I must say this is an excellent thread. Seeing all these compassionate traders contributing to a struggling trader. My hat is off to you all that attempt to help a struggling trader.
Gutsy, How have you been my friend? Come visit us some time, okay? I hope you're not giving up yet. Wishing you a prosperous '07. -wb
i hope you haven't given up yet. looking at your posts, it seems clear to me. you had a winning,profitable method. you put too much pressure on yourself to get more money and started trading bigger contracts therefore putting more pressure on yourself and making you lose your cool hands. you were doing fine in october. you have what it takes to do this (obviously). just go slower. start back with only one contract until your track record gets going again like in october. once you get back to 90% profitable trades or two weeks straight of profitable trading or some goal like that, then try 2 contracts. if that goes well, try 3. but build up gradually, don't make yourself crazy trying to do it all at once. i did EXACTLY what you did. my biggest loser day was one in which i was trying to "catch up" for having done poorly earlier on. i really think you have what it takes. i hope you don't give up. if you do go into the big rig thing, maybe come back to trading after a break. as one earlier poster said, i'm sending you the positive vibe....
Hi gutsy I hope you are Ok. I would google the poker term "tilt" and do some detail research on it. Always go straight to the problem. Don't rush things... it never helps. good trading, William
I'm still around. I haven't traded much since Nov. My brother-in-law was re-doing the roof of his barn and fell off. Fell through a tree next to the barn and broke some ribs. I've had to help with the farm in all my "free" time while he was healing. I traded a few days last month and made about $300. Other personal problems have also continued. I'm now an extra $20,000 in the hole since November. I planned on giving up on trading and going the trucking route, however I'm on a waiting list for the school. I don't expect to be able to attend before June, so I'm still trying to make this work. I hope to trade more often this month and hopefully get on the plus side of cash flow sometime soon.
Good for you gutsy. Just keep bare minimum in the account while fixing problems. This way if the trading got off track, you would have to take a break to wire money in. What you are experiencing is "tilting", try the stuff I PM you and watch for tilt. Also visit Mike Caro's poker university free lectures: http://www.poker1.com/mcu/mculib_lectures.aspx I found some stuff there applicable to trading. Take it slow man. This is just a hunch.... I think you will succeed and probably in a big way but not under these conditions... Under the wrong conditions, anybody would lose money. Steer back man. Shoot for consistency (trade in a way that is replicable). It is never about the one trade we are in at the moment... It's about how we handle things over time. When you make a lot of money, then you can lend me some. Good trading
Hey gutsy, I read pass half of your journal. I would say you are a generous man. I can also see why the pro spent the time on you. Here is my feedback for the first half but I must warn you I am not in any position to give advice: 1) Priority #1 is your family. Stay focus in increasing your earning power which means getting that big rig license you were talking about. 2) You can't trade against people who got their 8 hour sleep while you are tired. AND you ended up not trading many days anyway. You need to cut down the trading hours so this is what I would do. I suspect the opportunities for your type of trading cluster around certain time of the day. You should do some studies by dividing the day into time slots or buckets and tally the trade signals. Trade only the hours when the trade signals happen most frequently.... Catch your sleep on the rest and make sure you do get your rest. 3) On 10/4, you said something about taking a different trade without any signal and in another occassion you mention rules are mere guidelines. A guy who taught me told me to try to be consistent overtime in all aspects. What he means is even if you might make less money, it is better to stay consistent. If you take this philosophy, then many decisions become easier. Should I let this trade run or should I take profit? These are all decided beforehand. For example, I use stop and look for profit target on all my trades because personally I feel I can execute more consistently... but that is just me. It's always the long term consistency being more important than short term P/L. 4) I have come into contact of a different methodology. It might take 3 months to get used to and it will generate only 5-7 trades for ES per week - won't make an addict happy for sure. Of course I have to say up front there is no guaratee and nothing is easy. I mention it because I think it could filter your trade signals and make it a lot less stressful. This method requires a lot of sitting on the hands and not as much watching compare to yours. You can PM me if you are interested. I can see it being less stressful for you and it can help you to get to a "safe" place easier. Once you got that "safe" spot, you can either try more contracts or branch out. Good trading, William
Hi gutsy, Just finished the entire journal. Nice read. At first I thought your method requires a lot of quick scalps but looks like it is working fine for you since 3 trades a day is not bad. I don't see any problem except some tilting after some losses (11/14) and adding contracts too quickly (11/29). I see the tilting problem on 11/14 which can happen to any trader. They deviates from their normal strategy. I have an opposite opinion of what you post... Usually market imparts bad habits instead of teaching. You have to figure out who you are and what your strategy is and be consistent and not trying to outsmart yourself. Tilting - when you try to cheat the pinball machine by tilting it. They have built-in mechanism to shut down the machine and displays the word TILT when a player tries to do that. I currently believe it is possible to work thru tilt with some emotional work besides just walking away. Also some poker player prefers to end a session with a loser, this way you can get more winners in when you are hot and also have a chance to practice handling a loser. Thanks for the good stuff... Take it slow man. Tilt is a problem need the most attention... Remember we are trying to trade in a way that is replicable. Shoot for long term consistency instead of short term P/L then the decisions on what to do will be easy. Yes, you won't get crazy up swing on the equity curve that way but you won't get the crazy down swing either. Good trading.