Some time ago I was a student pilot, I was able to solo and fly alone. One day I took of and was at about 3000Ft. I have my own construction business, new wife, baby, income property, relationships. I was thinking about all this stuff. The next thing I knew, I had lost 1500 feet of altitude in seconds, I was disorientated. ( Short a long market !!). Couldn't pull it together. Humans have no sense of direction. I was confused and in big trouble. I radioed for help and got the plane down quickly.
I HAD LOST FOCUS. I was not aware of what I was supposed to be doing. The traders we retail traders compete with have classes on awareness, focus and managing the emotions. We learn by the seats of our pants. If one is obsessed with anything else (drinking, drugs, business ,job relationship). You will loose. You must be centered emotionally and spiritually to focus on trading. Good luck. Get up and fight. FOCUS OR DO NOT ENTER.

billmcg 

Some time ago I was a student pilot, I was able to solo and fly alone. One day I took of and was at about 3000Ft. I have my own construction business, new wife, baby, income property, relationships. I was thinking about all this stuff. The next thing I knew, I had lost 1500 feet of altitude in seconds, I was disorientated. ( Short a long market !!). Couldn't pull it together. Humans have no sense of direction. I was confused and in big trouble. I radioed for help and got the plane down quickly. I HAD LOST FOCUS. I was not aware of what I was supposed to be doing. The traders we retail traders compete with have classes on awareness, focus and managing the emotions. We learn by the seats of our pants. If one is obsessed with anything else (drinking, drugs, business ,job relationship). You will loose. You must be centered emotionally and spiritually to focus on trading. Good luck. Get up and fight. FOCUS OR DO NOT ENTER.

Great comment! Ever since being a kid in grade school, I now know that I've always been a little on the ADD side. So how do I keep my focus? My trades last only 1-5 minutes max. I can keep a focus that long.

