Hello everyone.

I have been trading futures for about six months now and keep having a consistent problem. Overtrading. Perhaps it is just too easy to press that button, especially when I am already up for the day. I'm very curious to hear if other have had the same problem and how they dealt with it. Overtrading hurts my trading more than anything else. It get even worse when I take a big hit and think that I'll somehow be able to dig myself out quicker. It is an interesting phenomenon for me to notice exactly what I'm doing wrong, yet be almost powerless to the emotions. So my questions follow. My current strategy consists of pullback in a trending market and scalping between high volume nodes in a sideways market. Today I took 66 trades and it was a trending market. I know this is way too much.

Is this something that just takes time and I'm being unreasonable to think it an easy fix?

Does anyone else have this issue and how do they deal with it?

My great and quick idea is to limit my trades to <=10 in a normal day. The idea being to be more selective and stay in the trades longer(also an issue of mine).

Thanks,
Keen

Keenbreathy 

Overtrading hurts my trading more than anything else. It get even worse when I take a big hit and think that I'll somehow be able to dig myself out quicker. It is an interesting phenomenon for me to notice exactly what I'm doing wrong, yet be almost powerless to the emotions. So my questions follow. My current strategy consists of pullback in a trending market and scalping between high volume nodes in a sideways market. Today I took 66 trades and it was a trending market. I know this is way too much. Is this something that just takes time and I'm being unreasonable to think it an easy fix? Does anyone else have this issue and how do they deal with it? My great and quick idea is to limit my trades to <=10 in a normal day. The idea being to be more selective and stay in the trades longer(also an issue of mine).

I was going to suggest a daily limit of a certain number of trades (way below 66 ), but I see you have already mentioned that idea (it's still a good one.)

You mention that you find yourself "almost powerless to the emotions" that impel you to trade too much. Anything that will put a restraint on runaway emotions is a good idea -- everyone, and I mean every single trader, ever -- has had this kind of problem in some form. Whatever will help instill discipline will help you, even a mechanical rule of when to stop trading.

No doubt others will have other suggestions.

Good luck. You are certainly not alone in this.

Bob.

Keenbreathy 

Hello everyone. I have been trading futures for about six months now and keep having a consistent problem. Overtrading. Perhaps it is just too easy to press that button, especially when I am already up for the day. I'm very curious to hear if other have had the same problem and how they dealt with it. Overtrading hurts my trading more than anything else. It get even worse when I take a big hit and think that I'll somehow be able to dig myself out quicker. It is an interesting phenomenon for me to notice exactly what I'm doing wrong, yet be almost powerless to the emotions. So my questions follow. My current strategy consists of pullback in a trending market and scalping between high volume nodes in a sideways market. Today I took 66 trades and it was a trending market. I know this is way too much. Is this something that just takes time and I'm being unreasonable to think it an easy fix? Does anyone else have this issue and how do they deal with it? My great and quick idea is to limit my trades to <=10 in a normal day. The idea being to be more selective and stay in the trades longer(also an issue of mine). Thanks, Keen

If you have positive expectancy after commissions than it's kind of an obsolete question. If not however you can decrease your amount of trades by either moving to a higher time frame of reducing your trade period during the day by a few hours. Also have a daily loss limit where you call it quits for the day once it's hit.

Keenbreathy 

Hello everyone. I have been trading futures for about six months now and keep having a consistent problem. Overtrading. Perhaps it is just too easy to press that button, especially when I am already up for the day. I'm very curious to hear if other have had the same problem and how they dealt with it. Overtrading hurts my trading more than anything else. It get even worse when I take a big hit and think that I'll somehow be able to dig myself out quicker. It is an interesting phenomenon for me to notice exactly what I'm doing wrong, yet be almost powerless to the emotions. So my questions follow. My current strategy consists of pullback in a trending market and scalping between high volume nodes in a sideways market. Today I took 66 trades and it was a trending market. I know this is way too much. Is this something that just takes time and I'm being unreasonable to think it an easy fix? Does anyone else have this issue and how do they deal with it? My great and quick idea is to limit my trades to <=10 in a normal day. The idea being to be more selective and stay in the trades longer(also an issue of mine). Thanks, Keen

I have struggled with overtrading too, although I am much better now.

