So Jesse Livermore was right afterall by saying not taking loss could damage your pocketbook and your soul. I took it on the chin and finally threw in the towel on a bank stock. I made the cardinal trader's mistakes by trading big and letting losses get out of control. Basically I turned a bad trade into an "investment" until it was too late. I'm down 70% on my account YTD but I'm relived that my nightmare is finally over. I lost a boatload of $ today but I've already forgotten about it. So I'm doing well psychologically in this area but need to work on pulling the trigger fast on losses. Wishful thinking and denial got the better of me. Does anyone have similar near blowup experience? How do you learn from it and bounce back?
that's why I took up daytrading futures watching a stock go down day after day after day.. and unwilling to sell.. eventually I sold but it was painful at first indeed. In hindsight I bought exactly at a retest of a resistance level, wish I knew TA before. Now im unwilling to hold anything overnight, daytrading is a great solution for me.
I'm more of a position trader as I have other things going on in my life and I can't afford to spend all day watching the market.
Sure man, I also took a hit today. The biggest down down I've had as a trader since I've started. Unfortunately mentally I'm defeated. 10 years of trading and I've come to a point where I really wonder whether or not i'll turn that corner and be consitent. I'm a profitable trader and have managed to keep the wife at bay. But the setback this month has me frazzled. I just also made the cardinal trader mistake of lettin' it ride on black in SNDK. Still in it, I'm on tilt, it's probably a good fade This trade will determine my fate as a trader. Only time will tell. Go figure it comes at a time when I decide to spend thousands of dollars on CPU equipment, monitors... Thanks for all the laughs and good times board. Goodbye cruel world...
I had a terrible day with MS today......not to the point of blow up or anything......but I feel your pain. If you're not able to watch the market all day....you definitely should use stops.....I personnaly disprove 'stops' but swing trading is different. cheer up dude....you'll have better days.
I might add that my wife is possibly a mental block for me to pull the trigger on a loss because a loss is never a loss until it shows up on the 1099. She never looks at the brokerage statements but she does have to sign the tax return. So I'm sort of hiding unrealized losses from her and this contributes to my big drawdown right now.