I’ve spent lots of money on seminars and books and software and newsletters in the elusive attempt to strike it rich day-trading
In my journey I’ve arrived at these conclusions:
– serious day-traders eventually end up trading the eMinis (because of the leverage) so why not focus on them from the start
– I’m not likely to make money on a trade if I don’t understand why I am in it and what my objective is (ie, I am blindly following the advice of some newsletter or ‘friend of a friend’ instead of thinking for myself)
– serious day-traders have to spend money on a decent trading platform and learn how to use it – I chose Tradestation because of its strategy automation capabilities – this lets the trader play ‘what-if’ games and test a trading idea without putting capital at risk – I believe this ability to test an idea prior to trading it is critical
– nobody is going to sell a ‘sure-fire’ trading system for $3000 – I’m trying to develop the proverbial ‘money-machine’ for trading the Russell eMini and I can assure you that if I succeed I won’t be selling it at any price much less $3000)
– to succeed at day-trading I will have to expend the same level of energy/dedication/drive that it took to get my engineering degree – the difference is $600K/yr as a trader vs $100K as an engineer
My current focus is on Jeffery Katz’s book, The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies – he presents the idea of allowing an optimizer to pick not only the parameters for the trading rules being used (MACD, moving average, etc) but also to pick the trading rules themselves – Katz implies that a genetic optimizer (which is available for Tradestation) has the power to develop a profitable trading system using this methodolgy – I hope he is right – he also analyzes different entry and exit strategies in a very thorough manner
I’ve made about 5 attempts to trade the eMinis so far – my best trade was a position I took by accident – my worst trade cost me $3000 in 10 minutes (I know I’m right, I know I’m right, I know …, darn, get me out of this trade quick! …)