blew 

First off, I can't thank you all enough for the support! It's absolutely insane to see all the replies and love, 8+ pages of it. I have read every single reply and taken perspective and wisdom from each one of them. It would take a long time to go through and respond to each and every person, just know I did read every reply. I had a solid night of sleep and spent the day with my family. I have finally came down from the emotional state some, enough to think straight. One question I am seeing a lot is about my strategy. I don't think it failed me. I failed myself. I ran most of the cash up from scalping options (TSLA and SPY usually 0-3DTE), and scalping securities (AAPL mostly, and then whatever else was having lots of volume/gapping on the day). I switched to futures for a bit here at the end before the blowup, and was having good success there (ES and RTY), and I feel like futures are perfect for me. For some reason I just decided to go back to what I was used to for a bit, probably out of habit and it's where a majority of my success was from. My strategy seems to work even better on futures, so I think I will be trading them exclusively when I get back on the horse Monday. My strategy is actually super simple, regardless if its options, shares, futures, etc. I trade support and resistance levels and I trade with the trend always. I don't trade breakouts or pure momentum or anything. I prefer a drop or breakout to happen, then wait as new floors and ceilings are formed, and I take those trades instead. I like trading inside channels of consolidation that have a wide range, the wider the better. Example, once I see a ceiling being retested, and if the trend is down, I will short once it retests that ceiling expecting it to fail because the major trend is down. Take my profit at the floor, leave a runner incase it breaks a floor. The stop loss is some what tight with minimal risk, because if it breaks out it did the opposite of what I wanted and the stop loss is set far enough out so it can breathe upon a fake out, but will stop out if it runs hard. Same for going long. I buy in at a clear floor, and take my profits at the ceiling, usually leaving a runner if it does breakout of the channel. I don't use any indicators at all, and instead just identify highs and lows and support/resistance levels myself. Its insane when you draw these yourself how much the market will follow these trends to the exact tick sometimes. I very rarely short if the trend is overall up, and I very rarely go long if the trend is down. Indicators made me lose money most of the time (not as much as my emotional trading though heh ). Not sure if its because I was too focused on them or what, but I quickly realized I was doing way way way better without them. My biggest day ever was around 15k, a TSLA scalp turned into an all day hold as it just kept running. My biggest loss in a day before the blowup was like 3.5k, and I felt sick to my stomach for days. My account was only like 35kish at that time probably. I made it back quick enough though. One thing I noticed was as my account just kept getting larger, those losses I was getting sick over began to feel like nothing. I wish I still got sick to my stomach over those losses and realized the severity of what it was leading to. I think I normalized these large losses in a way because I felt justified by the large balance I ran up. It was pure cockiness. When I was raging I didn't follow my plan at all obviously. Not in any sense at all. I was over trading, and I even added to losing positions, something I never do and is in my checklists to never do ever. I should've knew right then and there when I broke that rule to stop, but I knew while I was doing it I needed to stop. I just can't believe how out of hand it got and how the spiral blew up my account so quickly. It makes me realize how dangerous emotion is. I was in trades with my heart pumping, my blood rushing and rage in my body. A sim can never recreate this situation for me because the emotion I experienced wouldn't have happened. No panic or revenge trading because I would've simply edited the account balance if I ran out. Emotion can't be represented in a sim, and it's directly what led to my demise. Sim is great for testing strategies and such I think, but I don't know that it will help my situation a whole lot (unless my strategy clearly falls apart entirely). My major takeaways for now: 1. Set a loss limit on my account. This will straight up prevent me from blowing up, even if I get extremely emotional again. 2. Take half of my profits at the end of the day. I will begin doing this once I get my account back to around 30k. 3. Work on controlling my emotions better, even though #1 helps massively with this and lets me be human still. I wish I would have followed #2 earlier and blew 30k instead of 60k. But I am taking this as a massive learning experience. I need to get back in the mindset of where I was at 10k. My mindset then was 1% a day, and it got me to where I was. I know some replies here are saying it's unachievable, but honestly with small account sizes (under ~1mil), I really think it's not that far fetched. Hell I was doing it, so I know it's not crazy talk. Yes my style technically involves using leverage (not using margin, but options is technically leverage), but I don't feel that leverage is what killed me at all. Me being extremely emotional and not sticking super tight to the plan is what killed me. I won't give up leverage because it's apart of my style, and how I got anywhere in the first place. So while leverage led to my demise in a certain sense, it's not the thing I feel blew up the account. Thanks again for all the replies and support everyone. Monday I will saddle back up and post a journal thread and document my journey of rebuilding. I'll either blow up (again) or glow up (again). I'll try to post everyday. I will be trading strictly futures, as I only have good vibes and experiences with them, plus it'll be a fun new adventure too.

I'm very new to this but had one question that was churning in my mind as I was reading through everything. I'm currently working through some combines and have been pennies away from being funded, actually being able to transfer real cash over, plus had a small personal account that I placed some government stim money in. I blew that cash and am starting over. Nothing major but loss to my current personal income ratio...it definitely stings. Up front I know it's, well most, not real cash yet and just extra "monopoly" money but it still stings me as if I blew real money. I have to fight the "I need this money" side of it because that becomes a cry of desperation and puts me in that revenge mode all the way to the giving up and placing a hail mary trade.

So thank you for your honesty in opening up on this.


That one question i had which you basically answered here was how come you let so much equity sit in there? Based on Futures trading I know you do not need that much cash in hand to cover most of the margins. But, I do see you are trading stocks and although that is not something I trade I understand the margin requirements are different.

Best of luck on your mental reset!!

All emotion and psychology aside, if you would’ve had a daily lock out limit with your broker this wouldn’t have happened, period. Make it a percentage

I been blowing up accounts for three years now and just knowing that there is a bottom is such a relief

Not all brokers do that but it definitely a great idea!!!

meandthetrio 

All emotion and psychology aside, if you would’ve had a daily lock out limit with your broker this wouldn’t have happened, period. Make it a percentage I been blowing up accounts for three years now and just knowing that there is a bottom is such a relief

