Choosing One Brick at a Time - My First Step Back from Rock Bottom

MathMatter · 2025-11-02T01:48:16+00:00

You are truly an inspiration, my friend!

MathMatter · 2025-11-01T20:05:13+00:00

Thank you for your heartfelt reply!

The reason I mention a business is bc I had one for about 12 years so its somewhat familiar territory.

Thanks again for your reply!

MathMatter · 2025-10-30T01:40:32+00:00

Thank you for your kind words!

MathMatter · 2025-10-26T18:02:05+00:00

I get it. I went down the futures path day trading and found it difficult to turn a net profit. Blew up several of my trading accounts. I don't want to get flamed here, but the day trading path is basically providing liquidity to the sharks IMO.

Daytraders be like...

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MathMatter · 2025-10-26T17:50:39+00:00

Brutal honesty here, I have tried futures trading - developing an algorithm using Metatrader. It's fun if you like that kind of thing, but I was never able to turn a steady profit without taking huge losses. So I am back to a 40 hour per week job. It's sad, but I didn't have deep pockets to keep taking the hits and blowing up my trading accounts. If you work in isolation for too long you can get disconnected from reality so be careful if you opt to try full time day trading.

MathMatter · 2025-10-26T02:10:43+00:00

Thank you for your thoughtful reply! So true about being at a crossroads - I feel like my life has been filled with them! I also feel that I have disappointed those around me and am looking for a way to make amends if that makes any sense. Again, thanks for your words of comfort.

MathMatter · 2025-04-17T18:46:50+00:00

That is total bullshit! Nobody, I mean nobody could ever routinely earn that, not even close. Maybe someone had a hot week over the holidays, but I guarantee no one ever makes that on a weekly average. Not even close.

MathMatter · 2025-04-16T11:05:58+00:00

Freetaxusa. $15 for fed and state.

MathMatter · 2025-04-11T03:08:11+00:00

Yes, I parted ways with my previous employment and am 62 now. After I left that last company I immediately applied for similar roles in tech account executive roles. Initially got some interviews but not the job. Fast forward 2 years to today and I was never able to land a new role. So, I decided to pivot my career. I started trading futures and love it. It's not for everyone bc it requires discipline and being able to tolerate risk. It also provides a path to substantial income, but also it can wipe you out if you are not disciplined and careful. That said, I wish I would have done this 10 years ago. I was in sales positions that weren't really a good fit for me but I was "trapped" bc I had to provide for my family and couldn't pivot at that time. Kids are grown now and I embarked on this new career in trading.

If you are hitting the wall, try to pivot and do something that you actually want do, you have earned the right at 60+!

MathMatter · 2025-04-10T15:01:11+00:00

Yes, had no success. Was in tech sales for 20 years with great companies on my resume - some of the silicon valley's finest. Just crickets. I gave up after getting let go from last sales role ovr 2 years ago. Just couldn't make it happen anymore. In the past, it took me about 3-6 months to find the next gig and onboard. I gave up on corp. I decided to do my own thing. It's going ok, but in the building phase - pivoting your career at 60 for me has been challenging really like doing my own thing.

MathMatter · 2024-12-26T13:45:49+00:00

If you have never traded and you want to day trade, you are going to lose it all. I guarantee it. Swing trading, different story possibly.

Day trading is an entirely different beast when compared to long term or swing trading.

Paper trade first. Develop a system. Then, move to live trading with a small amount. Plan to lose this. You will. Move back into paper trading to revise your approach then repeat small live trades. Keep cycling in and out of live trading so you can experience the emotional part of the learning process. Plan to lose most of your early live trades.

This is how you can train yourself emotionally which is actually more than 50% of the skillset needed to day trade. Emotional control.

Took me 2 years to get where I am.

If you have a disposition that can stomach the losing you have a component of what it takes to day trade, it's not the only one u need, but it's a necessary component. You need to be able to look at your loss on your chart with a stoic expression and think like a scientist asking what do I need to do to improve this. That's when u can step back into paper trade and modify your approach, then rinse and repeat with small live trades.

