best not to trade big pending news...I wanted to short C so bad as it was trading at days highs and shot up about 20 cents 30 seconds b4 the fed news...I couldnt tho because i also knew that the market could explode to the upside and i would lose money....it is heart wrenching to not put on the trade but the risk is 50/50 which is pure gambling-which is not what i do-i trade good probability and support resistance and trading ranges....BTW, C tanked 2 points when the fed news came out.
Reach into your nightstand, pull out the .38, walk into your office, aim .38 at your CPU, fire, aim at each monitor respectively, fire, repeat. Throw all cell phones, PDA's etc into your toilet and let soak. This will help curb trading. P.S. This method works comparably well if a baseball bat or similar instrument is used for demolition purposes. I can only speak for myself as to specific tools used in this method. Your mileage may vary.
This is why I think I'll need to use one of those brokers that let you write programs to make trades. That way you'll NEVER deviate from your plan.
what you are doing is extremely dangerous. a good trader has the discipline to sit out a day if nothing is there for him to trade. thats why trading is akin to a casino. the longer you are there,the more likely you will gamble. leave your computer and take a walk or go to the gym.
If you keep trading like this, it's just a matter of when you'll blow your account. Then you will stop trading automatically.
I didn't read the whole thread, just the first message. Look, I found the three market wizards by Jack Schwager is very good way to learn what mistakes traders make and what kind of solutions they use. There's a section on the psychology of trading at the end of each of those books. You can even get CDs of the first market wizards book so you can listen to that while taking a shower or whatever (sometimes on sale at traderslibrary). One solution some traders use is to scale down when you're feeling down under the pressure of losses. Trade small and you feel less pressure. When you start to get your confidence back, you can start scaling up again. Or, you could even use a smaller part of your money on puts and calls instead of putting huge size on the stocks. When you try to trade just to regain money you lost, I call that desperate trading. Think about the trade and why you want to do it. And you're swinging from one idea to the next, the thing you're missing is a method. If you decide on one strategy and stick to it and still lose, at least you can tell yourself you followed your method strictly.
I traded based on sector, i buy when it is strong, but problem is today it is strong, but next day drop like shit. Take for example the stupid X us steel, bought it on wednesday, but thursday drop like shit, then i sell in midday, taking losses of 5% :eek: Then it went back up. What i should do is avoid this whipsaw situation altogether. Lost 2% of my account wednesday and thursday.
X is a commodity...if you cant stand violent moves dont get involved with X...play T,ko,ge etc you ll sleep better...I only trade dow 30 stocks-you can hold them overnight without freaking out also they dont have violent intraday moves generally.