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It's really weird reading your posts. Although I trade from one account and add funds, the same basic premise is there.
I start out good or sometimes great on the day. But eventually I'll peak on profits. From that point on the High Watermark for the day sends me into a tailspin even if I'm up on the day.
It's a weird psychological thing my brain does. It goes "OK self, get back above that High Watermark and we'll stop for the day."
Having convinced myself all I have to do is break back through that HWM and "I'll stop for the day" is what sends me on TILT/Revenge trading.
Because of course that thinking is the exact thing that sends me spiraling into the red after a good morning so it's almost guaranteed to happen everyday because I'll have some kind of high mark. Even if it's just the start of the day!
Man I hope you can keep most of those going!
Good luck next week!
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Wow, I thought I was past the sort of meltdown that I had last night.
I was trading my Apex account during the London session and had a routine -$100 loss. No big deal, it happens 25% of the time. And there was a beautiful short setting up in NQ. But I must have had my scroll wheel over "Order qty" at some point because when I placed the order, it was for 10 contracts, not 1. Thanks to the spread, I was instantly stopped out by the $300 loss limit I previously set up in Rithmic. Seconds later, NQ plummeted more than 15 points, with no drawdown. If I had been in the trade, I would have made $250, or $2500 with the fat-finger error. (It's not rational to think this but I wasn't rational at this point.)
I tilted, badly. I disabled the loss limit in Rithmic and traded like an arse for the next hour until the account was busted.
Then I moved over to my Ticktick eval, which I had used previously as a 'revenge' account. I had only $100 of loss available. I didn't think I could trade my way back from such deep loss, but at the same time I didn't want to bust the account because I was using it for cheap Bookmap. If you bust, Ticktick cuts off the data until the next payment and reset. So I figured I'd trade MES until either I got my mojo back or lost $50. But on the first trade I inadvertently entered the order on the chart for ES, not MES, busted the account.
The carnage wasn't over. I moved to my funded Tradeday account, the one I treasure over all others. I traded it surprisingly well for about 45 minutes, using 2 micro contracts rather than my usual single mini. An hour into the NY session I was preparing for a move down when a big spike in ES knocked me out of my short, putting me back in loss for the day. No worries, I got short again with a wider SL. The next volatility spike didn't hit my SL, but it triggered the self-imposed $300 daily loss limit I set up with Tradeday, which in turn locked me out of the account. MES then moved down 20 points without me.
Positives out of all this:
The Tradeday account survived.
I still have 2 Leeloo PAs, which I didn't touch at all yesterday.
Apex will send me an 80% discount for a new eval because I busted a PA.
My current mood will dissipate over the next day or two.
What I need to do going forward:
Watch out for entry mistakes.
Immediately move to the revenge account after an unexpected loss.
Stop disabling the loss limit in Rithmic when something goes wrong.
Daily affirmation: I am not a degenerate gambler. I am not a degenerate gambler. I am not a degenerate gambler.
Tough week. After busting the Apex PA, I went on to also bust the Tradeday PA. It took several days to hit the loss limit, because I set up a $300 daily loss limit that would lock me out of the account for a day. I can't blame this one on revenge trading. I went off-strategy too often on potential swing trades, and I was making dumb mistakes, like trading off the dom for ES when I meant to trade off the chart for MES. This was the account I wanted to do well over all the others, and it must have affected my decision-making.
At the same time I was trading a Leeloo PA, and I handled that account like a pro. I took it from zero to $1,250 in a week. This account is an "Accelerator" PA, which has some interesting attributes. You're capped at 2 contracts and a -625 static drawdown. Once you get to +$2k profit, the drawdown is moved for the final time to +$100. No restriction on withdrawals after 30 trading days, but you have to leave at least $100 in the account. There is a scaling plan for up to 30 contracts.
I figured this option was better than the more traditional "Investor" PA, where you can trade the full 8 contracts immediately but must endure 4-5 months of restricted withdrawals and no scaling.
On Friday, just before the NY open, I stopped trading the Leeloo PA to preserve earlier gains, but I didn't want to sit out the NY session. The price action was too tempting, and I felt compelled to keep trading. So I started a Bulenox evaluation after seeing a promo code on Facebook ($23). I meant for this to be a 'revenge' account, but I did quite well, getting almost halfway to the $3k profit target. I may need to take the eval a bit more seriously next week.
Thanks for your post! I'm always happy to hear from experienced traders.
My position sizing depends on the drawdown available. Right now I have a static -$625 drawdown. I trade 1 ES contract with a 1-2p TP and 2-4p SL. Occasionally I'll trade 1 NQ contract for 4-5p, with a 12-15p SL. If it's exceptionally volatile I'll switch to 2 MES contracts.
When I've built more buffer - say $3k-4k - I may increase the position size to 2 contracts. Ideally I'd like enough buffer for at least 10 losses in a row.
