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What I wish I would have known when I got started.

  #1 (permalink)
 
DeadCatBounced's Avatar
 DeadCatBounced 
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Two and a half years ago I was completely new to trading. Through a family friend I became acquainted with the futures market. Seeing how much the markets move and the opportunity that it represented I felt that it would be worth a shot to try trading. I was single, graduated from college, no debt and some money saved up.

Fast forward two and a half years and I am at a point in my life where I am going to have to take a break from trading as I currently am doing. I wanted to take some time to reflect on what I learned. In the process of reviewing my journals there were some things that I wish I would have known. I wish I would have been able to read a post like this when I got started. Not sure it would have changed me getting started as I really do not regret at all the two + years I have spent trying to learn trading, just that if I would have read this and followed this I believe it would have short circuited my learning curve.

I originally came from British Columbia Canada. I moved out to the Baltimore / DC area in may of 2013. Although I didn’t know when I moved to the States that I would meet someone, fall in love etc. I did feel that I should be checking in with a ‘reality check’ in a couple years to see where I was at. Once I got engaged I decided that after I was married I would need to take a cold hard look at what I am doing. That time has come.

I view my time in life as a risk/reward trade:
What is the best thing that can happen / what is the worst thing that can happen. For me the best thing that could happen would be that it would turn into a fulltime career for me. The worst thing that would happen is that I would lose my initial stake of money and come out of it with nothing. In my mind the best thing far outweighed the worst thing and therefore it was a good time in my life to take risks and give it a go.

Two and a half years later and recently married I want to take stock of where I am at in trading: Down about 10k in trading overall(at my lowest point my drawdown was about 17k). The majority of that came through the first year and a half. Although I have finally seemed to turn the corner in a number of different metrics in the last few months my situation has changed enough that I feel I need to take a different path. I finally feel very confident that if I was properly funded again trading could be a very viable business opportunity.

Why am I stopping? Let’s go back to viewing life (specifically the next two to three years) as a risk reward trade: What is the best thing that can happen / what is the worst thing that can happen? The best thing that can happen is that I can turn trading into a fulltime career and provide my wife (and future kids) with many of the same advantages that I had growing up. The worst thing is that two or three years from now as my family starts to grow I could have nothing – not be a successful trader and have no career with a dependable income to support my family.
Essentially that is the crux of why I feel I need to step away. I wanted to share some background just so hopefully you can see where I am coming from.

Now to get to what I wish I had known when I got started.

I believe trading is essentially three things.
1. Psychology (Mastery of self)
2. Money Management (Quite simple really)
3. Market Analysis (by this I mean whatever he is using as a way to decide what trades to take)

What I have seen often on this forum is that it seems many traders go through the following steps.
1. New trader does not know jack all about markets
2. Begins to learn about trading and market analysis
3. Learns some money management techniques ie: risk reward etc
4. Fails to make money
5. Changes his market analysis / reasons for entering a trade
6. Fails to make money
7. Decides that his ‘system’ is good because it works so well with the benefit of hindsight
8. Spends a ton of time trying to change one’s own psychology as mastering oneself supposedly should fix the problems
9. Fails to make money
10. Is extremely frustrated because if the person is being honest they feel like they are a failure at life
11. Decides that their market analysis must be wrong and changes things
…. The cycle goes on.
For nearly two years I went through that cycle. I got onto nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) forum very early on which saved me from some of the unscrupulous vendors out there (coupled with a bad experience early on in my trading career). Yet I still found my path going somewhat along those lines.

Most people I see spend all their time focusing on the technical analysis side of things. When that doesn’t work they switch to psychology (which in some ways is easier: although I don’t know what is wrong about my analysis of the markets I can very clearly see what is wrong in me). The problem with this singular approach is that if your analysis is still crap you are not going to make money. The problem with most technical analysis I see most people doing on here it all involves lagging indicators which are essentially random lines.

Back to what I wish I had known.

