GOING INSANE HERE

i am in the process of developing a new mechanical strategy and NOTHING is working. i've literallly spent 20+ hours in the last 3 days on this with all losers. i am at the point where i am out of ideas.

ive tried overnight highs lows, previous day high and lows, air pockets, Bruce's RATs, gaps, mid-day levels, hourly's, +/-4 and +/-8 levels...trend setups that use breakouts of key levels, counter trend setups using the above, and other weird **** i came up with. what is going on? i used to be able to do this super quickly and all of a sudden i find nothing works. it's like june is the bulldozer of months and all the other months previous are totally different. i cant get something that works in all environments. what am i doing wrong here?

anybody have ANY ideas PLEASE...my head feels like it's going to blow...

Originally posted by feng456

...i cant get something that works in all environments. what am i doing wrong here?

I don't think that there's anything that works in all environments. I believe that some months are going to be negative. The objective is to keep those negative months few and and small. Just my 2 cents...

what kind of average performance should i expect per month per contract? PLEASE someone give me an answer!

Couple suggestions.

First off daytrading is exactly right, you will never get a system to work in all environments because the market is continually going to give you different conditions. Remember the old analogy, there's a perfect tool for every job - you aren't going to be able to hammer a nail with a screwdriver. With that being said, you're goal in developing a system is to find SOMETHING consistent in almost all market conditions. Yes there will be periods of lose, but more than 80% of the time, you should be making profitable trades for a solid system.

Assuming you're intraday trading, I would not accept a week of being net negative, let alone an entire month. The past 2 weeks have had some very strong and wild intraday moves which is not very typical of the market, so that could be part of why your system isn't working lately. Also, I know a lot of traders here like to use pivots and prior levels, but in my trading, levels don't mean anything. I trade strictly on price movement. Instead of guessing that a level will hold and buying early, I wait for price movement to bounce off that level and buy. If a price level fails to hold, then I trade that movement. In my experience, I've found that the levels are not consistent either way, so I don't pay any attention to them. So for an automated system, I would never factor in prev hi/low, etc. They don't have any influence on my discretionary trading and neither does it in my automated system.

In your case, you are over frustrated now, so I would step away from trading and looking at charts for a little bit. Get out and then come back to look at things with fresh eyes. Ask yourself what exactly you want your auto system to trade and try to develop from there.

Originally posted by day trading

Originally posted by feng456

...i cant get something that works in all environments. what am i doing wrong here?

I don't think that there's anything that works in all environments. I believe that some months are going to be negative. The objective is to keep those negative months few and and small. Just my 2 cents...

thanks to all replies so far.

i think i need to clarify something here...when i said im trying to find something that works for all environments what i meant was i am trying to develop a system that will give consistent returns over the last 5 years. i have found a couple that worked well for 2006 2007 but not for 2011 and vice versa. i've found others that were just plain ****. am i not supposed to be looking for something that survives over 5 years worth of backtesting?

All the strategies you mentioned above DO NOT WORK IN A TRENDING MARKETS I lost my shirt in the last 3 trading days

i agree but then when i looked for trend winners, they get killed in nontrenders...

I'm sorry to say guys but there is no "system" that works in all market conditions. The sooner you realize the better and stop wasting time looking for the "holy grail" of trading.

The simple yet hard fact of long term trading success is either excel in one trading style, ie. fade or trend follow, and except that sometimes you will get crushed. Or else learn to adjust to the constant changing market conditions.

This is the main reason there is so much turn over in the trading world. Traders think (seduced?) into thinking what worked yesterday will continue to work tomorrow, and when it works for five days in a row, the confidence grows and you begin to increase your size or take on more risky setups, thinking you've figured it out, only to get buzz sawed when the market decides to change its tune.

Then the trader becomes frantic, wonders what the **** is going on, begins searching for something else, abandoning what had worked in the past, and just then is when the market changes again and the cycle repeats itself.

Its hard, its frustrating, and last week was a prime example. Faders absolutely got killed. But you know what, that won't be the case forever and the trend following addicts will have their day in the Colosseum where their blood will be spilled.

So then it comes down to risk. And not just keeping losses to a minimum, but do you have sufficient enough capital to survive the bloody periods all traders must go through?

I wish I could give you something immensely more profound such as an easy equation of do this and you'll make money.

Think of yourself as a professional athlete. The ability to adapt to changing conditions is one of the greatest required skills necessary to mastering any professional endeavor.

I feel your pain. I know its very real and these words I'm saying are mostly mumbo jumbo. Remember there is a time aspect to all of this. Gotta put in the time, take some falls, get some battle scars. No other way around it.

Happy 4th to everyone here in the US.

Thanks very much for that last post. It was actually one of the most informative ones I've gotten since I began my quest a few days ago. Exactly what you said happened to me...I got confident after having a certain strategy work pretty consistently for a while, so I increased my size and then boom june i get taken to the slaughterhouse. I have survived but now have a pretty big drawdown.

I have learned my lesson!

Maybe what I need to look for then is a trend system and a nontrend system and switch between those? Maybe the switch signal would be when one fails horribly and the other does really well for "x" months/weeks....am I thinking in the right direction here?

as long as the Fed is in the market and election is near the trend should be up or at least at a point where it won't go down much .. idk .. just my way of thinking ...

I certainly think a trader should learn skills and tactics for both kinds of markets. I also think you should figure out if one style appeals to you more then the other, or if you are clearly better at one versus the other. We all have strengths and weaknesses and building first on strengths will give us the confidence to work on our weaknesses.

One other thing. The idea that one "needs" something in order to be successful is just plain wrong in my opinion. Focus on the task, in this case, learning different trading styles, different strategies, different skills. Focus on what you naturally gravitate towards, which excites you more, which are you willing to give the most time too. Practice, practice, practice. And above all give yourself the necessary time to internalize, ie. the experience factor!

Lets look at one example. The O/N high low. These price levels can be used by both the fader and the trend follower. Its not just either or. So the target is to learn how to determine when those marks will be resistance or when price will blast through them. As an earlier poster said, its about PA (price action) at these important price levels. In addition, there is no simple if A happens then fade and if B happens go with breakout....that will work but just not every time and you must be ok with that...

Originally posted by feng456


Maybe what I need to look for then is a trend system and a nontrend system and switch between those? Maybe the switch signal would be when one fails horribly and the other does really well for "x" months/weeks....am I thinking in the right direction here?

Originally posted by myptofvu

Systems...Systems don't work mmmmmmkay

Systems are bad mmmmkay

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still lurking?