blew 

I think I normalized these large losses in a way because I felt justified by the large balance I ran up. It was pure cockiness. When I was raging I didn't follow my plan at all obviously. Not in any sense at all. I was over trading, and I even added to losing positions, something I never do and is in my checklists to never do ever. I should've knew right then and there when I broke that rule to stop, but I knew while I was doing it I needed to stop. I just can't believe how out of hand it got and how the spiral blew up my account so quickly. It makes me realize how dangerous emotion is. I was in trades with my heart pumping, my blood rushing and rage in my body. A sim can never recreate this situation for me because the emotion I experienced wouldn't have happened. No panic or revenge trading because I would've simply edited the account balance if I ran out. Emotion can't be represented in a sim, and it's directly what led to my demise. Sim is great for testing strategies and such I think, but I don't know that it will help my situation a whole lot (unless my strategy clearly falls apart entirely). My major takeaways for now: 1. Set a loss limit on my account. This will straight up prevent me from blowing up, even if I get extremely emotional again. 2. Take half of my profits at the end of the day. I will begin doing this once I get my account back to around 30k. 3. Work on controlling my emotions better, even though #1 helps massively with this and lets me be human still. I wish I would have followed #2 earlier and blew 30k instead of 60k. But I am taking this as a massive learning experience. I need to get back in the mindset of where I was at 10k.

This is going to keep happening to you over and over and #2 is the reason (the part about once your account is back). You care about your balance and trade different because of it. Your mindset at $10k should be no different than $10 or $10M. You cared about your balance in a drawdown and traded with desperation to just get back to a specific number. Instead of caring about your balance concentrate only on your trade performance.

Don't worry about getting "back" to a specific amount the psychology of that can really mess you up. If you start doing that it should be a red flag to you to stop trading just like the feeling in your stomach on a loss or heart pumping in any trade. If you last long enough eventually you will do these things on instinct. Read "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" book over and over it will help you identify red flags and talks specifically about this issue while being almost 100 years old.

Cleveland, OHIO! I'm in Columbus. Hit me up if you want to chat, seriously.

In 6months I also took $7k to $185k! (I am a GOD), and then blew up 9months later. God I dreaded that talk with the wife.
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧


I was going to share a bunch of advice, but reading through the comments, it looks like one trader or another has said everything I would have said.

With that being the case,



CHEERS!

P.S. Take a break man. I couldn't stop either, so I know you won't listen, but I got so much better when I took a step back and examined what I was doing well, and what areas needed improvement.

welcome to my world

blew 

So I just need to get this off my chest. I just gave away all my gains on the year. I went from 7k -> 70k -> 10k. I blew most of it revenge trading and taking too big of position sizes. I got so comfortable scaling up as I was profiting consistently, and I threw it all away in like 10-15 trades. All the work I put in.. day and night studying all the styles of trading, figuring out what worked for me and what didn’t, and I blew it all within a few days by emotionally revenge trading and scaling up higher as the losses got deeper. How could I be so stupid?! I’m still in disbelief I blew an account. I was happy to be one of the ones who didn’t blow up an account because I remained disciplined enough to run up basically 1000% in 5 months. I can’t bring myself to tell my spouse. She would be really supportive I know it, but I can’t even face myself at the moment, let alone have to explain what happened. Disgusted with myself. Utterly disgusted. I can’t believe I let myself get so emotional and out of control. What in the fuck was going through this dense skull of mine?! My confidence is shaken but it’s not at the same time. I’m confident that I just made 1000% in 5 months, and I’m also confident I just blew that 1000% in 3 days. So what does that really say about me as a trader... that I’m probably not too good I’m thinking. The problem is trading is now apart of my identity it feels like. I love it but right now I hate it. Before a 4K swing up or down was no big deal, cause I’m some big shot or some shit I guess. But now 4K would axe me for good damn near. I want to give up but I don’t cause I love trading. What can I learn from this? Don’t revenge trade. But I knew that. I knew it while I was doing it and I know it now. So why didn’t I fucking stop?? I don’t know what to do from here.

Sandpaddict 

I just bought this book based on the table of contents within a minute. I can't bring myself to read another new trading book lately. They are usually rehashes or plainly wrong. Looking only the table of contents I am finally excited to read a new book. Thank you for your recommendation. Sent using the NexusFi mobile app

I have it, but haven't started to read it.

God you're going to hate me. But it sounds like you need to get back to work. I'm not going to waste your time with a bunch of cute and positive accolades. Live, Learn and move on. What's done is done. You obviously know what you're doing. No one gets lucky in this business.
Now, pick yourself up, put on your Big Boy pants, and enjoy the journey.