Scalping for small targets is the absolute hardest way to go about trading.
The person that got me into trading was trying to scalp for 3 ticks at a time using a 10 tick stop on CL………..
This topic has been covered I feel in much better detail and on many places on the forum so I am not looking to start an argument. But these are the reasons that I believe scalping is the hardest way to consistently make money trading.
1. Trading is a negative sum game when you include the brokers. Every time you place a trade you have to overcome the cost of placing that trade. The less costs you have the better.
2. Your winners are smaller then your losers
3. Inability to use fundamental analysis effectively in the markets
4. Competing against HFT
5. Randomness of the markets as it goes through intraday cycles.

What I found finally started working for me was to trade one way per day. This gets out of flipping. Do your analysis, make a decision and then stick with that decision. If that decision proves wrong then get out.

Most of what the market does on an intraday basis is random noise
The majority of what the market does on most days simply is random noise. I am not trying to create an argument here. But I firmly believe most indicators are not worth the code they are written with, or the lines that they create. Please read through atleast the first 10 pages of this thread:



and listen to this webinar:



If you aren’t convinced by those two things I am not sure I can help you so goodluck

Money management principles
There is tons of books written on this and I have read a few of them. But what I think it boils down too is this:
1. Have enough money to comfortably be able to trade multiple contracts at a time. I think a minimum is 3
2. Don’t enter all at once!
3. Figure out when you are trading well, and when you are trading bad
4. When you are trading bad cut your size to one third
5. When you are trading well add to your trades and trade full size, or even press with more if you are up for the day. There is a quote by Stanley Druckenmiller that I feel is particularly apt "It takes courage to be a pig". If you are trading well and are making money for the day / week / month you have earned the right to be a pig and trade a larger size

Basically figure out whatever you got to do to make your winners bigger then your losers.

You will have to figure out your own money management system in regards to how much you will risk per day but just remember. The markets DO NOT CARE what 1% of your account is. If you have 10k in your account and you think you are following good money management principles by risking $100 because it is 1% you are severely misguided. You have to trade the market. Get your account to a point where you can psychologically handle the inherent risk the market requires to effectively trade it.

Have the ability to enter multiple instruments at once
Having the ability to lets say short the ES / go long the ZB at the same time. Figure out which trades are working and press those trades. Dump your losers. As @tigertrader says on here… “trading 101”. But if you can only trade one instrument it becomes a lot harder to figure out what your winners are without flipping multiple times.

Have the patience to let the market do its thing
Most large intraday swings take between 3-5 hours to complete. Somehow someway if those are the kinds of moves you are wishing to capture you have to have the ability to be patient enough to let the market do its thing: whether that is finding a part time job, some sort of hobby or something to let you do a secondary thing while still feeling productive with your time. Go download rosetta stone and learn mandarin or something.

Gain a fundamental view of the markets
Figure out what is actually driving whatever instrument you are trading. It probably isn’t a 30 SMA…. The melding of technical analysis and a fundamental viewpoint is key to longterm successful trading.

How to come up with a trading plan
Do your own homework. Are you convinced that a 30 sma and a 20 ema crossover is the holy grail? Great. Go do the actual statistics as to how it works. Don’t cheat the results because you are just cheating yourself. Don’t take anyone elses word for it. Figure out how to work excel, learn how to code or whatever you have to do to figure out how to start making statistics about the market.

What are market internals? For the ES, take a look at vix, tick, trin, add, ctick, market breadth etc. Let those along with the fundamental viewpoint you have built guide you in your decision making process. It is much better to have that on your charts and watching for divergences with those then it is too have MACD or stochastic divergences.

Find something to put the market into context – daily / weekly / monthly / yearly. For me personally the best I have found for this is the standard deviations of the VWAP. But remember whatever you decide on those are not magic lines. Just simply something to give you a frame of reference.

Figure out a way to understand volume and the role it plays in the market. Do some research on market auction theory.

Figure out Price Action
This term gets thrown around a ton but rarely do I see an adequate simple explanation of it. Unfortunately as far as I can tell there is no simple answer to understanding price action. The only way to understand price structure and form, identifying strength and weakness is simply by watching the market move and taking notes. Combined with Volume Profile analysis this should give you the basis to your trading ideas.

Figure out Volume Profile analysis
Take the time to download gomi’s market profile tools (if you use ninjatrader) figure out how to make it work. The ideas of how the market moves from areas of high volume to other areas of high volume. How it interacts in the thinly traded areas will greatly help you understand the price action that is going on. For the longest time I did not have any sort of volume profile tools on my charts. I only had the std dev. of vwap. Sometimes the market would come rushing right back and pause right on the vwap line, other times the market would cruise past the vwap and consolidate right above it before moving back down. The standard deviations will help you provide context. The volume profile will help you understand what is happening inside the daily range.