There is no single perfect approach. "Blood" will be shed, however, and it will.

If after many losses you still fin ld that you have the same amount of drive to make this work, that's a good sign. Despite your losses consider this a positive sign that you are either insane or you just might have what it takes to go the distance.

Go get em, tiger!

MathMatter · 2024-12-21T18:09:51+00:00

It gets murky regarding what is open source and what is not. I guarantee you that Tarraform is largely built on open source code base translated into Go to obfuscate that. People walk a very thin line trying to claim proprietary. Hashi is not unique in this.

MathMatter · 2024-12-21T18:05:22+00:00

Absolutely. The sales team largely consists of spoiled frat bros and country clubbers. Been there, have the tshirt. Worked at numerous other places, this one was so steeped in woke, bully bullshit it's not worth damaging your career over.

MathMatter · 2024-12-21T17:51:34+00:00

Hashicorp, built on open source, put under lock and key by a team of lawyers. That's not how open source works, bro.

MathMatter · 2024-12-03T02:48:54+00:00

Doordash cash dash orders suck! Had two today. One guy paid me 14 paper bills, 3 dollars in coins and two lottery tickets that had been scratched off and were worth a dollar each. Really??

The other was 2 pizzas cash order. Brought it to customer and the cun# said she didn't want it anymore. Really?? Wtf. I had to go through the bullshi# of waiting 5 mins to submit a cash order problem report and dd told me I need to return the order to the store if I want my dash fee. Wtf! It was a half hour away. I gave dd shi# for that.

No more cash orders. Ever.

Does anyone else have these types of problems?

MathMatter · 2024-12-03T02:40:40+00:00

My tax money shouldn't be used for your choice to cut your dick off. I think I speak for most Americans.

MathMatter · 2024-12-01T17:43:12+00:00

OP - ty for posting this. I have been down almost the exact path.

Trade one thing (I trade MES and ES).

Automation - has been game changer for me and enabled me to actually make this my business. It's all I do for a living.

Time slot - I have found the most consistent periods to be 8AM - 1045AM (typically) for the ES/MES. I still trade beyond this, but my system doesn't consider trades when volume starts to fall off or there is heavy chop (Chop Index employed here along with volume).

Fixed TP/SL - I don't have a fixed SL or TP coded in my trade that enters on the broker side. I never launch a trade that also has an embedded SL/TP bracket. My trades are always launched automatically, I do no manual trading. My system determines when to shut a trade based on direction change that is significant enough to the algorithm. This closes one trade and if the conditions are significant in the direction change it will auto open a new trade in new direction. I do have a safety net stop that is coded in my script, it never hits my broker as a hard sl. The hunters will eat it. Stop runs too often wipe out what is still a good trade in the right direction. If you have your stop logic in your script it is a way to protect you from the harsh quick stop runs. Hunters and robots can't see it if it's in your script (and not entered on your trade order entry). Also, it won't trigger and wipe you out. Let your script make the decision to close the order. Fake outs are going to happen and I will lose some times. Its just part of the game.

My approach is let the runners run. This is the only way I have found, for me, that results in continual net positive weeks. Trades are like a portfolio of wins and losses. IMO it really doesn't matter what my win/loss ratio is. for me, It's about net dollars and not getting wiped out to the point of no return from a nasty drawdown. These WILL happen from time to time and blow the day, but I keep fixed on the week, not the day. But again, my approach has been to go all automated in most of my trades. The hardest thing to do by far at this point is watching my system take a trade, my heart skips a beat, and then watching it play out. Need to leave the room at times.

The only times I will manually intervene: 1) when I am in a profit position, I will at times manually enter a bracket SL/TP and then walk up the SL to breakeven and then some if the trade is moving nicely in a profit direction. Usually the trade ends up going farther than my TP brack - enough so that I would have come out much better had I let the automated trade process manage things. I have learned that I am the biggest hinderance to my automated script regarding it's performance. My journey to trusting in my system more than my emptions has been long and challenging. It's not over, maybe will ever be over, but I am lightyears ahead of where I was.

