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Time to Give Up


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Time to Give Up

  #261 (permalink)
 
xplorer's Avatar
 xplorer 
London UK
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mk77ch View Post
From my personal experience i can say that most of the problems and stress comes from how you evaluate success.
When you measure success in trading on successful trades that hit your target, you end up as a playball of the market.

The best you can do as a trader is to execute according to your plan and stick to your rules.
You will never know with certainty if a setup you trade will first hit your stop or your target.
The profitabilty of your trading is based on the method you are trading and how well you stick to your plan and your rules.

There will be days on a regular basis where the market will not be in tune with your trading method. The best you can do is to realize this and to halt your trading for that day or at least for a few hours before your daily loss limit is reached.
There is nothing else you can do! If you get in financial or personal trouble on such days you dont have a plan.

Measure the day on how well you executed your trades and sticked to your plan and rules.
This is the only thing you have an influence on and what should make the difference between a good and a bad trading day for you.

If your daily loss limit or win target is reached, stop trading and be ready for another day.
Dont trade 24 hours a day, define one or two time window(s) and go for quality (focus) instead of quantity.

Optimize everything you can. The place you trade from, your charts, everything you have an influence on and what does have an influence on you. Make yourself aware of the things you can change to optimize and the things you cant.

Traders without a solid plan, rules and properly defined daily win targets and loss limits are prone to exhaust them self and end up depressed and frustrated.

If you experience hurdles or problems while executing your plan, (and you will) stay positive and try to overcome them in small steps. Dont be to hard to yourself, successful trading is hard to learn and will take time, energy and effort.
Trading for a living is a marathon and not a sprint! Be happy and proud for every small step you take.

If you are executing according to your plan and dont make money over a big enough sample of trades you are maybe trading a method which has no edge in the market. Evaluate, test and learn.

Trading is the most honest and pure thing i can think of. You make a mistake, you pay. nobody other to blame than yourself. Trading can teach you a lot of valuable skills and will show your weakness without mercy. Learn to see this as a value and enjoy it!

i hope this helps anybody

cheers,
mike

Thank you mike, what you wrote resonates with me. As I said having a bad day for me translates into not sticking to my own rules, i.e. falling into the mental trap of 'what if'. A loss is usually not a problem provided it was part of the accepted risk.

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  #262 (permalink)
 
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 Anagami 
Cancun, Mexico
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xplorer View Post
Thanks Anagami, although that is your opinion and you're entitled to it.

That statement rings true about the nature of learning to trade and the difficulties along the way - better hear sobering statements about that than to hear tough, macho-style slogans on how good is to be a trader. To many successful traders - in my opinion - the former sentiment would also ring truer.

I've been trading for 10 years, and can tell you that you cannot get to success from suffering, pessimism, powerlessness, and pain. I never would have become a millionaire thinking and feeling that way, for that is a loser vibe. But you are welcome to beat your head against the wall if you prefer. Up to you.

And for the record, I am not advocating the view that trading is 'easy'. It certainly isn't. But it does not have to be filled with negative emotions as you showcase.

The fact that you speak of pain as a necessary component shows that you have not come to terms with the most basic task that a trader faces: accepting the risk and the uncertainty of each individual trade.

You are never in the wrong place... but sometimes you are in the right place looking at things in the wrong way.
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  #263 (permalink)
 
xplorer's Avatar
 xplorer 
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Anagami View Post
I've been trading for 10 years, and [...]

Here it comes...

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  #264 (permalink)
 
mk77ch's Avatar
 mk77ch 
Switzerland
 
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xplorer View Post
Thank you mike, what you wrote resonates with me. As I said having a bad day for me translates into not sticking to my own rules, i.e. falling into the mental trap of 'what if'. A loss is usually not a problem provided it was part of the accepted risk.

thank you, i deleted my post after i realized the thread itself is about when to stop trading.
but i am happy now it lives on at least as a quote because it took quite some time to write

as for your initial post, yes, not sticking to the rules is what happens absolutely every trader from time to time.
making a mistake and recognise it as such is important. but i think more important is to turn such things into something positive like a chance to learn and a chance to think about a way to prevent unwanted behaviour for the future.

for me personally it helps to write down those situations in a separate column in my trading log. i then see it when i write it down and each of the following days it reminds me to not break my rules.
during my trading session i often use that quote from mike bellafiore: "One good trade" to remind myself to only take valid setups.

another thing that from time to time comes to my mind is that after the trading session i will enable the "Plot executions" in ninjatrader to show the trades i have made and what i want to see there are good trades.

