, 20 days..? TP=?...

..actually for SPX 20>5... (deleted that, but you responded faster) but for DAX I think conditions are met

which swing low? TP =..?

ok. think there's no way around asking ig helpdesk..

that what keeps you trying?

In my fancy long-term outlook (not published anywhere)..., I wrote a while ago that this is likely Japan, and we are in a long-term sideways move. DAX, RTY, NKY, ASX... so far haven't yet been able to reject this hypothesis. In this narrative, NDX/FANGBATMAN were an exception - and I think that's over now. Even gold and real estate I expect to go nowhere. But obviously I know that I have no idea, so immediately forgetting this, and turning to something I read on FX Street, in a piece by Barbara Rockefeller: the long run is a series of short runs. Leads me to the same conclusion - try to profit from oscillation. However doing the opposite of what I did in the past was usually a safe bet.

Dunno, really. Maybe. Haven't thought about that in depth. Reading the book about Simmons - contains a story where one of their algos cornered the potato market and no one in the firm knew why. Guess if that was what I wanted to succeed in, I should have started three or four decades ago to develop the corresponding affinity. But it seems I rather failed catastrophically in trying to control my emotions.

less! the problem is you don't know in advance which hour of the day it's gonna be, that you should be looking at your screen...

absolutely. after an hour or so, one is mentally exhausted - just when you would need your mind's strength most to make you stop, in particular if you're down on that day (I have no idea about institutional algos/AI - I only guess there are by now quite a few which do that. you make an average 16bps per day and you got 40% p.a.. (250 trading days, assuming constant capital for simplicity) - then you can hire someone to write fancy long-term market outlooks for you, and pretend to your clients you know how the world works... but of course I'm probably wrong. maybe they have easier ways)

(in real, I would usually at some point become impatient, increase exposure, and miss that the market started trending.. till another round of funding the account)

second screenshot shows the issue - min. guaranteed stop distance is 10 points, but usually the very short-term range doesn't give you that, so you end up closing with a reward to risk much less than one to not watch the trade move against you. correspondingly you need more winning trades. first picture was lucky... all before the cost for the guaranteed stop and all demo trades - no need to mention that I found that much harder in real