murray - fair enough. i had a few things in my advantage: 1) i had been trading from the security of my job for a few years before that. 2) i was able to make money during those years except one (i didn't include those in my numbers because i wasn't trading as a job) because i was dumb, and the bull market of the 90s rewarded dumbness. cup and handle? gotta buy it! news comes out? buy options for extra leverage! i learned to stop doing those before i started trading on my own, after i read a zillion books on the history of the markets (wyckoff, livermore, etc.) 3) i had sold baseball cards for years as a kid, and in the 80s (when there were huge market inefficiencies) would buy huge amounts of rookie cards and sell them, so i learned about selling into nutty buying frenzies. so it wasn't totally the same. but i did feel all sorts of fear and other emotions once i started trading on my own (with no 'backup' job) that couldn't be expressed, or understood, until i actually started doing it.
If you had asked me my opinion when I was experiencing his type of trading problems I would have said... Dont Overtrade..... Everytime I bit off more than I could chew, I got choked.... When I backed off and made it manageable, I became profitable. The more I kept it that way, the better.
Well good news about the truth on trading.. I made a cool @195 profit today and my limit order to exit was filled. I definatly feel that if you want to last long term in the trading world, you must take your profits and hold on to them. over trading is bad behavior.
right, but that doesn't mean dismiss it as "one's opinion' either. there is a fine line between opinions that matter and ones that make no sense, i think this opinion is one that matters.
Nothing wrong with trading smaller size till you are comfortable in your trading style.... Greed Kills
one trader mentioned something once that really hit home with me. he runs a trading room, and he set up a thing where each member calls out ONE trade a day (in the YM) and one only. he found that these trades were very successful with very high expectancy? why? well, when you are limited to choosing one setup a day, you tend to be very discriminating and objective. do you miss out on lots of good trades? SURE! but so what? i recommend any beginning trader in the dow futes concentrate on looking for 3 good trades a day. no more. 2 in the morning session and 1 in the afternoon would be good. if you feel the NEED to trade (electronic crack) then open up your SIMtrader, or play a video game. two very dangerous things for a trader are to get sucked in out of boredom and to chase (fear of missing a move).
I have found that playing poker during the lulls helps also. I play a lot of play money poker on Full Tilt during the lunch and early afternoon hours (used to be for real money until the new legislation kicked in). I also approach this endeavor in a realistic manner and am trying to build that account up to 1M. So what if it's just play money, the discipline is similar and you get action. The last thing I need is excitement in my trading and my poker has just about become excitement-free as well. Just concentrate on each hand as it comes, make the best decisions you can at the best time and stay alive.....hmmmm..... Good Luck!