but this is a progress and we are human. think positive and let some room for mistakes. we learn from failure, not from success or like Salvador Dali once said: “Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.”

cheers,
mike

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  #265 (permalink)
 
xplorer's Avatar
 xplorer 
London UK
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mk77ch View Post
thank you, i deleted my post after i realized the thread itself is about when to stop trading.
but i am happy now it lives on at least as a quote because it took quite some time to write

as for your initial post, yes, not sticking to the rules is what happens absolutely every trader from time to time.
making a mistake and recognise it as such is important. but i think more important is to turn such things into something positive like a chance to learn and a chance to think about a way to prevent unwanted behaviour for the future.

for me personally it helps to write down those situations in a separate column in my trading log. i then see it when i write it down and each of the following days it reminds me to not break my rules.
during my trading session i often use that quote from mike bellafiore: "One good trade" to remind myself to only take valid setups.

another thing that from time to time comes to my mind is that after the trading session i will enable the "Plot executions" in ninjatrader to show the trades i have made and what i want to see there are good trades.

but this is a progress and we are human. think positive and let some room for mistakes. we learn from failure, not from success or like Salvador Dali once said: “Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.”

cheers,
mike


agreed - thanks mike

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  #266 (permalink)
thailerdurden
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I got through all 27 pages. When trading/speculation is discussed here and everywhere else, it always ends up being a touchy feeling thing. Discipline, know yourself, patience, honesty, managing your feelings, reasonable expectations, adequate capitalization, to to rank success, we are our worst enemy .....

I think that psycho-babble is just used to detract us from the fact that nothing works worth a damn. And I'm the responsible because I send the shysters $$$.

On the other hand, NOW is the best time ever because us mass of unwashed retail traders can practice in SIM.

Also so far I after 28 years I'm down about 35K. Sound bad huh? Before I got into trading, a denny's waitress (she still had on her waitress uniform) ran a red light because her husband was late for his VA hospital appointment. She totalled out my porsche for $5000 well it was a 914. And I had a collapsed lung, internal bleeding, and a whole shit load of broken ribs, cost was $25K.

So disaster can come out of nowhere.

I gotta joke: In 1994 I made a live hog trade. It was based on the fact that live hogs never went up 4 days in a row or down 3 days in a row, $100 each day unless the there was a crop report or cold storage report. The trade was supposed to be enter MOC, and exit tomorrow's MOC. The market went limit down on me!! I held and added to the account to meet margin for 3 months. I sold in January right at the bottom. Lost $2000 on a trade that never made more than $300. So no more trading for tyler durden!!!

Then I got on with this semiconductor company, participated in their stock purchase program. How could I lose? Well before the earnings release the shit bag CEO announced they were writing off inventory. The stock dropped like a turd. I lost $20,000 in less than a day. The CFO CEO and founder got busted for insider trading.

Punch line is now I don't feel so bad about losing $2000 on the live hog trade. (they were called live hogs back then)

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  #267 (permalink)
amttrader
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After perusing some of the posts in here, I'm not even sure I have any business being here at all. I'm brand new, lost, and only working on a demo with a friend right now trading futures only. Been doing okay so far, but I'm sure things will change when real money is involved.

I need to find some really elementary stuff in this forum to just get myself rolling along. I'm a quick study, but I need the information fed from a straw rather than a firehose at first. Any suggestions as to where I need to get started?

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  #268 (permalink)
 
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 Okina 
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amttrader View Post
After perusing some of the posts in here, I'm not even sure I have any business being here at all. I'm brand new, lost, and only working on a demo with a friend right now trading futures only. Been doing okay so far, but I'm sure things will change when real money is involved.

I need to find some really elementary stuff in this forum to just get myself rolling along. I'm a quick study, but I need the information fed from a straw rather than a firehose at first. Any suggestions as to where I need to get started?

If you are doing good with paper money you are in the good track. You won't find here the manual of the perfect trader (since this manual do not exist, and never believe those who want to sell you one) but if you ask the good questions you will have some answers that will help you make some progress.

Good trading.

R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
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  #269 (permalink)
 
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 cory 
virginia
 
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amttrader View Post
... Any suggestions as to where I need to get started?

BigMike said watch all webinars first.

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  #270 (permalink)
 
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 paps 
SF Bay Area + CA/US
 
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maybe with some work and perseverance its possible

the road might not be easy..... . But if its something one wants...its possible.

cheers and wish only the best

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