Listen to people who know more then you
At the end of the day I see two people that are consistently killing it in the markets. @Big Mike and @tigertrader. Go read their threads. Don’t argue or fight with them. Just listen and learn. And when you have done enough reading to start asking intelligent questions ask them. But don’t show up in their threads and start asking them naïve questions that could be answered by simply listening for a few weeks. Their time is valuable, probably more so then yours. Their help in the community is the single best thing I have run across in two and a half years of trading. Don’t be an idiot.

Engage yourself in the community
Of the last two and a half years this is quite simply my biggest regret. I firmly believe that had I followed this step I would have become breakeven/profitable trader much sooner.
Quite simply if you don’t put yourself out there don’t expect to get any magic answers from anyone. In the last few weeks I have involved myself on the forum a lot more then I previously did and trading was a lot more fun/enjoyable/interesting and I felt like I was making real progress towards becoming a better trader.

A word of caution about following along with those that are calling trades
Both the main spoo thread and Big Mikes thread trades are called. I think there is real value in reading along as you can gain so much from watching them trade and possibly see something you missed. But only after you have placed your own trade. At the end of the day you have to take 100% responsibility for your own trades and you want to be placing your trades because of the reasons YOU have decided on.

So what am I going to do from here?
I actually am a firm believer in trading. No other business is quite like it when it comes to the possible rewards. However what I am currently doing is clearly not working enough. Even being up a few thousand dollars in the last few months is quite simply not enough to meet my goals. At some point for me the realization struck: I would be better off going and working at a job, saving the money up to have the ability to weather drawdowns without having to freak out over every point. And having the account size to comfortably trade multiple contracts and trade multiple instruments I believe is worthwhile working for.

I would be better off (and my future family on a much safer path) if I work for even 2-3 years to save up the money required for this. I am lucky to have an absolutely awesome wife who is committed to living a lifestyle off of just her income so that we can aggressively save money. I do not want her/our sacrifice to be in vain.

Because I do not want to leave the markets completely the next step my trading will take is looking at swing trading etfs/stocks. I am very interested in forex markets and maybe will try and start a journal about FX swing trading here on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT).

So when I run my risk / reward for stopping trading as I currently am doing– worst thing that can happen is that I get a job and over the next two to 3 years put away somewhere between 80-120k while continuing to swing trade smaller size on forex / etfs / stocks. Best thing that can happen: Swing trading works out spectacularly and that takes off while I also have a career and family. The point of this post isn’t really to talk about the areas where I can improve but trading something with less leverage and practicing holding for days / weeks / months I think can only improve my trading.

Whereas if I just decided to try and keep trading the worst thing that could happen would be that I blow my account and have nothing to fall back on (which was not a big deal when I was single, much bigger now that I am married ) Best thing that happens is that trading works out spectacularly and I have a career and family.

I hope this in some small way helps you and my best wishes to you as you go about your trading career.

Edit - adding one thing

The passage of time

If you are like me and got into futures trading as your introduction to the markets I would think LONG and HARD about starting trading by day trading. The first trade I ever did for real money I was in the market for a matter of minutes, had a stress reaction in my body, got out. Repeated process. I was so concerned about having to make money that I was not able to just rationally look at the markets. My story is that I moved from Canada to close to Washington DC and gave myself a 6 month time frame to learn enough about the markets and start trading. I have no doubt that most of you are smarter then I am. But for me I can say without a doubt this was not enough.

The last few years I have swing traded - holding for up to months at at time. There are days that go by where I literally dont bother to check charts I forget I am in a trade. Getting into a trade that is going your way, adding to your winners, giving the market time to do its thing is a incredible learning experience that I wish I had had before trying to day trade.

The reality is that all things of value take time. There is incredible value in the markets, putting yourself in a place where you can learn about the markets over a number of years rather then forcing yourself into a short time frame to have to make money is an experience that now that I am having it I can say with certainty that it is worth it.

