Im trading stock index futures mainly. Started 2013 with £40000 (about $63K usd) Currently have £30430 ($48K usd) Took some big hits around the February/March time period, 6K lost in two days, cut back size but continued to lose and the account balance slowly drifted even lower during the following four months. Am now trying to make it back slowly. My confidence is shot to pieces, not so much by the loss of money but by the long losing streak duration (including a flat 2012) Have reduced my risk by a factor of 5 from what i started the year from. Going to be at least six months to get back to 40K. Currently risking about £180 on each trade. thats 0.6% of the account. Started the year risking £800 per trade, 2%. Will increase my risk slowly as i make money. Made £800 in August, was initially risking just 0.3% per trade at the start of that month. First up month since january. September 2013 so far: Day 1: £+100 Day 2: £-100 Trying hard to follow my trading plan. But every time i lose i feel like shit and get tempted to change my rules to make myself feel better. Must monitor my own feelings and stop them sabotaging me. 2012 was a flat year for me, i started with 45K, didn't make anything in the end but had a good roller coaster ride up and down, had to withdraw 5K in the end. So i started 2013 with about 40K. Now down to 30K.
If you don't have a positive expectancy with 1 contract there is no reason to trade multiples. I suggest you stop trading and read this and work on the lessons within before trading again. http://files.meetup.com/1717213/Disciplined Trader.pdf
4 things: 1. Stop trading, at least temporarily. 2. Read 'reminiscences of a stock operator' until you understand it. 3. Go back and study your trades. Zoom out. Look at where some of those trades would have gone in the weeks/ months afterwards, had you left them on. What conditions were present in the big winners? What signal could you have used, to get you in? What size stop to keep you in? When to add to winners? Cut losers? I'll bet you could have taken many less risks, for far more profit. 4. The markets are always there. There will always be something moving. Everything takes time, but learning to trade takes longer than most other things. Slow it all down, concentrate on getting it right, the money will follow. Good luck!
Slumdog, what are you trading ? Are you in the UK ? EDIT - just noticed that this is an old thread....
Thanks for the advice. Longer term trading is not my thing. Perhaps it should be but its not a way i feel comfortable trading.
Slumdog, sorry my mistake, I can never understand the daft US date format thing... SIFs ? I'm guessing stock index futures ? You trade the Dax/FTSE or ES ? As others here have suggested, stop trading and do some more work. The markets will always be there, take time to evaluate what you are doing wrong, what you have done right in the past and why it's no longer working. Once you have done that, trade on a simulator to build confidence before risking even one more penny in the futures markets, which can be BRUTAL. Keep a journal (if you don't already do this) and be ruthless with yourself, I believe that going over your trades is very rewarding. I trade UK stocks, have traded the FTSE & Dax futures but I end up giving back my profits (my Dax trading was better than FTSE by the way). Good luck
I will continue to trade small as an alternative to stoping trading. I have done work that will prevent me having big losing days in the future. Have developed an auto liquidator for my IB account which will close all open positions at my daily loss limit, I'm setting my daily loss limit at -2.5R. As 1R is 0.6% at the moment i will lose at most 1.5% on a bad day (+costs).
I was $215k in the hole until I finally learned how to do it. Made up all my losses. and it's been blue sky since. If I can do it, anybody can. I was the most incompetent trader on earth for a very long time.