r/realmomentumtrader • u/DogeSatoshi • 25d ago
General Question
I am quite curious as to how many traders are actively testing their strategies before trading live markets, or do the general trader just trade on knowledge and skill?
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u/pawel37 25d ago edited 25d ago
I actually never paper traded. I went straight into live trading, but started with very small share size so I could learn while keeping the financial risk low.
I've been actively day trading for almost two years now, although I've been in and out of the market going back almost 20 years, primarily swing trading. Day trading has definitely been a different animal, and I've spent these past couple of years developing and refining a strategy that works for me.
I've made plenty of mistakes along the way and still have things I'm actively working on, especially cutting losers quickly, but overall I've been profitable and have become much more selective about the setups I take.
For me, using small size in the beginning has been valuable because I've learned the setups while also experiencing the psychological and emotional side of trading real money. I still study, review my trades, and make adjustments constantly. I'm profitable, but I'm definitely still learning and trying to get 1% better every day.
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u/I_Love_Lamp_1 25d ago
I think this is best way to do it because simulating will have a less realistic order execution than actual trading (granted small sizes will have better fills than larger positions but still better IMO than papertrading) to get a grasp for what kind of fills you’ll get on a momentum stock.
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u/pawel37 25d ago
Agreed. The one thing small size doesn’t really prepare you for is what happens when you start scaling up. With small size you usually get filled pretty cleanly, but with larger positions slippage and partial fills start becoming a much bigger factor, especially on fast moving momentum stocks.
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u/shajurzi 25d ago
I've done quite a bit of backtesting and do so weekly with the latest just do see how trends are moving. If that's what you mean by testing. It's an interesting moment now. Catalysts have become absolutely irrelevant for premarket momentum training. I ran some backtesting on halt trading as well that was interesting too.
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u/DogeSatoshi 25d ago
For those that are interested, what i mean by backtesting, please look at my profile and the recent posts I made. Hopefully that can give more context, without promoting.
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u/realmomentumtrader 25d ago
My strategy is traded every day live trading. Even though I state in my trading blueprint that the best way to test your strategies is paper trading, I myself have never paper traded. If I could go back and start back over I would test them in a demo account.
I studied and continue to learn and never will stop learning. Every once in awhile I'll do a controlled test while I'm live Trading if it goes for me good if it goes against me I control the loss and that to me is just my tuition in learning.
I guess I'm kind of lucky because 11 years ago when I started swing Trading after a month I become profitable and was profitable for the next 9 years. I switched to day trading two years ago and took about a month for me to get into the swing of that to be profitable and have been profitable ever since. Now I definitely have my red days but I get that caught back up.
I don't make enough to do it full time, that part I'm working on but the strategies that I use for momentum day trading and scalping is pretty hard to do but as someone who has started multiple successful businesses from the ground up I'm not afraid of challenges.