Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Actually, not trading very well today. I've made a few good trades..but too many poor ones. Even worse, I failed to follow my rules and entry criteria a few times. I shouldn't be still making mistakes like that at this point. Anyhow, about 20 ticks down right now. I was worse earlier.
I wanted to share an entry I made from my personal trade journal I keep. This was after a few weeks of poor performance. If any of you are going through a period like this, I think you will relate to how I was feeling. Since I am seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, I am glad I hung in there. Here it is:
It is the end of August 2014, and I am not sure if I should continue my trading endeavor. I am extremely depressed. I have put everything into this. I have spent the last several years trying everything I can to master this. I have several good weeks in a row...but then I still can't seem to handle the choppy, chaotic days. I know my system works best in certain market conditions but I seem unable to stop myself from trading..even when those conditions don't exist. This week I failed to even honor my maximum daily drawdown. My reasoning at the moment was, "Why should I stop trading just because I'm down 40 ticks or so..If I'm really as good as I think, then I should just keep taking all good setups." I finally stopped after being down 100 ticks. All my rules went out the window..stopped announcing my setups, stopped doing my pre-trade checklist..everything! If I can't control myself any better than this, I have to stop! As they say, this won't end well. Although I feel I have some good skills, my psychology is probably not suited for this. I'm starting to wish I had never gone into this. Trading is not my thing, obviously. I know I have to give this up and it is making me incredibly sad. What's really pathetic is that I think I really know how to trade well, but I always have these days when I do something extremely stupid...or maybe i should say ..INSANE!! I really think I have to quit and I need to figure out something else to do. This has gone on too long.
Because what you have write is the same thing I'm going thru now. This post is exactly what I feel about trading. I don't want to give up because I near the goal. I just miss something... the funny thing is we're at the end of August 2015
Now that your're successful what was your turning point to becoming consistent ?
What is the process you did to overcome all your bad behavior
Thanks again
When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful
-Eric Thomas
I'm sorry you are going through a similar issue. I know how depressing it can be. I think if you saw my video from August 29 on the previous page of this thread, I explain some of the things I did to overcome my issues.
Another thing I did was to try and do a vocal commentary (almost like I was conducting a trade room) where I describe at all times what price is doing and what possible setups are occurring. Before I could take an entry I had to quickly announce the name of the setup (I have about 4 different setups with specific names), my potential target and stop...and quickly list any valid reasons for not taking the trade. These reasons may be: choppy price action, support or resistance in the way of target, insufficient volume and momentum, possible news event about to come out, or price having moved to far already from a good entry...etc. By saying these things out loud, it helped me in two ways. One's thoughts and emotions can get jumbled while watching price move.. and by stating entries out loud, you can have better focus and control. Also, when I reviewed my trade recordings, I could actually hear my reasons for taking a trade, instead of guessing what I was thinking. I don't know if doing this would help most people, but for my type of brain, it definitely helped me.
