No matter how tightly we stick to the rules it seems we can just have some bad days at times, nature of the beast. I’ve had a few in a row now, and though there are specifics we can dig into here in the forum to check ourselves and improve, I’ve noticed that there is no single place in the forums to share simple success stories. I think they could be motivational for people, especially myself at the moment.
To start off, I’d like to share that I’ve been practicing the APEX method strictly since Fed of this year, and transitioned to full time trading in August. Having this be my full time job amplifies the emotions a bit, up and down, but I’m thrilled to be here and feel as though I’ve “made it” of sorts, but I have much much more to do. So, the sky’s the limit from here as far as I’m concerned!
DM, I was looking all over for tgriz23’s reply in that thread you linked me to for a couple days now, been wanting to pick his brain - thanks! Thanks for the encouragement!
After almost three months listening to Darrells various Nadex web courses and almost all sym trades
I made $360.00 Thursday, using crude,nq,ym and the es. These were all Nadex spreads using one contract
only. I listened to Darrells( how to trade spreads) at least twenty times and sym traded these
markets 212 times. I may be kinda slow on this but I know practice trading is the key for me.
I am coming from the futures side and know the margin are totally different with Nadex, thank goodness,
maybe I will live longer,Thanks Darrell and your great trading team…Mike
Since I started doing this, I’ve had mixed results and reactions. I’ve gone back and forth between having confidence and wondering if this was such a good idea. My account is at about half the amount I put into it. But this week has been my first truly successful week. Five trades, all gains, plus one experimental binary straddle that broke even. After fees I think it came to exactly $1 in profit. No losses. Total gains: $96. For me that’s huge especially considering all my other weeks were negative.
I noticed a change today in my levels of confidence. For one the only trades I made today were momentum scalps. Those normally make me nervous. For a time I was frustrated that I wasn’t getting entries with APEX. Then recently Darrell showed a chart to us that was full of trades which helped to remind me that I need to keep an open mind. So I set up my trades, then when one dipped $15+ into the negatives I reminded myself of two things, that I still had plenty of time until it expired and more importantly, the MVP line was still on my side. In the case that it wouldn’t have recovered I told myself so what, I’m working on my next trade. Gotta keep moving. I ended up taking a profit on it a short time later.
I’ve learned so much more about trading here than anywhere else. If I hadn’t (repeatedly) come across this site in the search engine and finally decided to see what it was all about after reading various forum posts, I’d probably would have ended up using “strategies” such as “if a red candlestick bar has a long upward wick, sell”. Seriously, I was testing this before I discovered Apex. Some insist that it works, and it probably does for them. I’ll stick with what I’m learning now, thank you very much.
Before this, I wasted years researching internet marketing and jumping from one shiny object to the next. If there’s one major thing that trading and internet marketing have in common it’s that they both require a lot of study, testing, and implementation of what you’ve learned before you can know for certain whether it will work. It’s said an unwillingness to do this is why most fail at “im”, and I suspect it’s the exact same with trading.
Two of the things that have driven me these years is the desire to get out from a dead end job and wanting to give my very hard working mom the option to retire early or do something else if she so chooses. For the first time I think that I have -realistic- hope that I can accomplish this.
practice, patience, persistence, consistency…those are the keys! Way to go man! If you haven’t read this post from Rob, read it, and show 'em some love!
I’ve jumped around also, mlm, im, real estate, etc. Honestly, I think that that is something that you have to do because there is no roadmap. Sure, some folks are born knowing what they want to do/be, but I wasn’t. And they SURE don’t teach you this in school. (and I got 2 degrees!) But at some point, just like you said, when you find it, you gotta stick with it until you get the results you seek. I’ve learned there will always be a shiny new object. A new ‘guru’. A new system. That is why I like Apex so much because it forces you to be your own guru. Just like DM always say, if you find yourself always losing on a trade…take the opposite side of the trade. So instead of following the latest shiny object…I plan to BE the latest shiny object. LOL…I’m the object of my own affection!:o
I’m going to bump this thread since it’s a good one. I’m somewhat new to the forum (long time listener first time caller). I’m not new to trading nor Nadex. One of the things I learned a while a back that helps keep things in perspective is defining what “success” is or what “winning vs losing” is. Rather than view a successful trade based on profit or loss is to evaluate the trade based on execution. Did I plan the trade according to my strategy/tactics? Did I enter (or pass) according to the plan? Did I exit according to the plan? If all are a “yes” then it was a successfully executed trade regardless of profit or loss. How can a loss be successful? Because a well thought out strategy and plan accounts for losses as inevitable and part of the cost of doing business. Moreover, a well thought strategy and plan keeps losses manageable to the point where they are no big deal at all and can be taken without batting an eye because the math behind the strategy and plan should be profitable over time.
Anywho… consistency, patience, and discipline have paid off for me in the last 2 week. Only 8 trades but 6 were profitable averaging just shy of a positive 2:1 once you add in fees.
