quit trading a while may be a good solution. I once get this problem. when I saw my target not met, I traded heavily, end up I am farther from my target. often it will create frustration and anger, the problem is when you get bitten by the market, you become nervous, so even you get a good trade, "oh, this time I need take profit quick", you may take profit too early thus your winner can not cover the losers, when you saw it is a big winner as you think, you start to hold a loser or medicre trade longer to lose more,.... over and over, finally you gave up, .... take off a while, the market is always there. just as moany postings suggested, be patient and start to catch a good trade, that will correct your psychologic problems
IF you are having consistent losses. STOP NOW. There is no point trying to rescue what you have lost. Because the reason you lost is still there. You go back and it will defeat you again. Unless the 50 day moving average on SPX or SPY starts flattening out do not initiate any bullish positions. This is treacherous sidewinder snake, it will bit you again and again. I am doing the same thing. Last year I did 112% returns, this year using the same initial capital I am down 35 % in 2 months. What gives? Markets nothing else.
I am pissed off for beating the Dow (least negative) and still being negative for the year. There is absolutely no way I will ever be happy with my gains unless I am making millions a year.
the fact that you even mentioned putting all your money in one stock with the hoped of recouping your losses is reason enough to take a week or two off. this kind of market is what separates a trader from someone that only makes money in a strong market. a good trader cares less about where the market closed or where the market is going,he just acclimates and takes his money as it comes. you need to take some time off,you seem on the brink of taking a large gamble and nothing good will ever come out of that. warrior
Not everyone can short. When the markets are choppy it very risky indeed. You have to realize there will come a time when all the buyers will be gone and there is nothing left to short. GOOG, AAPL, BIDU all cut to 1/2. SPX down nearly 20% NDX down 18%.... Therefore rallies are life and blood for these kind of markets. Rally in the AM and sell off in the PM. Today it was a sell- off all day long relentlessly like the last 6 days in a row. How long can they sell it off? How long that will happen? Its bound to go up. The market is is way oversold now and we'll soon see a short covering stampede.
Everybody can go short. Just wait for a rally to your favorite moving average and go short. What is so tough about that? In a bull market you do the exact opposite right? Choppy or not, the averages are all going down. Until we see a MAJOR reversal on high volume with advances swamping declines don't buy anything. Just wait for shorting opportunites.
Well, if you want to make it back, follow these steps: 1) Sell everything asap and go 100% cash 2) Analyse all your losses and work out what caused them. 3) Make a rule to avoid repeating the mistakes which caused your prior losses. 4) Take a lot less risk. Losing 21% in a week is crazy. I would also suggest trying to devise a way to spot bear markets, and basically avoid buy & hold during those periods.