wow .great replie..what were your trading problems early on...my were: not focusing on one contract..over trading..trading without a strategy..and revenge trading as they say..meaning..take loss and try to get back RIGHT NOW!..thanks again
All of the above for me. I was trading NQ, ES and YM futures, stocks and stock options. The #1 biggest culprit for me was over trading - feeling the absolute need to always be in a position - huge killer for just about everyone imo. The other thing about trading for a living that was my eventual killer, was I could never let profits build in my acount. At the end of the week or day - or whatever, I would wire any profits into my checking account for bills.....eventually, the wire transfers out of my account won, and poof!, no more account. Steve
The most I was down was 3000 net, 1000 gross. 1000 of that was due to a system error so you could say 0 gross. When you're first learning, you need the lowest commissions possible. I stayed a 100 share piker until I found any consistency.
Increasenow, interesting discutions you make! How much you will lose depends only on you. I think more greedy you are more losses you make. lol Trade just the bare minimun till you "get it". This way your losses will not exceed a couple of hundred dollars. Why to pay more to learn trading? Once you a confortable with your approach increase slowly the trading account. This is it. Good luck. Persist and you will succeed.
blew $6000 before realizing that I should start trading the YM Futures instead of the ER2 LOL.....young and and stupid....I'm having more success with the YM now . Haven't touch any other instrument since
I still have a small equity acct for long term trades but when I do trade, I trade just the ES. I have a great job now so I have a lot less time and zero pressure to trade. When I do trade, I only trade the highest probability set ups. And I agree with epetrov! Start small, very small. Stay that way till you THINK you know what the H you are doing - then stay small a while longer lol. Steve
I started actively managing my money in january 2000 and in 3 months buying mostly tech stocks turned $55k into $90k. I thought I was a stock market genius... even though a monkey could have picked 10 random nasdaq stocks in that period and had the exact same results. Then from 2000-2002 I turned that $90k into $20k by continuing to hold my march 2000 portfolio, thinking that I now owned incredible values that would bounce at any minute. (I still can't believe I allowed one $25k position drop to $3k and another $25k position go literally to $0) Then I got really discouraged until 2006 when I started researching breakout/swing trades. In january 07, I put my research to the test and lost $5k or about 10% of my account in the first 3 months. (I think my max drawdown was about 20% during that late february china selloff.) At that point I refined my buy rules and focused more on my emotions and trade management. Since then I am up about 15% in a pretty poor market environment. I still have a long way to go- especially with developing trade exit rules- but I'm cautiously optimistic that the "tuition" period is mostly behind me.