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  #3 (permalink)
 
Big Mike's Avatar
 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
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Excellent post sir, and excellent decision making on your part!

I have stickied this thread so hopefully it's easier for more people to find.

Best of luck on the new ventures, hope to continue to see you around every now and then... Both futures.io (formerly BMT) and the market will be here when you are ready to return.

Mike

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 DeadCatBounced 
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Thanks @Big Mike, I am going to hold you too your word that futures.io (formerly BMT) will be here when I am fully ready to come back.

But when I figure out what I want to do swing trading wise I will start a journal for that. Like I said, perhaps my biggest regret was that I didn't involve myself in the community more during the last couple years!

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 Big Mike 
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DeadCatBounced View Post
Thanks @Big Mike, I am going to hold you too your word that futures.io (formerly BMT) will be here when I am fully ready to come back.

But when I figure out what I want to do swing trading wise I will start a journal for that. Like I said, perhaps my biggest regret was that I didn't involve myself in the community more during the last couple years!

We'll be here. And I admire your courage to recognize when something isn't working, and let it be for the benefit of your family even it means leaving something behind that means a lot to you personally. I think it's a smart decision, and I think you'll be in better shape in the future to be able to return to trading at some point.

Mike

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 Zentrader2010 
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Hi deadcatbounce,

I admire your courage to come out and tell us what you learnt, and the difficulties you faced.
Taking a break for other things like starting a family seems sensible, and actually sounds like time better well spent.

My only query is, do you think saving 100 K, and then starting up 3 years from now full on again ( as apposed to swing trading with a small account) is going to protect you from your own trading ability? I mean, are you going
to trade much larger because you have all that money? I only ask because I've heard this argument before that you should only trade what you can afford to lose right? But it's actually not true is it? You work hard for all your money,
it takes time and effort. How can we say it's risk capital then. Also, as futures traders, part of the benefit is the high leverage which have access to. You probably won't need 100K to trade the size you want to anyway in 3 years when you get started again. The margin is much smaller as we all know. You're better off buying a home with that money ( or as much towards etc).....If you then get a line of credit of say 20-40 K to trade with, how is it any different really than trading the cash? The first you get charged low interest on and it's tax deductible (at least in Australia) assuming you're a good trader and make reasonable profits. The other you forgo some tiny interest payments ( big deal). Either way, if you lose the dosh, you lose it - it doesn't matter where you access the funds from in reality. If you accumulate a debt, how is that different than losing cash? The same amount of money is lost ( psychologically you have just fooled yourself into thinking it's 'risk' capital and therefore worth less to you mysteriously etc)......anyway, this is just my opinion and probably sounds like crazy talk but this is just what I think. Feel free to argue to the contrary.
Also, If you are tired, burnt out, and unable to do the analysis and hard work to be full on trader - fair enough. I've taken breaks for years myself. On the other hand, if it is merely out of frustration at not being able to make it happen - all the time off in the work won't change that fact. You are just putting off doing what you really wish to do, and as you have said, the risk of losing many accounts and sweat and tears etc is far outweighed by what you can give back to yourself and family in potential profits. After all , many of us are here because we are attempting to escape the usual formula of success out there, and slight pay raises aren't going to cut it in terms of changing our lifestyle and living the dream right? All that said, family comes first, and security for them is far more important a consideration. But is there any real reason you can't trade a small account and keep working hard at the method you will use when you wish to start up again properly in 3 years time? In my books, it could be seen as opportunity lost, and you can look back then - in hindsight, and actually thank yourself for making a commitment to not give in so easily. But I'm all for a break, but 3 years? That's a long time.....just my opinion, and we are all free to do what we please of course.....
This is my first post, I am by no means successful yet, and I have been at it longer than you probably....like Mike and many others I have blown some large accounts....during the GFC I was selling Puts.....imagine that ! Needless to say, I took a break of years afterwards.....my only regret was that I didn't get started up sooner....it may have shorted my learning curve today, and believe me, you don't stay young and energetic your whole life.....its harder for me now at my age
SO by all means - do what you must to get fresh again......but maybe consider the length of time. Being under-capitalized is almost a universal problem for early trading careers, and have a good stake is necessary, but just consider in practical terms how much you really need to trade the size you wish.....grow that small account up steadily using smaller contracts? you'll feel better trading the markets money anyway rather than your hard earned stuff better put towards the new family........opinions, just opinions.......

