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I struggle with loss limits (TST combine), advice/thoughts?


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I struggle with loss limits (TST combine), advice/thoughts?

  #11 (permalink)
 traderfolife007 
frisco
 
Posts: 3 since Apr 2014

your issue is you impulsively trade and feel the need to keep going ... usually at the wrong time... some people really need to stop manually trading and consider automatic system trading.. it takes the monkey out of the trade in the monkey would be me in this example... just food for thought..

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  #12 (permalink)
 
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 TickedOff 
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reasondeep View Post
Hello all,

To put it simply, I struggle a lot with loss limits. I want to fix this problem. I want to be able to stop when I'm down a certain amount per day rather than taking it all the way to edge. Yes, there is a lot on the line for me, which is why I know fear of missing out shows its face rather easily for me. A part of me knows that once I am actually pulling in checks from TST that I would likely back down, but last week I really disappointed myself.

I passed the $50k combine and was put on LTP. My first day of LTP I made a solid profit of over $1300, which is $200 shy of the project objective for LTP. The next day I was down, and very very irresponsibly I did not have my trade activity log open and was relying just on the profit loss that my chart shows (which does not include commissions) and I ended up hitting the loss limit. I don't know why I did that. I knew there was a possibility I could be close to the loss limit, but I was too busy trading to look. I am a bit embarrassed about it, but it is the truth. From my combine results you can see I'm a very active trader. Most of those days I was trading 1 contract.

I welcome any thoughts, be as forth right as you please. I prefer practical tips to manage my psychology. Motivational thoughts are always welcome. Anyone who has struggled with this before and managed to overcome it, I would very much like to hear what you have to say.

I have long history of circumstances that can no doubt be connected to FOMO, amongst other things. I'm already well aware of the answer, "you should find a job if you're really needing to make money" -- but I'm still okay for now not having a job. And more than that, I think my trading performance shows a clear edge, so to me it is truly an opportunity cost that comes into play finding a job at this point in my development as a trader. I am too close to doing well to go part-time. My combine results are shown below.

The middle picture shows my trading in between my successful combine and the start of LTP. I treated those days as though it was the LTP.

Perhaps theres some software/add-on that will automatically restrict your trading once you hit a certain drawdown? When it comes to overtrading, I am starting to think mindfulness isnt enough. I also have problems with this too. Recently watched a webinar by Rande Howell. Point that got to me, is that we have certain beliefs that are the root cause of overtrading. In the end, overtrading is us unconsciously acting out impulses, which are triggered by certain situations. For example, I am now realising, at a deeper level (not just intellectually knowing it) that I believe that I have to TAKE ACTION, MAKE THINGS HAPPEN! And that not doing is laziness or wasting time. This is the way many of us have been conditioned. As a result, you develop a certain urgency during trading, a subconscious pushing, an endless uncomfortable feeling that you HAVE to be doing something, you need to make money! Especially when market is slow and there is no clear opportunity, you arent making money or seeing trades (might not be any!) then you will feel really tense and uncomfortable because of that belief. That mindset will cause you to lose a lot of money. The opposite is realising that control is an illusion. Let me elaborate - we cannot control the outcome of any trade. We cant guarantee a certain day we will be profitable. Some days, the market will be very quiet and range bound. We cant control that, and on those days we wont be able to make a killing. The only control we have is over ourselves. Having the belief that patience is good, that sitting still and not doing anything is key to trading. Chosing where we enter, when we are flat, and how much we will risk. We must let go of outcome and stop trying to force it. And let me reinforce - this is something I have "known" for a long time, but I still had the belief that I had to be doing something in order to succeed, I still believed just sitting there was lazy and useless. So I still forced trades. The deep layers of our mind are very hard to observe. I am now focusing on changing these deeply conditioned beliefs.

Quick note on mindfullness "In the end, overtrading is us unconsciously acting out impulses, which are triggered by certain situations. " If we are mindful, we can recognize these impulses and therefore not act on them. But if you have the damaging belief if you (you HAVE TO do something or you are lazy etc), you have an impulse and negative emotion generating machine going on in your head you must constantly to battle with. If you change these beliefs, I would think maintain a calm, relaxed state would be much easier, because the impulses and sense of urgency simply disapear. As to truly changing these beliefs, Im not too sure how to go about that but recognizing you have them is a start. I have had a lot of pain from overtrading so that should help me realise that more and constant action is actually death.

Understanding yourself is just as important as understanding markets.
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Last Updated on August 5, 2015


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