Changing from wanting to scalp to wanting to get into trades I can hold onto probably helped the most. This meant investing time into learning to read the bigger intra-day moves and looking only for those opportunities. I am still working on this.

Having rules that define and do not allow overtrading has been helpful. For example, I have a rule that I only look for opportunities to get into one of the larger moves of the day and I have a rule against getting in at the end of a move. I can take pullback entries into a trend under certain conditions that are also defined. This means that I am limited to only those instances that align with what I've defined. There is a problem with this though, and that is that it is very easy to disregard rules, especially if I think the rules are keeping me from a profitable trade. So having good rules that you know work and that you believe in is really important.

Why would you not follow rules that you know make you money? I say that because I still struggle to follow my rules. One rule I have broken many times is a rule to never revenge trade. It's hard, in the moment, to walk away after losses because the desire to make back the losses is very strong and I know that sometimes revenge trading has ended well. However, when I think about it rationally, when not trying to make back losses, I realize that most of the times I revenge trade I have not made the money back and I have traded stupidly. So thinking about this has given me motivation to be aware that I really don't want to revenge trade. I don't think I will ever lose the desire to revenge trade. I'm hoping I can limit my opportunities and work at building habits of walking away after a certain loss amount so that it won't happen, even when I'm strongly tempted to.

Having rules that do not allow overtrading are not going to be helpful unless they are followed. I've had a really hard time following my rules consistently. Some people might have a harder time with this than others. Currently, it is the desire to do well at trading that has helped me get to the place where I am trying to be as disciplined as possible by having and following a rules based system and I've sought out ways to help keep myself accountable. It's been a long process and I'm still working at it.

tradepips 

when I think about it rationally, when not trying to make back losses, I realize that most of the times I revenge trade I have not made the money back and I have traded stupidly. So thinking about this has given me motivation to be aware that I really don't want to revenge trade. I don't think I will ever lose the desire to revenge trade.

Well, when you really don't want to, then you won't. Easier said than done, of course. But we do often want and don't want something, not only in trading, so it's like anything else where we have to decide what we really want, regardless of temptation.

Quoting 

Having rules that do not allow overtrading are not going to be helpful unless they are followed. I've had a really hard time following my rules consistently. Some people might have a harder time with this than others. Currently, it is the desire to do well at trading that has helped me get to the place where I am trying to be as disciplined as possible by having and following a rules based system and I've sought out ways to help keep myself accountable.

Excellent points.

Quoting 

It's been a long process and I'm still working at it.

Me, too .

Bob.

bobwest 

Well, when you really don't want to, then you won't. Easier said than done, of course. But we do often want and don't want something, not only in trading, so it's like anything else where we have to decide what we really want, regardless of temptation.

With respect to over-trading, I gently remind myself that there are 130 bars in any given day (3 minute chart).

With respect to revenge trading, I revenge trade by being even more determined to trade well and to follow my plan. The best revenge is solid trading.

Anagami 

I revenge trade by being even more determined to trade well and to follow my plan. The best revenge is solid trading.

Well-said!

tradepips 

Well-said!

Gracias, Senor! Time to time, I have been known to say things that are useful to others on their journey. My pleasure.

Thank you everyone for your input. Every single piece of advise here is valuable and I have taken note. I will continue to come back to this thread as I can only assume this problem will not vanish overnight, if at all.

I will take the following immediate steps,

-put a hard limit on the amount of trades I'll allow myself on any given day.
-set a daily stop loss number.
-use higher time frames to snipe trades and stay in those trades longer.
-only trade for the first 3 hours 930-1230AM(limit trade time)


I must agree with others about revenge trading. It hurts the most and is so very difficult to reign in. With enough time and being fully aware every day, I can eventually have a positive impact on my trading.

Of the 66 trades you made, how many were trades you exited too early in the move and then jumped back into the same move a short time later.

If this explains some of the high number of trades then perhaps looking on what motivated you to get out of a perfectly good trade instead of riding it to its natural conclusion might be helpful.