You are not alone. http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60562&highlight=dumbest BTW, I guarantee that's not the last big mistake you are going to make in this business.
=========== Kson; 1st] Son lets focus on several things you did right; Son you have sense enough to be afraid of a 2k loss, kson,you did execute part of you needy plan-sold @ end of day. 2]Have you done much research on daytrading with a 6.5 hour stop/ignoring price-volume action???????;true its still a bull market. Hint ,do much more research. 3]Buying did come into some strong like TRAD, however even with buying ; warning =record sell volume on 20 day 1st hour entry charts. 3.3 gap]LAAARGE Gaps down on SPY,DIA,QQQQ on 1-18 are another warning; LAAARGE gap down on DIA 1-17 -06 are another warning if you were long DIA-DOW related. 4] Not to nitpick because you did use an accurate choice of words; stop'' playing'' especially playing with 1000 shares.Play with 1 share if you must play in market. Or better yet treat/research it like a business. 4.20] Note 1st hour record warning 20 day sell volume on DIA,1-20-06, 1st hour record warning 20 day sell volume on SPY,1-20-06, 1st hour record warning 20 day sell volume on QQQQ,1-20-06. So while its still a bull,uptrending market note those warnings for future use. 5]Wisdom is profitable to direct .If you can learn it with 2k thats better than average & fine!!!!!!!; even if you played or better yet worked on long side in strong sector friday; NEED TO RESEARCH BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIGH PROBABILITY AND INFALLIBILITY.
ksonsinc bighog is right when he says this was a winning day for you. Not in dollars, but in experience that will return much more to you over your trading career than the 2 G's you lost on Friday. There have been many good suggestions for you already on this thread. You seem to be trading a reversal system which will make your p&l have lots of consecutive winning days and then a huge red day. After almost 20 years of trading let me add to those who have already said that a system trading consolidation breakouts is the better way to go both emotionally and financially because it will give you more red days but they will be small and then periodically you will get a huge green day. A suggestion: Keep the $ at risk per trade the same for a month before increasing even if you are on a winning streak. ESPECIALLY with a counter trend system it would be even better to decrease your risk each consecutive day that you are green and increase it after each red day. That is hard to do mentally so most traders that have been around a long time who trade some type of indicator assisted style will be those who trade trend continuation strategies. I have been in your situation. Learn and move on. I don't believe in paper trading but i do believe in cutting your size down after a loss to regroup but still keep you in tune with your system and the market. Good luck to you in your trading endeavour!
I certainly don't mean to laugh at you, i'm sorry to hear you got crushed. But how could you now ask for opinions when there's a person on this board that seems to mostly always get the market direction right. That's Rubberbird. And I KNOW he would speak intelligently about the market with YOU if you were to ask him a question on his thread "The S&P has topped".
Sorry to hear that man, but I know that I have explained to you in numerous posts that starting with 100 share lots and learning to build up from there is the way to go. I even posted this on the Trader P&L thread a couple of days ago in reference to your post there. I guess the only way for it to hit home, is to experience the big loss for yourself. Now its time to bounce back. This DOES NOT mean trying to make up that loss in one day or two days or even a month. It means going back to basics and building a foundation of solid trading b/f stepping up the size again. You should be able to gross $50-$100 a day on 100 share lots before going to 200. Then 300, 500, 700, 1000 shares+ etc. Profitable trading takes time, dont try to rush it. If you do the right things over and over everyday, you'll get to be consistent and pretty profitable. Thats the way I went. I spent the first few months trying to be gross up everyday. Then, once I was there I tried to net out up as many days as I could. Then I started being able to net out $200 a day. Then $300. Before I knew it I was having net up days $500+ all the time. Now, a year later, I avg btw $500-$2000 up almost every single day. Its taken me almost 2 years, but thats the kind of time it usually takes to experience a lot of what the market throws at you. So, all in all, lesson learned. Go back to work on Mon and keep it small. Good luck. Steve
this says it all. why? u think you know better than the rest of the market or something? doh!!! live n learn.
Well thks for all the post guy i am now feeling better U wont belive i played 100 shares of aapl and i lost like $200 and now i have learnt not to play with 1000 share and cut you losses try not to make trade very fast ( early in the morning 9.30 ) check for direction and CUT LOSSES cause ei will be able to trade again I also have 1 more question when playing with 100 shares what kind of profit should i look for $25 $20 $15 per trade please advice I mean i understand that i lost money, is not what has screwed my mind it is the the trade i made knowing i am not supposed to play big and i am supposed to cut losses Well i will try to keep the loss as a lesson i payed for trading and try to make little like $100 to $150 every day like steven T said Any other advice is greatly welcome : )
Again. We do not know what your trading style is like. But you should be looking to average 50 to 150 dollars a day on 100 shares . And at least 10-25 dollars per trade. But of course that all depends on your strategy! And learn to scale out of positions. When it reaches your target, get out 2/3 of your position and keep a little running with a mental trailing stop for example. -Dave.
Kson- You've been given some good advice, now your job is to take it. Make sure you use a hard stop loss, not a mental one. Mental stops work for some long time traders, but new traders should use hard stops. I don't know who said it, but this is so true- "Most people lose big because they won't lose small". Don-