...Even if I never become a wildly profitable trader...
This, this right here, stop it
I have always wanted to just trade the underlying chart, but I had to resort to options with long durations to make any money.
It took me 4 years to add a zero & then I made a move too early and converted my options into twice the number of outrights.
A massive sharp retracement brought my account back to around my initial balance & I had no choice but to liquidate and buy 2 OTM calls.
When you are getting punched in the face but you know that your original analysis is still valid then you need to do whatever it takes to hang on.
Volatility increased to crazy levels and one week later I was back up to +0.
After that I wondered how such a thing could be done with contracts as I would have surely failed without the options...
It has taken me until recently, some 12 years, to figure such a thing out & the key is the idea of 'space' with minimum initial size.
People don't realize how powerful simple ideas are & how long it has taken others to arrive at them; they read one quote and in the blink of an eye they gain a man's whole life experience
The idea of the 'macro pip' is another such idea. Does it matter whether you call something 40 pips or 4 macro pips?
Mentally it makes a big difference; where before you were up 40 pips wondering what you should do, you now draw
on your small chart experience, which by sheer speed should be vast, to contemplate what you would do at +4 pips.
Don't focus on results, focus on perfecting ideas and you will grow in the direction of profitability.