Trend Catcher System Help

#1

Hello Traders,

I am having some serious problems with trying to trade the Trend Catcher System. I have completed all the necessary steps in order to trade the system. I have watched all the videos, completed the course work, have demo traded for a month and some success, and now since I’ve gone live 3 weeks ago, I have lost $3,000. I feel that I understand the system but continuously get chopped out of 8/10 trades. The losses are overwhelmingly outpacing the few trends that I get into and thus have 14 losing days out of 15. It appears that no one else is trading the TC System since I don’t see any charts in the Elite trade room that are following the system. All the charts in the trade room are the Sharpshooter, Binary Hunter, or Apex System. Can someone try to guide me as to what the hell I’m doing wrong? Is the Apex System any better, etc.? I am trading these markets with the these bar sizes: NQ-20, TF-14, CL-12, YM-26, GC-10, ZS=12, & ZC-12. Thanks.

J

#2

Justin,

Sorry to hear you are having such a tough time with the Trend catcher system. I hate to state the obvious here man but stop the bleeding, don’t trade live until you figure this out. Second thing is pick one market, learn everything you can using the system you want to use on that market until you are consistently profitable and then add another, I don’t doubt your ability to multi-task on multiple markets, but if you are not profitable, a little focus is in order.

Are you trading futures, binaries, spreads? Just looking at some of the bar sizes you are using, you might want to make adjustments there first. For example, if you are trading the indices (NQ, TF, ES, YM) for TC on binaries, most people use a 6 tick diagnostic bar and trade the 20 minute contracts and have had great success with it. If you are trading spreads 12 tick dx bars were often used and you either scalped or trend traded trailing with the MVP depending on what your chart was showing you.

Go back look at your trades mark up some charts and post them here in the forum so that we can see what you are seeing and help you. Without that, there is really no way we can see what it is that you are doing that is causing your struggles.

Set a daily profit/loss goal and when you hit it, stop trading. Darrell has some great risk management posts in the forum talking about the 5% rule study that one and implement what he talks about in it, trust me it will help you if you follow it. If you set a 5% daily profit goal based on your account size, you could double your account in a month. Make a plan and stick to it the alternative is blowing up your account.

I can’t stress enough the importance of not placing another live trade until you are consistently profitable in demo. It’s the only way for you to know if you truly are ready. Demo is the cheapest education you can get.

Ask questions, post your charts here and any one of us that has been in your shoes, and we all have, will be more than happy to get you back on the path to success.

Good luck,

Peter.

#3

Hi Peter,

Yes I agree with you. I am going back to demo trading until I figure this out. I will adjust my bar sizes for NQ to 14 down from 20 and YM to 12 from 26 and I am trading Nadex Spreads now. I was trading both futures (where I got killed and most of my losses are from) and a few spreads, but now just spreads. I think the main problem I am encountering is that I am trying to take every trade long or short bases on the chop filter flip. I am going to only trade in the direction of the trend at this point and only enter the opposite direction once the MVP flip occurs. So I was taking like 20+ trades or so for each market whenever the chop filter changed, etc. Overtrading and just getting chopped up. I also watched the Apex system today and will try demo trading that as well. Lastly, I am going to focus on 3 markets for now and mastering those before moving on to any others. I’m falling into the trap and thinking that most new traders have, and that is that I feel like I should be “doing something” almost every minute of the trading day. I know that patience and discipline are key and waiting for the right setup, time of day, and reading the technical indicators are paramount. Ex. Understanding how the market might move with relation to where price action is currently at compared to deviation levels, institutional zones, expected volume, and overall daily deviation, etc. I"m going to concentrate on basic clean setups in both the TC and Apex systems. I’m not going to be taking any elevators, slingshots, BMX, MVP Reversals, etc. I’ll get this cleaned up sooner or later but hopefully sooner than later! Thanks for the input and advice. I’ll have an update and possibly post some trades to see what others like you think about what I’m seeing and if it’s correct. Thanks and have a great trading week.

J

#4

I would suggest if you are trading Nadex Spreads to trade them using the Izone Sharpshooter as Darrell does. You can find the info here: https://forum.apexinvesting.com/t/izone-sharpshooter-set-up-and-rules/4415