It's killing me every day. I used to be a scalper and not a bad one but unfortunately I got that bad habit of jumping in on every freakin tick. Yesterday I traded 120K shares, made 1000 gross and paid 1200 comissions, today even worse. Every morninig I tell myself - make no more then 10-15 trades and I end up making 500. I know it's lack of discipline and nobody can help me with that but maybe somebody went through the same problem and finally found a way to sit on his hands. How can I fight it? I know - handcuffs would be a good solution but is there anything else? Maybe I should change my style completely, swingtrade or enter a trade, place a stop and get the hell out for a couple of hours? I read charts well but I take profit too early, also I cut my loss even earlier. Not to mention the number of scratch trades I make every day.
Discipline is something that, unfortunatly, no one can tell you how to get. It comes from pain and a serious resolve to end that pain. Brandon
Amen to that Brandon. I started as a swing trader and still am. futures now tho. Scalped some naz techs cause it was there and every once in a while found myself scalping in some sort of mad frenzy when I knew better. I always got behind when I did it. Later I thought, what the hell came over me? It comes from trying to outsmart, outguess the moves instead of waiting for direction to reveal itself I think. Then I entered some disoriented space like a pilot spinning out of contol in the soup and not knowing where the horizon is. After thinking about it I realized it had something to do with trying to beat the mkt instead of flowing with it. The intensity just got worse as I got farther behind and more pissed.
Nitro posted yesterday on Super_lowlibido's Bright-bashing thread that a portion of what he learned in his Bright experience was a reminder of the scenario where the trader who is up on the day stops trading and the trader who is down on the day is glued to the monitor trying to just get even, and how this is the opposite of the right way to trade. One should hit harder when it is going well and back off when it is not. I have been there over and over, so I appreciated that post very much.
You sure know what you're talking about. I couldn't say it better. I realize that what I'm doing is a madness but can't help it. Even if I get a nice trade - I take the profit just because I want to reenter the trade on a pullback or even take an opposite trade to get those 3-5 cents. I got Q's today at 22.05 and even though I saw what was going to happen - I sold at 22.20. Bought again at 22.26 - sold at 22.36. Tried to short the tops of each move - some worked, but most didn't. Stupid moron i am.
I think a large part to overtrading is the desire to not want to miss out on any market moves. When I first started out, I constantly had market opinions. I might think the market was going up and if did move up 10 points I would be kicking myself for not being in a trade. So I would end up trading on every hunch I had and end up losing money since most of the time I was wrong. You have to be able to accept watching the market make good moves and not being involved. If this doesn't bother you, it will be the first step towards preventing overtrading.
Swift, Yeah, I know what you mean. We all have been there or ARE there. Though, I don't do 125K shares a day like you, I still consider myself overtrading for my particular style. There are only about 2 ways to solve this problem: 1) Stay a scalper and try to be net positive scalper. There are some decent net positive scalpers around. They may do 150K-300K shares a day and be up $800-$1000 day. Not bad. 2) Change your style!! Just don't glue your eye to the L2 box. Just go with the flow. It's harder to do. We are suffer from that. But I think in the long run if you can master that then there could be some serious $. Like taking 50cents-$1 moves on a few thousand shares is pretty darn good. But for many people, this is next to impossible b/c of discipline so it might as well be a pipe dream... All up to u... GOod luck! -99
Great point H trader Very true about accepting missing market moves. You have to think that your setups work and they will catch many moves and be satisfied with that. If you start worrying that you missed a move you will start violating your criteria for entry and break lots of rules and lose. Eventually you will come full circle and realize staying with your plan is the best course of action. Sticking with your rules also leaves out most of the decision /nervousness because its either my setup or it isn't. Been there.