i got news for you. when you get sucked into the trading addiction you cannot concentrate on anything else. you honestly think you can sit down and spend quality time with your children after a big loss? you honestly think you can enjoy your weekend after a bad week? you honestly think you can have a normal conversation at a dinner party knowing that the stock you own is getting crucified after hours on some bad news? you honestly think you can pay attention to your wife when you left your trading platform just for a few minutes to get coffee and your stock dropped 2 points? of cours every occupation has ups and downs but NOTHING AND I MEAN NOTHING COMPARES TO THE ADDICTION AND RUSH OF TRADING..does trading give you a rush? when you lose i bet you cannot wait to make that money back? i bet when you go through all your capital you are thinking of crafty ways to refill your trading account but of course this time will be different. this time you will "stick to your discipline"..hahaha,,yeah right !!! if you only listened to your gut!!! another joke. i hear that at the casino's all the time. oh yeah,you do research,you look at charts,trading is different than black jack..oh it is !!! no it is not. being an engineer or a bisness owner is different than black jack. TRADING IS GAMBLING,ALBEIT CONTROLLED GAMBLING BUT IT IS STILL GAMBLING AND MOST LOSE EVERYTHING AND MOST CANNOT STOP UNTIL THEY SAY THIS FAMOUS LAST SENTENCE:" I AM REALLY GIVING UP ON TRADING,I JUST WANT TO MAKE MY INITIAL INVESTMENT BACK AND THEN THATS IT!!". hahaha,thats the same thing a gambler says in vegas. i've seen hundreds of guys lose everything. go ahead and read all those books,watch all those video's,listen to all those guru's who made millions trading// trading at a prop firm and trading ONLY the firms money is totally different and much more controlled. give it up and get a normal job or open a business, trading is a dead end street. admit it and get out now while you are still young and don't listen to the clowns on this board who preach DISCIPLINE,thats another famous wrd used by gamblers. focus on being the best you can be and enjoy life. can you really enjoy life being on top of the worldone week and on the brink of suicide the next week? ask your self this..does this sound like you?
not true. i daytrade for about 7-8 years. every day 10's,sometimes 100's trades. for me it's just a job from 7:30am till 6pm. yes..hours sucks,but it's not uncommon for me to take 2 hours nap or watch the movie or two right on middle of the day..now that's addictive
I've been trading for a living for 18 years and daytrading for 11. It's not an addiction for me. And I don't obsess about losses. I'm properly capitalized and a bad day for me is a max 1% loss. Losses for daytraders are just operating expenses, like rent and utilities for a manufacturing plant. You're going to have losing trades and losing days and if you can't deal with it emotionally then you need to find another line of work. I have a wife and two children. When I walk out of my trading office I put trading behind me and focus my attention on my family. At this point in my trading career, there's very little "rush" left after a winning or losing trade. I know my statistics. I know my win/loss percentage, average profit on a winning trade, average loss on a losing one, etc. I can never predict how any particular trade is going to come out; but if I take a hundred trades, I know what the stats are going to look like. I keep comprehensive records of every trade. Unless my statistics change, there's nothing to worry about.
The proper mindset for a trader... "trading is like mining for gold". You know the yield is .5gm/ton. So, you process the substrate... routinely. Then... when you think you have a BIG setup, you make a BIG play... with a tight stop... and hope you don't get 10 of those in a row wrong. Many traders think (hope) "I might make it BIG... QUICKLY"... you know, like winning the lotto... odds against. Trading shouldn't be any more addictive than eating regularly.
Trading is a discipline. Those who see trading as gambling will soon be separated from their funds...
Good post and similar to my experiences. I've been at this full time 15 years. I don't get a 'rush' from any trade. They're just executions. I pick and entry and exit price. I either make $$ or maybe lose a small amount. If I have a bad day does my wife suspect it? Sometimes, yes. Most of the time she hasn't a clue as to how the day went. Statistics was a core part of both my undergrad and graduate school so I know my stats inside and out. I go for singles (small profits) most of the time and thus have a very high W-L percentage. Last, proper capitalization is a MUST. I cringe when I see posters show up here with $5K and want to go prop or somehow trade for a living. If you show up with inadequate capital your likelihood of failure increases immensely.