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 DeadCatBounced 
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Zentrader2010 View Post
Hi deadcatbounce,

I admire your courage to come out and tell us what you learnt, and the difficulties you faced.
Taking a break for other things like starting a family seems sensible, and actually sounds like time better well spent.

My only query is, do you think saving 100 K, and then starting up 3 years from now full on again ( as apposed to swing trading with a small account) is going to protect you from your own trading ability? I mean, are you going
to trade much larger because you have all that money? I only ask because I've heard this argument before that you should only trade what you can afford to lose right? But it's actually not true is it? You work hard for all your money,
it takes time and effort. How can we say it's risk capital then. Also, as futures traders, part of the benefit is the high leverage which have access to. You probably won't need 100K to trade the size you want to anyway in 3 years when you get started again. The margin is much smaller as we all know. You're better off buying a home with that money ( or as much towards etc).....If you then get a line of credit of say 20-40 K to trade with, how is it any different really than trading the cash? The first you get charged low interest on and it's tax deductible (at least in Australia) assuming you're a good trader and make reasonable profits. The other you forgo some tiny interest payments ( big deal). Either way, if you lose the dosh, you lose it - it doesn't matter where you access the funds from in reality. If you accumulate a debt, how is that different than losing cash? The same amount of money is lost ( psychologically you have just fooled yourself into thinking it's 'risk' capital and therefore worth less to you mysteriously etc)......anyway, this is just my opinion and probably sounds like crazy talk but this is just what I think. Feel free to argue to the contrary.
Also, If you are tired, burnt out, and unable to do the analysis and hard work to be full on trader - fair enough. I've taken breaks for years myself. On the other hand, if it is merely out of frustration at not being able to make it happen - all the time off in the work won't change that fact. You are just putting off doing what you really wish to do, and as you have said, the risk of losing many accounts and sweat and tears etc is far outweighed by what you can give back to yourself and family in potential profits. After all , many of us are here because we are attempting to escape the usual formula of success out there, and slight pay raises aren't going to cut it in terms of changing our lifestyle and living the dream right? All that said, family comes first, and security for them is far more important a consideration. But is there any real reason you can't trade a small account and keep working hard at the method you will use when you wish to start up again properly in 3 years time? In my books, it could be seen as opportunity lost, and you can look back then - in hindsight, and actually thank yourself for making a commitment to not give in so easily. But I'm all for a break, but 3 years? That's a long time.....just my opinion, and we are all free to do what we please of course.....
This is my first post, I am by no means successful yet, and I have been at it longer than you probably....like Mike and many others I have blown some large accounts....during the GFC I was selling Puts.....imagine that ! Needless to say, I took a break of years afterwards.....my only regret was that I didn't get started up sooner....it may have shorted my learning curve today, and believe me, you don't stay young and energetic your whole life.....its harder for me now at my age
SO by all means - do what you must to get fresh again......but maybe consider the length of time. Being under-capitalized is almost a universal problem for early trading careers, and have a good stake is necessary, but just consider in practical terms how much you really need to trade the size you wish.....grow that small account up steadily using smaller contracts? you'll feel better trading the markets money anyway rather than your hard earned stuff better put towards the new family........opinions, just opinions.......


This was near the end of my post:
"So what am I going to do from here?... Because I do not want to leave the markets completely the next step my trading will take is looking at swing trading etfs/stocks. I am very interested in forex markets and maybe will try and start a journal about FX swing trading here on futures.io (formerly BMT)."

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 Big Mike 
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@DeadCatBounced you mentioned listening to people who know more than you.

From what I've witnessed on the forum for the last 6 years, this is an area where a lot of people struggle greatly. I think the problem is on two fronts.

First, some people simply like to discover things on their own. I am one of these people. You can tell me something, but I learn best by doing it for myself, discovering things in my own way and pace and without some preconceived notion that the educator is teaching me.

Second, some people want to have their hands held, and told everything (more or less, exact opposite of me, and above). For these people, how do they know who to trust? The trading business landscape is full of sharks that prey on rookies and inexperienced users, and teaching them useless and ridiculous stuff.

