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I couldn't do it. I think it was part of the learning process.
Now, I don't have much problem following my rules.
There I two I broke in particular. One was waiting for the setup that produces the best results.
For some reason, I just wanted to see what would happen so I would deviate from
that often and trade what I felt like would be a winner.
The second rule I broke, although not often, was cut the loser.
You don't need to break this rule too many times before you go broke. (and I did).
I know it's been said a million times, but I'll say it again; trading is a journey.
New traders need to understand that it took me about 4 years of trading/watching
the markets constantly to finally be able to nail my rules and follow them without
a second thought. It takes a lot of time, to say the least. Others may have a different experience,
but that is mine.
I've gone from making a good deal of money and thinking I can do this for the rest of my life
to losing a great deal and second guessing myself. I didn't think about giving up but it made
me feel as if I might not have what it takes. But somehow, each those times that I felt I
might not make it, I overcame.
Mark Douglas may have described me as a boom and bust trader. I would agree with him.
After decent winning streaks and big profits, I would become overly confident and feel I
could turn any trade into a winner. So I had the mindset of expecting a winner. When it
wasn't, I would hold because I couldn't believe it was not going my way. It would drain
me all the way back to breakeven or even worse.
I now understand that and am able to monitor myself when I start making big profits.
I'm able to use self control and wait for the desired setup(s) and not forcing
my thoughts/desires onto the market. As mentioned, it's taken an incredible amount of dedication
and a ton of self reflection to get to this point and I'm still not where I want to be as a trader.
So when you think about giving up, remember that this is a journey and the true test of
a trader happens over 5 years, 10 years, and longer.
I was searching for risk management courses on the forum and somehow ended up here, and I’m glad I did. I read all 18 pages, thank you everyone for posting.
I am very new to trading, got interested in this about three years ago. Like most, I have done some very stupid things. When I first started everything seemed so easy. I thought I could make millions. Found a few companies mentioned on Wallstreet Journal report and without much thinking bought some shares. Made a few hundred bucks within a week and was blown away that this could be so easy. Then eventually I bought some penny stocks, made a few thousand dollars within hours and got really greedy. When it dipped I bought more, and eventually lost a lot. I was speechless and didn’t know what to do.
Eventually revenge kicked in and I was trying to make it up but lost even more. I guess many could relate to this… Then I read something about stock options, and it got me really interested. I learned everything about options on CBOT website (they have great online courses). I did make back a few thousands but eventually lost it again. It went on for about year and a half. At a certain point I said to myself that I will stop and will not trade until I learn enough and feel confident enough in my decisions. I was disappointed and embarrassed in myself to the point that I didn’t want to do my taxes and the end of the year and report losses, looking like an idiot. Even my tax guy said I should stop doing it…
I transferred all my money back to my bank account and did not touch trading for a year now. Been doing lots of reading, trying to find something that made sense to me. Luckily I realized early enough that no indicators work and that there is no holy grail. I did watch lots of webinars on this forum and what really make sense to me is Market / Volume Profile. Particularly what FT71 does. I read CME market profile guidebook, and now halfway through Mind Over Markets book which FT71 recommended. And finally I feel like it makes sense to me, I am slowly starting to understand how the market actually works.
What I’m trying to say is that I did loose a large sum of money, but I do not give up. Trading and everything about financial market truly inspires me. It is my dream to become a professional trader and because I am still young (24), no family and enough time, I hope to be able to achieve this.
The biggest fear I have is that I am not sure whether I am on the right track or not. There is so much information available online that it simply overwhelms you. I noticed some said in this thread that you need to have a mentor, someone to guide you in the right direction. Some said that you need to talk to professional traders that do it for a living. How do you find people like that? Is it necessary? Is it true that only books are not enough?
Unfortunately my current career is nowhere near related to trading and I don’t have any friends in finance. The internet and futures.io (formerly BMT) are the only two places I can seek for answers, but as you all know some of the information on the web can be very misleading.
8 years in, okay not traded at all for some of those years others barely at all and although profitable at the moment ( could slip back, have done before ) and although my setups work really well most of the time, my entry and exit always feel like educated guesses which to be honest makes it really hard to pull the trigger so I'm leaving 100's of trades on the table each week.
So over the years, have I wanted to give up ? Have I sat there for hours looking at charts thinking this is all random there is no way to profit from this, OHHHH YES!!! but I haven't, cause I like the challenge and the reward if cracked should be worth it ( If my sanity holds out LOL )
So don't give up, but treat it as a hobby and don't risk more than hobby money, at my lowest I was only down 1/5th approx that I spent on Mountain Bikes over the same time!
Profitable for me, is at that time, account is going up, don't buy into the 2 or 20years of evidence, lifes just to short for that.
I don't believe in a single method, that you follow the rules and trade for ever ( unless the rules handle varying markets I guess ), Markets change you need to have the experience to adapt and over come, tweaking the method and using the best market ( DAX currently, GBPAUD before ) which is available at the time.
I hope 1 day it'll become easy, but I fear it never will and if it did I'd get bored and find a new hobby anyway LOL
I gave up after the first 1 1/2 years of massive losses. I only bought options once every week or 2. It was good because it was like trading in slow motion. When I was going to trade them, i felt all the crazy emotions build up in me leading up to the trade, but the price wasn't changing much over the course of time that I was experiencing all these crazy emotions. So it was showing me how screwed up I was since there was nearly no action but I was overreacting.
I did that for around 6 months. Worked out some of it, then got back into daytrading. The break helped but only partly. There were a few hundred other things I had to go thru....
It's been 3.5 years after the 6 mo options break
Another part of this is that it was totally new to me and anything totally new that isn't super simple takes a lot of time, effort, expense, and experience.
Even now, I'm at minimum risk since I still make an error that is preventable, but my account is slowly increasing to where I can afford more risk, but until i feel it's time I remain at minimum.
