Louis,
This could be the longest AB thread ever.
Some
wonderful people gave you some wonderful answers.
To help you get some
lasting value from it, here is my close.
When you started in AB you
asked me "can we really make money trading
and how much"
I told you
>50% but that you should aim for >30% to start with, as a
benchmark.
Others said that was not possible.
Since then I have gone
on to say 100% PA is good and 1000%PA is
possible.
Now you are
asking the same question again!
(others have now confirmed they ARE
doing over 50% but no one else is
talking about 1000% yet).
You
asked me where you should start and which approach was better.
I told you
that you should learn in US EOD stocks because it has all
of the basic
elements of trading right there etc
I said that RT data was a lot harder to
handle and not worth the
trouble to newcomers.
You went to RT and
had trouble.
I told you that almost no one trades using 1000's of
symbols in RT
(most long term traders narrow down to the indexes, a
filtered
watchlist of stocks, a small semi-permanent list of stocks, Forex
or
Commodities.
You tried to use 100's or 1000's of RT stocks for
your first system.
You had trouble with that.
I told you it would
take years.
Now after only 7 months you are struggling with it.
In
this thread I have laid it all out for you (roughly) although I am
only
saying what others have said in different ways, but to close out
I will
briefly summarise/explain what I have said.
Method:
a) isolate
the key skills required to trade
b) practice them repetitively until they
become second nature
c) positively reinforce your trading alter ego by
focus, simplicity,
positive thinking, repetition etc
a) is the
reason that so few succeed.
b) and c) are a piece of cake.
It takes
so long to isolate the key skills of trading because the
subject is so
vast and there are so many conflicting opinions AND
very few, if any,
traders who make it will lay it all out for anyone.
All in all it is
like going through a library full of books and
distilling the info down to
a single Readers Digest.
The super traders distill it all down to a
tablespoon of gold.
This takes a lot of time and many don't have what
it takes to see the
wood for the trees.
After years I have got it
down to the last pile of books (you can
easily successfully trade at that
level, in fact you can trade
reasonably well if you only make it half way
through).
I only managed that because I was lucky enough to be an intuitive
and
this helped me find the shortcuts (I didn't have to read all of the
books).
So once again, here is my practical advice to
you.
Don't take on the whole library - it is overwhelming.
Take
on one section.
Start with US EOD trading, no leverage.
After you
learn to get >30% there you can then start to learn
leveraging stocks
(via options OR Single Stock Futures).
After you learn that then you can
quickly and easily learn
Commodities/Futures etc or whatever you want
- the trading world is
your oyster.
All of the core elements of
trading are right there in EOD stocks.
If you can't find them there then
you are not going to make it
anywhere.
Re AutoTrading.
This
is like having your car on auto-pilot.
First you have to have a
car.
Then you have to learn to drive it.
Then you can say "now I will
automate it and put my feet up while it
drives down the road".
You
don't just decide to learn autodriving before you fulfil the
first two
steps.
Why not start with commodities?
because you will be
trying to learn trading and leveraging both at
the same time plus all of
the elements of trading are not exposed the
way they are in stocks (you
have the complication of seasonality plus
you are limited to 20-30
instruments).
In stocks you get a much better feel for trading with
the different
cap levels, different volatilities, sectors and global
relationships
etc - things you don't see so clearly in other instruments.
Why not start in RT?
because so much of your time will be taken
up with software/hardware
issues when you should be focusing on learning
to trade (plenty of
time for RT once you can trade).
Also - once you
can trade then trading RT bars is barely any
different - you can go
straight on with it (tick trading is something
else again - only suitable
for people who are right at home with IT
skills)
Wheh should I
learn Money Management?
First you have to get a system that can do
>=30% when paper trading
i.e. it does that live, for a reasonable
period (on data you have
never seen before).
IF YOU CANT DO THAT
FIRST YOU CAN FORGET THE REST AND GIVE UP.
Then, if you get that far,
you need to learn the basisc of MM before
you start to trade with real
money (you can improve your MM based on
your trading experience but you
must now the basics before you start.
Realistically, only those with
above average aptitude are going to be
able to do that while they are
holding down a job (the magnitude of
the task is pretty big unless you
have a mentor, a friend or you have
the right stuff to skip through
it).
All the best with your endeavours,
brian_z
please
excuse me if I don't answer any further questions on the
subject.
--- In amibroker@xxxxxxxxxps.com,
"Louis P." <rockprog80@...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I was only wondering... Anyone actually making money or making a
living
> with AB and trading?
>
> I've been working on
ideas and plans for over 7 months now and
didn't find
> anything
convincing yet. I've been searching daily data, then
hourly,
>
15-minute and now I am into 1-minute data and nothing seems
satisfying.
> Been searching RSI, MFI, ADX, MA, HHV, LLV... nothing
seems to work.
>
> So... Anyone is making consistent money with
this, and if so, at
which
> timeframe and how do you do it?
>
> I'm beginning to think about switching to tick database; it seems
even
> 1-minute is too slow for intraday trading. Anyone making
money with
> 1-minute?
>
> Thanks,
>
>
Louis
>