There are hundreds of examples here on FIO where users reply to a specific Vendor Review thread that contains a great deal of negative input about that vendor, and yet they'll ask "so is anyone using this guy recently?" --- seemingly ignoring all the existing evidence.

This occurs with great frequency. People want to believe, and will discount anything that doesn't conform to what they want to hear.

Mike

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 DeadCatBounced 
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Big Mike View Post
@DeadCatBounced you mentioned listening to people who know more than you.

From what I've witnessed on the forum for the last 6 years, this is an area where a lot of people struggle greatly. I think the problem is on two fronts.

First, some people simply like to discover things on their own. I am one of these people. You can tell me something, but I learn best by doing it for myself, discovering things in my own way and pace and without some preconceived notion that the educator is teaching me.

Second, some people want to have their hands held, and told everything (more or less, exact opposite of me, and above). For these people, how do they know who to trust? The trading business landscape is full of sharks that prey on rookies and inexperienced users, and teaching them useless and ridiculous stuff.


Yeah, I also tend to fall strongly into the first category. I think this goes back to the way I went through school - I was home-schooled through roughly two thirds of grades 1-9 due to my family travelling overseas. By the time I went to high school I firmly believed I could learn on my own faster and better then what the teacher was teaching.

When I first got started in trading I had an experience with a vendor - ironically it didn't cost me anything but I feel I learned many thousands of dollars worth of education from it! Quite simply a guy I met wanted me to help build his website / run his email for him and in return he would teach me his "system". It took me about 1 month of watching this guy and tracking his results to realize that he wasn't making any money from his trading and wanted to make money from teaching people how to trade....

After being on the inside of that it was easy for me to just automatically discount all other vendors. Maybe I am being too harsh and there are good vendors out there I just automatically have assumed the worst. Part of why I have loved FIO(yes I typed BMT first hah) is that the information in webinars is just sitting there for you to take in at your own pace, AND if you have the time to go through peoples journals and see the result of many common ideas being played out... It is fairly easy to take away what works, doesnt work.


Big Mike View Post
There are hundreds of examples here on FIO where users reply to a specific Vendor Review thread that contains a great deal of negative input about that vendor, and yet they'll ask "so is anyone using this guy recently?" --- seemingly ignoring all the existing evidence.

This occurs with great frequency. People want to believe, and will discount anything that doesn't conform to what they want to hear.

Mike

Yeah I see this as well and it seems insane to me.

I probably should take the time to respond more in-depth to @Zentrader2010.

Two points I guess. 1. I think there has been many tons of electronic ink spent on this forum about the psychological effects of trading an over leveraged account. Mortgaging an asset I have already just to have a larger account to work with I do not think would make that psychological pressure any easier.

2. I completely disagree with mortgaging a house / business / whatever the asset may be to provide funds for trading. Being in my late 20's and newly married I think it is important to place myself on a path towards financial success. My wife and I do have a house that we are slowly renovating (I did alot of work on it while we were engaged). For me to reach my financial goals I want to go about it in a number of different paths. Buying a house and not paying rent is one way to put money back in my own pocket.

Taking a 2nd mortgage on the house to finance trading related goals is simply too risky and not a path I am willing to do (My wife actually brought this up just so we could talk about it but neither of us want to do this.)

Saving up $100k for example there are a few other financial goals that would go along with it. We have a small business idea that needs startup capital. Both of us come from families that have done reasonably well flipping houses / gaining rental income etc, I am handy enough to do the work on these types of projects. I guess what I am saying is that I am at a point where I want to put a number of different seeds into the ground and lets see what comes up. Mortgaging an asset to double down on trading isn't something that I am comfortable with.

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 Itchymoku 
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I'd probably give up trading altogether if it meant I had a loving wife. You really are lucky and that's how you have to see it. You should try to spend as much time with her as possible and ways to make her happy because that's value and a long term investment of itself. Trading is not only something you do financially, but it's a lifestyle of evaluating maximum efficiency in all areas of life. Sometimes that means putting it on the back burner. I have firm confidence that you'll never give up trading completely, because like some people, you're a point where you see the potential and that's not something you can easily forget.

R.I.P. Joseph Bach (Itchymoku), 1987-2018.
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