I want to work for myself. I absolutely hate going to a job every day. I feel like it's nothing more than a lesser form of slavery. (not to diminish the horrors of actual slavery in any way). I'm antisocial. I like being alone. I can't stand sitting in a cube surrounded by people all day long. I want to make my own decisions throughout the day & run my own business, not listen to other people & do what they tell me, especially when they make moronic decisions. The whole game of trading appeals to me. I'm usually good at figuring things out & winning games. I just like the idea of being independent & on my own. Live & die my own wit & skills. I don't know why "this trading game" is so much different from everything else I've done. I used to win or do very well at just about everything I tried. Like I said in another thread I want to sit in a shack in the woods (with high-speed internet) and trade for a living. I'm not greedy. I don't want to take over the world. I just want to make enough to live on & enough to accumulate some wealth.
What I'm thinking a lot of the time is that the market is out to get the other traders. Half the time when I see an obvious setup I think, "oh......they are all going to get screwed" and I go the opposite way. Half the time it's correct, the other half it's not.
Douglas wrote Rarely do any of us grow up learning how to operate in an arena that allows for complete freedom of creative expression, with no external structure to restrict it in any way. In the trading environment, you will have to make up your own rules and then have the discipline to abide by them. The problem is, price movement is fluid, always in motion, quite unlike the highly structured events that most of us are accustomed to. In the market environment, the decisions that confront you are as endless as the price movements you intend to take advantage of. You don't just have to decide to participate, you also have to decide when to enter, how long to stay in, and under what conditions to get out. There is no beginning, middle, or end - only what you create in your own mind. This is what you have to do. You must decide whether you can do it or not. If you can't, then you're wasting your time and your money. If you decide that you can, then you must be prepared to begin again.
macattack, I think you need to be more robotic and instead of examining price bar by bar or tick by tick thinking what it will do next, you need to have a predefined setup or two and just do nothing until you see them, then execute them according to plan without using judgement. ie If the setup plots, you execute it Then eventually you add a 3rd one to your arsenal and so forth.
What DB posted⦠and... (eta; Dyslexia is a bitch Sorry DB) Trading is all about losing well â even before we can begin making money consistently â we must be able to lose well..., and as often as called upon Yet youâre used to winning I imagine the thought of losing leaves a foul taste See the conflict RN
This is true, can't trade without losing, not just individual trades, but days, weeks even months sometimes. If such idea seems frustrating, you got to let the thought of becoming a trader go.
I would have absolutely no problem following rules, taking loss after loss after loss, if I knew that over time I would come out ahead. Doesn't bother me at all. But I can't wrap my head around how to create rules to follow, other than maximum risk, targets, when to move stop, when to move target. How do you create rules as to when to enter a trade when every single occurrence is different from the previous occurrence? The context is always different. After all this time I still have never found one setup which will hit a predetermined target before hitting a predetermined stop reliably enough to be profitable. If I try to fiddle with things & cut my losses quicker or let profits run that doesn't work either. I get out right before it takes off, or I exit too late after profits have evaporated. Everything seems like a complete guess to me. If price pulls back do you enter as it's pulling back, wait for it to turn up. Do you set stop at 10 ticks, 15 ticks, 20 ticks? Do you target 20 ticks or try to hold for a time target like 15 minutes? Do you get out immediately if it doesn't take off? Do you get out as soon as it hesitates? Etc, etc, etc. I feel like all I do is guess.
Its trading⦠mkt is uncertain⦠truth is all we do is guess But Some of us guess based solely on what price is saying..., sans any of the extraneous BS (noise) from our mind⦠from others⦠from whatever else ============== Every trade I place â I have no clue whether it will profit or lose â every one of em To my very core MAC â I never know =============== Pick 1 set up and master the damn thing - just 1 RN