So to quickly sum up my experience,
Early February
Learned trading from online gurus (I was new so I was none the wiser), then I watched videos for about a week. After some more research about platforms and some basic information about day trading, I figured I would trade crypto since I found it somewhat easier to do at that time. Decided to paper trade. I only paper traded for 2 days without any strategy at all. It was basically gambling lol
February to March
I deposited 1k usd into Bybit and started trading (I still remember that at this time BTC was rallying and crashing week after week hitting 98k then crashing to 70k then rallying to 90k then crashing to 68k) as a new trader this was a crazy emotional lol. I was also watching trading videos more and more. I learned about technical indicators and was applying them. I also had the typical chart full of indicators. I was using the volume indicator, bollinger bands, turn off the bollinger bands then turn on EMA 20, 50, 200. Use RSI and VWAP too. Too complicated, I think I traded reversals once price hit any of the lines.
Sometimes I won, and sometimes I lost. I dont even remember how much. I didnt have any fixed rr or any discipline (I was literally riding high on emotions every trade) I discovered margin trading or leveraging. This was my doom. I saw during NY open that the market either crashed or pumped so I thought “Hey why dont i trade these massive candle opens and win big!”. At this time tariffs were being thrown and every ny open a massive candle happened. Yep, I risked high and decided to trade with the ny open massive candles. After a few days I blew the account. I felt like utter shit
March to July
After that quick slap to the face, I decided to lock in and study intentionally. I learned about ICT, quickly found out it was a revision of other concepts so I dug deep and learned about the original concepts. I learned about Wyckoff, Supply and Demand (In-depth), market structure and price action (in-depth) etc etc. Basically just getting used to looking at the market that at least I understand what I am looking at and somewhat do analysis properly.
I learned that strategies like orderflow and foot print charts dont apply to asset classes like forex since their volume is decentralized. At this point i was also seeing more about prop firms and I did my due diligence, most of them are scams or b booking (odds against you). Even so I figured that it was better for me personally to risk a small amount of money to atleast try and do a simulated live trading with their funded accounts. I was in and out of paper trading at this time but it lacked the reality of emotions and platform execution (I was only using tradingview). I eventually thought that all I need now is to be in the markets and gain some reps.
July 10 to July 28
I bought a Funded account and started to trade. I wanted to trade futures but most prop firms i have access to only trade cfds or forex. Everything I learned was paused since I had to figure out how do I execute my strategy as close as possible with an unfamiliar platform (MT4/5), lot sizing and position sizing and all other execution stuff. Eventually I figured it out. I then started to trade, I have learned more about risk management, keeping my emotions in check, being strict with a setup criteria, pre-session preparation in this 2 weeks than the months of paper trading. Despite having a strategy, I traded about 17 times and only gained profit 3 times. With the help of journaling I was constantly improving and figuring out the mistakes i made but it seems there were too many. I ended up losing the funded account. So I technically blew 2 accounts lol (I still count them), and I experienced the psychological effects of a drawdown (even if it wasnt technically a drawdown but just a low wr strategy, still had the effect).
August
Now I am on the same stuff, further refined my strategy and confirmations. What times I would scan the market, what are on my watchlist. What timeframes I would check for sentiment, refinement, entry and so on. placing price alerts to be more efficient, a standard for RR (but i dont even care about RR anymore, I would take partials or close the trade if high probability reversal zones are hit or if structure hints exhaustion or reversal.) and some other stuff. I know inevitably I would have a real edge. I am still learning and so bought another funded account. There is a stark difference between my last prop account compared to now. I am still basically break even, winning some losing some. There are still refinements to be made, still more information to be learned. more losses to be occurred but overall I can see the big difference between how I treated the markets back in February and now.
– I still feel like there are things I have missed, I know I wasn’t clear with my strategies but this post would be even longer if I explain it lol. To the experienced profitable or funded traders, any insights would be greatly appreciated. I’ve become obsessive with this to the point that some of the stuff I wanted to do in life became less appealing than learning about the markets and so any word of advice is welcome!
submitted by /u/jarsNvices to r/Daytrading
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