Just train more and harder to overcome your fears, ie. do more paper trades... Also, doing some sports like boxing etc. helps much to get your confidence back... And silence is golden when trading, I like instrumental music, especially romantic pan-flute music in the background, like this one:
The difficulties he's going to have, this way, are in a different league altogether, that dwarfs other considerations: he could be God's gift to trading and still get into serious trouble, being as grossly undercapitalized as this. If wanting to avoid demo trading, to experience the psychological realities of trading, with only $2,000, it's possible that retail spot forex trading somewhere like Oanda with infinite position-sizing granularity might be a way of doing that (though I admit it wouldn't be quite to my taste). However you look at it, trying to trade futures with a $2,000 account is a surefire recipe for disaster. It really is about as simple as that.
That fear of "being wrong" is enhanced more when trading undercapitalized and your account has dropped near the point where the broker will no longer allow you to trade. In comparison, if you're properly capitalized and you lose $800 as the thread starter did...you'll have LESS fear. The real purpose for being properly capitalized is so that you don't abuse leverage or margin and so that the psychological aspects of trading have less impact on the mind versus a trader trying to trade with very little room for any error. Simply, the OP (thread starter) is under-capitalized unless he purely open that 2k account just to get his feet wet and to see what trading is all about knowing he was under-capitalized and that any losses will start playing head games with him. Now that the head games has started...he's at even more of a disadvantage. Therefore, don't trade again until properly capitalized. While saving up the money...use this time to learn as much as possible about the psychological aspects of trading considering you now have learne to fear of trading considering the human brain is already been condition for most people to fail when making financial decisions. Therefore, your task now is to reprogram yourself to not fear and reprogram yourself to recognize that on most trading days...you're the key element to failure or success. Seriously, this isn't psycho babble. Think about it carefully. Pretend the minimum allowed for trading is $1000 and you open a small $2000 trading account. In contrast, your buddy opens a $50,000 trading account. You both lose $800 each. He now has $49,200 remaining in the account whereas you have only $1200 while knowing that when you lose another $200...you're done. Now guess which trader will develop a fear to trade or may take on addition risks to try to make profits ? Reminder, don't trade with money you can not afford to lose and don't fall into that trap of that you'll keep trading with real money and hopefully you'll be able to figure it out about risk management, discipline, proper capitalization, stress management, trade strategy and so on. Any of the above missing pieces from the trading plan...the odds are very high that you will fail. Therefore, stop trading and design a complete trading plan that includes knowing how to manage that "fear of trading" now that you've learned to fear. Behavior Finance
Trading is an evolutionary process, you must go through all the steps to be consistently profitable. It is however possible to time the market and make money but you can't always be lucky.
The reason you're not going to be able to trade ES with 2000$ is you'll be risking over 5-10% of your account just to have a reasonable stop loss given how ES acts. Even a 1pt stop is 2.5%. So you either have to have great entries and expectancy or you'll just get nickel and dimed to zero. This is in *addition* to the whole "most traders run out of capital before achieving positive expectancy" issue. So when people say undercapitalized this is what they're referring to.
I'd of disagreed with most of this, until recently, but since reducing my risk %%% to a level, I'm not even using an SL with, trading is a much calmer less stress full experience. Having to run 10SL's, then getting knickel and dimmed to death by little random spikes for no real reason, to a market is going up, I'm long, as long as this doesn't change why sweet it, market turns then exit for a loss at a good point and flip sides, why make it harder. As I said before, open an FXCM Spot account and trade for $1 per pt or something for a while. I disagree with adding 25K say, you'll average down a few times on a trade going against you, then bang that's 10K gone and the rest soon to follow trying to revenge trade it back. I've seen people blow 100K doing above, in very short periods of time, like hours, entire 100K account GONE!! counter trend think $200 per pt and reducing as it goes to stop a margin call, market knows when everyone is wiped cause just again margin call and account gone, market reverses, not a happy chap LOL
If I were to bet right now..., I'd lay a good chunk of money I will have some losing trades tomorrow..., likely every day this week..., likely next week..., likely the remainder of this month..., likely next month..., likely every day the remainder of this year And very likely..., every day I trade - until I retire Having losing trades is not a mistake - it simply part of every day..., and normal trading =============================== I could post a one / two sentence response..., but I think your fear is deep seated and not likely to be resolved btw.., once ingrained - it takes 4X the work to de-energize and ingrain the correct thoughts / beliefs ============ First thing I would suggest - get you head wrapped around the notion - losing trades are perfectly acceptable..., and a part of normal trading Second thing - get on SIM and work this shit out Trading needs to be a process..., a routine..., where you put on trades - allow each trade to work out - take the loss..., or take the profit - move on to the next Where the outcome of each trade - is not personal - it simply is the outcome =============== You have some shit to work through - no need losing any more money while..., and until - you get it resolved RN
You are undercapitalized and undisciplined. Stop trading Take $33 and buy this http://www.barnesandnoble.com/mobil...der-mark-douglas/1111384402?ean=9780132157575 Read it over and over until you know it like the back of your hand, but stop throwing money away until you tame the demons within
that means - u do not have a working method and you know it... continue working on paper until there will be no fear at all, until you feel yourself a genius , until u can not wait to get into the market... after you will get into the market, very soon you will find out that you are not the genius, but a schmuck... its ok get out, continue working on your method, until you feel like genius again and then a new iteration, and then another one, and another... many many iterations money in your account are secondary, most important - how will you sustain yourself for many many years trying to become a real genius, instead of keep being a real schmuck