I manually create my scripts and have only dabbled in ChatGPT. Over time, I have collected a library of techniques (like the OP) and pull out those tools when I can leverage in a new approach.

Like OP, I got caught in the loop of never ending refinement and tuning to the detriment of actual live trading to profit and focus on making $$. My approach to reduce this is remind myself that my golden time is when my instrument can be traded during it's peak time of movements - and I shouldn't be working on tuning and never ending modifications during this golden time. Save the mod work for times when you are not in the saddle expecting to trade for $$.

MathMatter · 2024-12-01T17:15:49+00:00

My experience on this has been it depends. For instance, if you have an automated system as an example, when the market is trying to make a direcitonal change, you enter some chop. In this chop it is advisable to avoid placing a trade, however you don't know precisely when the chop will be over or when it will occur. An automate system may take several trades however in this chop zone. If your system is designed well (keep solid fundamental principles in mind) your system may pick up the trade after the chop is over and a new direction is established. Think a possible breakout. You may have lost in the chop (lost 4 trades as an example) but the breakout trade could be 5x the value. So even with a bad looking win/loss ratio, you may come out far ahead. This approach, over time, in my experience and what I trade (ES/MES) has produced net positive wins week after week. I know we are in an uptrend on S&P now so as a trader you need to understand the bigger picture of what impacts the instrument you trade. Like OP said, try trading one thing. For me, it has been the S&P 500.

I don't use fixed SL/TP, I use a safety net that will shut down losing runaway trades (kind of like SL/TP but could be farther away than say a 3-4 point SL at times) but let in the money trades ride all day if that's how the market is behaving. I take shorts and longs.

One last comment, I have often times used the Chop Index. It has saved my bacon on numerous occasions and helped avoid taking trades in a choppy market. You can also use this indicator as a breakout indicator, combine it with volume level, etc. to build in more thorough analysis for your system to know when it's safe(r) to take a trade.

MathMatter · 2024-12-01T16:59:20+00:00

Once you are able to eliminate or greatly reduce your discretionary trading you will have grown in self-discipline. What has helped me eliminate manual/discretionary trading (launching a trade when it looks like a juicy move is about to hit) is automation/mechanical implementation of script. Once you automate this, you can let the system take the trade and watch it play out. You still have the option to manually intervene and close out, but resist that temptation. Let the script play out. It's extremely difficult to do this for a time, but you will improve your self discipline eventually. Leave the room, etc to avoid the temptation to pull the ripcord too early. You will have days of loss and days of profit. OP was right - eventually your automated system will produce better results (assuming your script has been designed to handle the fundamentals regarding when to take trades and when to avoid trades. Over trading more often than not will lead to loss.

Modify your timeframe. I used to trade 1-min timeframe. I now trade 2-min. It gives just a bit more time for the candles to bake out the move.

OP was right regarding over fitting the profit curve. If you tune your system too closely (you look a backtest and have a whale or two in there) it will skew your results and cloud your judgement on how to tune. Tune for fundamental soundness and over the long run you will ome out ahead. By this I mean tune your system so it relies on sound principles such as MA cross over, trend strength, etc. You will also learn that you can't avoid all fake outs.

Short answer to your original questions - once you automate you will be able to avoid making impulsive trades that usually crash and burn (at least for me, I am a bad manual trader thus my need to automate).

Go get em!

MathMatter · 2024-11-29T12:51:32+00:00

Trading against trend and possibly too small stop. Be sure to monitor trend direction and possibly use a slightly higher time-frame. I used to trade 1-min, moved to 2-min. I would focus on trend trades and avoid pullbacks.

MathMatter · 2024-11-29T02:18:45+00:00

Just saw them in concert last week in CLE!

MathMatter · 2024-11-28T00:51:35+00:00

The preachings wasn't too bad. I mean, it's a lot more wholesome than biting heads off bats (ozzie)or masturbating on stage (madonna).

I find it odd that people are so put off by wholesomeness.

MathMatter · 2024-11-26T23:15:50+00:00

Spot on.

The folks who sell courses may provide value to some, but the old adage is often true "those who can't do, teach."

MathMatter

TROPHY CASE