Over the past five years as an active day trader I have seen things you people wouldn't believe: awesome daily P&L fluctuations leading to elation and subsequent despair, the painful respect developed for the dominance of randomness, the misranthropic and self-disgust derived from those who profit off of trader's naivete and longing for father figures in this predatory field. I have longingly stared into the absent reflection from the void, the same void that awaits 99.99x percent of my discretionary day-trading peers, even more if my message is ignored. I have seen childish dreams quickly swallowed whole by the markets. I have seen the futility of human effort to improve their condition without first removing the veil of ignorance, the source of despair. Once ignorance is replaced with understanding there is a small chance that your dreams are not dead. After five years of struggling as a trader all I can do is cling to the diminishing hope that my dreams are not dead.
Congratulations, did you have a winning month? everytime I have a winning month I have a tremendous need to give advice until drawdown.
Been there. You must figure out what is causing despair ? Is it strictly the losses ? Or something else ? Trading smaller and smaller to isolate the cause of the problems, helped me by studying my trades , what I was trading, how I was trading, and my reactions to them. The sources of problems can be numerous inside and outside of the market. I am not saying this is the answer, and if this sounds arrogant or like rubbish ignore it. But it worked for me.
Hey, I was an alter boy, man the beatings I took as I had a speech impediment and couldn't speak Latin well. LOL, the fun times.... Trading can bring out all the worst of human emotions, it makes us see who we really are within, and we often go so deeply down to see areas of ourselves we wished we never knew existed. I was on that path long ago, often thought of suicide as I saw defeat as inner personal failure. Thinking bad things, each trade would show how horrible I was as a man, and showing my weaknesses of losses only proved at the time how really horrible I truly was. You can go to a shrink and discuss and they will often say to quit and find other avenues I might be good at, but I was never taught when young to run away from defeat, find another way or find someone who has found the way. If I had left trading then, it would always hurt my life in any venture I would do in the future. I just couldn't walk away. Slowly doing the right things, some weeks moving nowhere then taking inches till next step, movement whether backwards or forwards is positive, stopping is not an option for me. Q3D so long as you keep trying, building a good Trading Plan, working same positive way, there is hope. Trading is like learning to multiply, you have to do the tables each day, trading is like that exactly to me. Good luck.
Been at it for years, you likely have ways in the right market conditions of making small money regularly, work out what they are stick to them and repeat, fast markets and going for big profits kills me. Better to get rich eventually then never, atleast thats the stage I've just came to accept lol
The hardest part of trading is Determining / Gettin' the right conditions. Easy to buy and hold. But harder to corner a bear and hold till' the bull's dead. Conditions is a package including ourselves. We're just fallible humans. If you're not in the right mood you'll certainly be beaten by the game. Stay objective & critical about your trading. Don't beat you up. Inquire coldly what's wrong. That's something you can fix. It's hard to solve yet undefined problems. But easier than self-loathing. See if adds value or not. If it doesn't ... Trash it. Take breaks. Reflect. Spend time having fun. Solve your problems piece by piece. Be patient. Well balanced.