This is one of those times when I totally question this whole thing. Trading is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever tackled. And you gotta fail your way to success. I’m having a crappy run right now. I start to question it all and look for a new strategy,etc. I have been a successful trader before. So when this occurs. How do you get your confidence back and keep going ?
Hey John. You started the "transitioning to full time" thread only weeks ago. My instinct is to tell you that are thinking at a rate of a mile a minute. Slow things down by a factor of 100x, whether it be frequency of trading or position size. edit: I must be dreaming. It was 3 days ago?????
If you have no trading game plan, and skill, and experience and wisdom...then your lack of confidence is completely valid. You will easily be shaken to your core, every waking moment in the market. Trading is extremely difficult for alot of people because the market is dynamic...not many people can easily accept and cope with that. Most trades or endeavors in life...have an ultimate, fixed, square end goal and process -- each time, it's the same road. You can read 100 trading books...all of that collective wisdom will work, or may not work, completely dynamically each trade, for each person. -- Given a number of variables. What's important is how you perform overall in the end. It's important you have backbone, and something Real within you. You have to ultimately play the role of the Hero, when you trade and engage in this endeavor. There will be trials and tribulations along the way. Alot of them. Everything is your judgement call, every waking dynamic moment in the market. Each chart, each trade,...is like the tunnel/hallway scene in The Matrix. You have to see and sense things, what you're up against. Make strong assumptions and convictions, but wait for initial confirmation and agreement with the market. This ET site is like an ancient library of magical wisdom....to your Holy Grail of Open Sesame riches, But Alot of people will read and see and sense and derive and apply nothing though. , Throughout this site's history...I wonder how many people have truly pulled the Sword out of the Stone, and have Slayed Goliath, Al Pacino drove a Ferrari while blind. -- apply that same wisdom to your trading. Your left eye looking towards the past, your right eye thinking about the unknown, unseeable future. -- and both eyes in the present. Hoo-Wah!
IMO, you're most likely not ready yet. It sucks, but you're better off quitting and getting back to your market studies for a little (or a lot) longer. When trading live, the market should be a familiar place doing pretty much what you expect it to with little or no surprises. This comes from experience and long periods of studying historical and present market conditions. Think the recent meltdown was bad or unprecedented? It's happened many times before. You need to know in advance how you will act. I have a feeling that a lot of traders simply act by feel or memory trying to make real time decisions about whether to buy or sell. Not a good idea. You need to plan in advance and at a bare minimum have a few scenarios planned out in advance. You also need to know that if scenario 1 fails, then scenario 2 will bail you out, so to speak. If not, consider sitting on the sidelines and not engaging. Don't trade if you don't have a signal or expectation that you will make a low-risk profit. You won't have this signal or expectation simply from 'believing' or 'thinking' the market will go up or down.
Leverage leverage and leverage.Reduce leverage levarage reduce reduce levarage.Read it 10000000 times like mantra.