I find many paper traders are able to keep deeply extended losing positions for protracted periods of time without the negative psychological impacts felt by those who are actually trading real money. -burn8
Of course he is! We'll probably hear from him soon about an averaged down position and how patience is taking a toll. He'll change his target price, clandestinely of course, and tell us all how wonderful it is to be long when he posts a (non-losing) exit. To a perma bull (or perma bear) there is no such thing as opportunity cost or missed opportunities. The opportunity IS the perma-position no matter how long it takes to be right. Sad really. But a fun study of behavioral finance.
The last "dumb" loss I had was in 1990s, I went short on Mid-Am t-bonds and lost over 10 grand on a one lot "cause I just knew that was the top", each day was the same, watched it go up and had the strongest conviction that it was going to reverse. But one must learn the hard way, market doesn't care about YOUR convictions, if you going to be Contrarian in long term trading, you better hedge to minimize losses. What I do find funny now, 95% of my trades are contrarian and seldom do breakouts as breakouts/momentum trades have too high a degree of risk and reduction of profit for my style of trading. I think what many traders don't realize that whatever trading approach you have, it has to match your personality. Most would consider my trading style to be max extreme risky and yet to me it is the least risky to trade.
Very true, Handle. When I tell people I'm a daytrader they look at me like I'm crazy, assuming great risks, etc. Yet to me, people who hold overnight and are at the mercy of company news and world events are the ones assuming the risk. I can't sleep at night unless I'm in all cash at the end of the day.
My biggest loss, actually it was my one and only blowup was also in the 90's. Bellies. They waz tankin, and every type analysis I used at the time pointed to reversal. $4700 later there was no reversal, and every type of analysis I used at the time continued pointing to reversal. Funny to think about now. And a nice confirming story for those people as TechAn points out thinks day trading is risky. My favorite thing when messing with those types is to pretend to be panicked due to an internet connection glitch that has caused me to arrange for delivery of 112,000 lbs of sugar.