I'm a relatively new trader. I've read so many books, watched hours of tutorial, and read many articles all from successful traders. I started trading on paper trader with Tos about a 3 months ago after several months of studying and research, and I was fairly successful. I kept losses to a minimum and managed to make money overall. I was felt ready so I decided to start putting money in the market. I was sticking to the exact same system, MACD/RSI, that was successful on papertrader, but I could not make a profit to save my life. So I stepped back, went back to papertrader for a little bit. I was again successful. So, with my confidence up, I went back to try and make actual money. But again, nothing. It seems like every time I put real money on the line stock price plummets. I'm not getting emotional, or guessing. I use the same indicators and try to wait for the trade. So my question, why is my system, MACD crossover/uptrending RSI, successful on papertrader but not the real market? Also, what are some of the indicators you use to be successful? I am really into trading and I want to get good at this, but its difficult with a small account and several losses.
MACD/RSI is not the end all solution to trading. On Wallstreet there is computer rooms with hundreds of million dollars worth of servers and computers. If it was that simple, those computers would simply filter out and trade the MACD/RSI indicators your describing. You have to have a overall view of everything. Also papertrading is delayed 20 minutes whereas the market is real time. Maybe that has something to do with it.
Try to find better trade entries.You can use your indicators but also look at the momentum of the stock, where does it look like it's heading and how quickly is it heading there. Use these key indicators to determine when you will hop aboard. Sometimes you will see that if you wait for the right time, there seems to be no good entry and you lose interest in trading the stock. Move on to the next, not all setups are good setups.
Do you look at different time segments, or just 1? 5 min and 30 min 1day. Long term is different.
Analyze each of your trades to see where you went wrong and how you can improve. Really take a good, objective look at each one. Try to remove yourself and all bias from the analysis.
Join now or log in to leave a comment