After a losing streak

Hi fellow traders,

I've been in retail fx market since jun 09. A small time in which I'd gone down by 80%. THen I started interacting forums. Respected the few advices I got. I learnt Price action like pinbar DBHLC etc..

I downloaded chri lori and robert miner's forex videos. Thru which I got new ideas.

Now I use daily, weekly and monthly pivots alongwith price action for trading. for intraday trading I use fibs to find take profit levels.

Things have improved leaps and bounds in terms of my analysis. But it stands there only.

The initial streak of losing has caused a dent to my confidence. I either dont enter at all or take profit too early. At the end I see the market go that point, got way further than my take profit point.

How do if fight my fear of losing I aint able to understand?

Earlier I thought once I start to get my analysis I'll start to develop confidence on my analysis and then I'll take my trades as per my plan. But this is not happening?

I'm certain there must be atleast few who would have gone thru this and willing to share how to see thru this stage

Regards,
Buccas13

 

The only way to boost your confidence is to actually make some money, time after time. There is no shortcut.

First, it's crucial that you learn to take profit when you can, not when you have to.
Second, it's equally important to note that you can have a string of small losers and still come out ahead with one large winner.
Third, if you are a daytrader, know in advance where the stop and price target will be placed. They should be placed immediately after you enter the trade. Try not to modify your stop.

 

I also trade the Forex market.

Forex is a tough market to handle mentally for me because there is so much price fluctuation. You can get in on a trade and swing positive and negative 10 or 15 times before your profit target is hit.

My advice to you is to develop an ATM strategy, that is, a semi-automatic trading strategy using a 3rd party program such as NinjaTrader. You manually enter in a trade and you tell it exactly how you want it to handle profits/losses. You can customize it in great detail. So once you enter in a trade you can forget about it and enjoy life a little more.

An example of this in Ninja Trader:

If you enter target at 1.0000 and target hits 1.0020. Set a stop loss at 1.0005 and raise stoploss 4 pips for every 4 pips increase in price from 1.0020.

If target hits 1.0050 set a stop loss at 1.0030 and raise stoploss 2 pips for every 2 pips increase in price from 1.0050.

If target hits 1.0090 set stop loss at 1.0080 and raise stoploss 1 pip for every pip increase in price from 1.0090.

Good luck.

 

Dear Saliva,

Yes you said it well enough, loss of confidence due to loss of money. So for gaining confidence it has to be gain of money.

Yes, I have my initial stoploss and take profit ready before I enter my trades. I've worked hard enough to pickup the essentials of trading after my initial mistakes. How to prepare before trading day starts and parameter I'll consider before I open a trade. But when I press F9 in MT4 to buy or sell, some short curcuit happens in my brain and I loose it all. I dont know if good traders turna deaf ears on their nueral system during such moments?

Regards,
Buccas13

 

I'll surely go thru your idea of moving the stoploss. I'll go thru the Ninja trader in detail.

Thanks for your input.

Regards,
Buccas13

 

It is said that most sports people find it extremely hard to perform to their maximum ability after an injury, just like after a losing streak matter is pure psychological one. Trading is lucrative for most of us because it offers leverage, remove leverage it becomes a lot less so magnetising yet from a psychological point becomes easier to handle consecutive losses.

 

Leveraged trading is there to extract capital from majority, not assist to increase it.

 

You are not fighting the losers, you are fighting yourself

Accept them – make friends with them – learn to love them – Yea I’m serious

You fight em – they will kick your ass – possibly take all you own (at a minimum they will break your account)….

But you learn to accept them – they will never hurt you again

Now they are going to cost you a little money – but at least they won’t cost you a career, or your way of life


As to "the how" to go about accepting them - ask yourself that question - then listen intently (because there is no one better able to provide the answer)

RN

 

Not sure what might be your exact problem so I can only talk about my personal experiences.

When I have a losing streak it really hurts me emotionally. I start second guessing myself a lot and question my motives for putting on a trade. I start to pour over research which usually leads to even more mixed opinions about how I should approach the market. Essentially I start to overthink the market which leads to more losing days and feeds the vicious cycle.

What im trying to say is that if you have a system that works for you and has been making you money then don't question it. Overthinking will kill your account. Even a good system is going to have drawdowns (its not free money out there no matter what anybody says).

Good Luck

 

Dear Youngtrader,

Yes my problem is very close to your, "OVERTHINK". Somewhere I keep on getting that feeling, "Every system has got few loosers, the trade signal just generated is a loser."

From all that I've been experiencing since I've started trading, I feel everyone should do trading in life for sometime. It is one of the great ways of knowing who you really are. We keep on doing fist fighting with market by doing more and more research and analysis, when the fist fight has to be with ourselves in developing our own attitude.

Thanks Youngtrader for your words.