I don't really have a bias to be either short or long.
I do find myself giving back profit from time to time. And occasionally I get into a hole early in the day and have to dig my way out. But my biggest problem by far is revenge trading. It's usually triggered by an unexpected loss, as opposed to the routine sort I experience 20-25% of the time. Some recent examples:
A trade reached my TP and stayed on it for a few minutes without filling, then reversed up into my SL.
Unexpected news spiked a trade that didn't fill until it was several points past my SL, then retraced back to my entry.
I accidentally placed an order for 10 NQ minis instead of 1 and was instantly stopped out by the daily loss limit I set up in Rithmic.
One of the things I've tried to do is to have an evaluation account available for revenge trading. If I recognize that I'm not in the right state of mind, I try to switch to the revenge account where I can continue trading without further damaging the funded account. It works a lot of the time, but not all of the time.
But I am getting better. When I first started trying to get funded, I went 4 months without passing a single evaluation. In the past six weeks I've passed six. I'm now struggling to successfully trade the PAs. I've busted 4 of the PAs, 3 due to revenge trading, and 1 for reasons difficult to articulate (to save time I'll just blame the platform). My big short term objective is to trade the PAs long enough to get a payout. I've also got a few evals in progress, and I hope to add more PAs soon.
Good questions! I have a few defined setups that I take (2nd entries, failed 2nd entries, traps), and the win rate on those is 80%+. I know they work because of a lot of backtesting (replaying previous sessions), as well as live trading in eval/PA accounts. There are several other traders out there using the same strategy, some 90%+ win rates. I'm not that disciplined yet, but working to get there.
I also take off-strategy trades if I see a r:r closer to 1:1 or better. These trades are riskier as I sometimes take a big loss, but I can usually recoup with my scalps. My win rate with these discretionary trades is about 60%. Overall my win rate is ~75%, with r:r at 1.7-1.8. That's for successful eval accounts and PAs. When I start revenge trading, it gets ugly. Earlier in this thread I posted a bunch of my equity curves for evals. Most are positively sloping but then have a steep dropoff. I'm working to prevent those dropoffs.
I'd be interested to hear more about your prop room, if you have the time. I always thought it would be more enjoyable to trade around other traders, but my career path took me in a different direction, and trading is something I do for 'fun' at night after the kids are in bed.
These prop firms are real, but there are moral hazards on all sides. Most firms don't pass their funded traders' trades to the market until they've established a track record of profitability. Accordingly these firms have an incentive for traders to fail (and most do).
At the same time there are some who try to game the prop firms. For example, opening two funded accounts and going both long and short on a news event, aiming for windfall profits in one account while the prop firm eats the loss in the other.
But there are also a number of legit traders who have done well and receive steady payouts. Canadian Futures Trader (on this forum) posts videos on his YT about this.
You can probably tell that I'm a big fan of these prop firms. I don't see any reason whatsoever for an intraday futures trader to risk his or her own funds when a prop firm will do that for you.
The only concern I have is getting stiffed by a prop firm after I've made huge profits. But that's a concern I look forward to having some day in the near future.
Maybe if it was real money in a real account you would pay attention to what you are doing? How can anyone possibly expect to be successful if this is how you practice??
Rather than revenge trading why not go for a walk or a run or to the gym and mentally playback your mistakes or try kneeling on uncooked rice on a hardwood floor everytime you break rules and make sure you think about your mistakes while kneeling. This is self discipline. Yes I've done it until my knees almost bled but it works!
You should by now be able to see trend lines etc without drawing them. Look at a chart and visualize the trend lines without drawing them!!
You are playing a very tough game with zero room for error. People who make mistakes it's usually 6 sigma type stuff.
I don't see any reason to trade outside a prop firm account. If I do well I get paid. If I do poorly, I lose only the fees I've paid ($30 eval + $88/mo), which are pretty modest compared to what I could lose in a live account.
If I sort out my revenge trading, I'd probably still trade through prop firms. Why risk my own funds if I don't have to?
Meanwhile, I'm going through an iterative process to improve.
Of course I tried self-flagellation initially. I'm already quite critical of myself, so it came naturally that this would be the first step. I didn't think to use uncooked rice on a hardwood floor.
Then I tried the usual stuff everyone talks about, like having a rule to step away for an hour or going out for exercise. Rules are great when you follow them. I also set up loss limits in the trading platform, and more creatively, I designated a 'revenge' account to trade when I think my mental state has changed. All of these have worked to a degree.
I think I'm improving but it's not happening quickly. When I first recognized revenge trading as my biggest problem, I was tilting 1-2 times a week and blowing evaluation accounts each time. Now it's occurring less frequently, maybe once every 2 weeks, and it doesn't always result in a busted account. If I can keep the worst days to maybe once a month only lose $1k rather than $2.5-3k, I'd do well.
