stop loss is one way. I try to use stop loss. but always give up. the stop loss creates an illusion to me; giving money to the market. so I could not do that. I just hang on until the market gives me my money. or i just lose it all. what I think is: when i am afraid or fearful, I say to myself: the market is giving. when i feel comfortable and sure, I say to myself: the market is stealing. this morning, I was thinking short Nq, I was fearful, this thing was shooting, then I said to myself: the market is giving, why not take it. still not sure, so at the market opening, close my eye, shorted it, not comfortable, very, it bounced again...of course just a couple of points (2610 shorted, it bounced to 2618+), ignore it, who cares. stop loss, no way. that works. I do not know this is ego problem or take advantage of ego. not sure.
If what you are describing is a real issue, and not just an attempt to gain attention on an ET thread, then you should probably close your trading account and walk away. Some people are not meant to trade. You appear to be one of them.
Dont tell him such nonsense, man. He isnt just ready yet. You can not trade without a plan, that includes stop loss and different exit strategie. Most important is that you have a edge or more, better more. I talked about that here for a thousand times, trading is about managing probabilities and you only can calculate odds with statistics, teach yourself into the subject of stochastic. Its basicly the exact same as how to be successfull in playing poker, you need to know when you are risking your money, you need to know why and you need to know how much risk. Trading is risky, very risky. You should stop trading and work out a plan, get urself paper and pen and create statistics to filter out what looks good an extract that until you see why it works. Everything in the markets as well in the universe, works after the simple law of "cause, creates, result". Your job is to become a statistican, before you can become a trader. Thats why its so difficult, because the odds are secret knowledge, you have to work out on your own, or you are lucky and somebody teach them to you. If you really want to become a money making rich bastard through trading, then you should start right from here with a totaly new approach to this whole subject. Read my post if you like and search for them, where i talked serious and didnt make any silly jokes, because my friend i know what i am talking about. You are lightyears away to become a pro. But you cant stop trying and learning, if you stop you lost and losers suck. You dont want to be a loser, do you ???
None of you are listening. His problem isn't that he lacks knowledge of the concept of a stop. It's that he has no self control, and he has said as much repeatedly. This thread is becoming a circle jerk... hasta luego
Ok,ok... but i went through this shit all by myself. And i found out that selfcontrol is a bitch, i still fight with it, with going in sometimes to early, but my overall setups, still pay well, because it work then...... I know its a problem. But the best way to master this damn thing, is to have the best plan in the world and try to follow it 100% and if you cant do it sometimes, you mostly still make money with it. But if he cant put in a stopp loss order and let it be, he doesnt understand trading at all. If you are wrong you are wrong, nothing will change that, no but the opposite, the longer you hold on to your losing positions, the more go the odds against you and you hope and hope until you margin call explods in your face, or you sell small positions to not get a margin call until all your money is gone, because you say, hey it must come back - it must- and then i make all my money back. Hoping is for losers, hoping and believing should only be in the church or in the temple of your choosen religion. Selfcontrol is a bitch. And bitches need to be controled.
chicken or the egg he/she doesn't have a trading plan, because they don't know how to trade they don't know how to trade cuz they are smarter than 99% of the other ET fools everything you learn on here or when you are given something you need to change to tweak it to improve it & make it 'yours' your ego stops you listening, it stops you learning, it stops you following The ego is a parasite, you probably don't even like trading, why the F..k sit in front of a computer for 12 hours a day. You are only doing this as your ego saw an opportunity to prove something. "It disguises its thoughts as your thoughts" Let me give you an example. Say you like cooking & you want to be a chef, good for you. But then you start thinking, hey I could be a celebrity chef, like Gordon Ramsay, I could be rich & famous and own a few restaurants named after me. Therefore I'm going to work like mad to make my dreams come true. Lets back up a sec, at some point you went from liking cooking to wanting to dedicate every single effort to it. Your ego hijacked your thoughts & puts its needs in there, your authentic selfs thoughts were morphed into something totally different. Now for most on this board you can substitute cooking with trading. when you finally become aware of your ego, it will be life changing, enlightening, its a f..king huge rabbit hole, no expert, jm2c http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=204587
Of course it works, you made money, did you? If you use stop, you give money to others. Wall Street crooks tell people to use stops so that they run your stops. They can see your stops. I wouldn't use a stop and let them know what my hand is. You wouldn't let others see your hand in poker, right? common sense.
The best systems optimize signal to noise. The ego is noise. How do you get rid of it? Just like any other undesired variable unless of course it is helpful. To that end many traders use it as a positive. That is to say if they're fighting the ego during either winning or losing trades it is tapping into the unconscious which of course can be utilized as a potential trading signal. But the question circles back around signal or noise? Food for thought.
I see it as two different topics. Ego to me has little to do with overstaying on losing trades. If you backtested your method well enough, you wouldn't have any questions when to get out, so I have to believe you lack faith in your system, and at some point you begin to "HOPE" and therefore the trade is hopeless. Ego on the other hand stays outside of my office door, for I am just a monkey who pushes buttons, but am one of the best monkies around doing it.