1st post here. This journal is really just for myself as I've been looking for a place to write to myself. I could just grab a notebook and write to myself, but my handwriting is awful / spelling sucks. Just read one of Big Mike's post where he suggests to make a journal here with 100% honesty, not covering my ass and no one knows who I really am, so why not?
Quick about me.
I'm 37. Married with 2 kids. A 5yo and 2yo. We live with my mom in her house. Her house is paid off. We don't have to pay any rent. We just have to cover all the living expenses and house maintenance and property tax. My wife and I work as a casino table game dealer part time. Together we make maybe 80k a year. While our income is low but we have no debt, no mortgage, no interest in luxury items, drive beaten up cars, kids still young, so our financial stress isn't too high.
I wanna talk a little more about my family cuz I did a little bit reading on the getting support from the family. My kids are still young, so they don't know what I'm really doing sitting in front of the computer 3-6hrs a day. I just told them daddy has to do his homework. My mom doesn't like the idea of short term trading/gambling. She wants me to work fulltime at the casino. She like stable & predictable income like 99.99% of people. Nothing wrong with that and that's why I keep working part time and trading part time. She knows I'm not going to listen, and as long as I pay all my bills and stuff, she just leave me alone. My wife doesn't really have any strong opinion for what I'm doing. She's probably too busy with 2 kids. She probably won't say anything unless I blow my account. It's definitely our hard earned money no question about that, but not the end of the world if I lose it.
I started gambling(stocks only) in May 2019. It was my birthday month, and I for whatever the reason wanted to trade stocks. I guess the main reason I want to trade is because I'm not an employee material, but I also don't want to be an employer because I don't like to deal with people. I just wanna be my own boss. I don't have the get rich quick mentality, I just wanna trade for my freedom. I opened an account with TD Ameritrade with 30K. 90% of time swing trade and rest just day trade and scalp just to see what they are. Around the same time when I entered into the largest casino in the world, people around me also started swing trading. I'd say most of them doing very well and turned their small account 20-30k to close to 100k and a few reached 150K now. Bull market, everyone is happy. So what about me? I probably made 18k. If you ask me why my performance is so low compared to people around me, my answer would be over trading during the corrections and always follow my rules taking the stop losses, and my LK trade really killed me. But even if LK fraud didn't happen, my P/L performance is low compared to my friends. So how they make their money? It's very easy. This is exactly what they tell me, "Bro, it's bull market, just buy low and sell high. No stop loss, just hold them and they will pop back up." Looking at my trade history, their statement is true, very true. That LK trade was the only exception but it was only 20% of my account size. So am I going to trade without STOP? No WAY!!! Not only do I always take my stop loss, I don't touch it. I spend a lot of time reading Mark Douglas and Phantom of the Pits. I understand what a stop is for. On top of that, being a table game dealer for 10+ years, I can point out a lot of similarity that gambling and trading share.