No need to feel bad, you are in good company. Almost everybody who tries this shitterico game will lose money in the medium to longterm. Only very very few (especially in retail trading) make good, consistent money over time. If you want to be one of them, then you will soon realize that you feel the drive and desire to move on, no matter what. Even if it takes you 10 more years. If you feel like giving up and are at a low point after only 2 months, it is maybe better to go back to Fortnite or CoD.
Most of us are on 10+ years and still can't make it work for us, so Sept 2020 isn't long enough sadly. Most start of KISS ( Keeping It Simple Stupid ) and profit at first, then we get clever and screw it all up.
It took me two years to go from Nuclear Engineer to Full Time Trader in terms of replacing income streams and having consistency. I was mentored by a spread trading legend in the CBOT Bond Pit and he told me that I would be lucky to have half my stake in six months and that my first priority was to learn how to survive on the floor. Speaking for myself, I encourage clients to keep their businesses and professions and to take several months (or more) paper trading with me in order to gain consistency and to see different market conditions. I hate generalizations when it comes to trading, but the clients who paper trade the longest do tend to report the best results when they decide to go live. I wish everyone good fortune. There are a thousands of ways to trade - but please give yourself a fighting chance.
Good afternoon to all and thank you for your responses. The reason I do not have a different job is because I was a merchant marine Officer, until July of 2020, when I decided to completely abandon my profession because of the mental pressure applied on me as an individual, for the past 10 years. Sadly, my certificate is worth equal to toilet paper outside of shipping industry and there simply is no chance I can go back to my former job. Furthermore, at my country of residence, jobs are not only rare, but with COVID, they are non existent. I do understand, now, that the psychological strain applied indirectly to my brain because of the lack of income is tremendous, especially due to the fact that I have people depending on me. Therefore, I enter trades having a loser's attitude, instead of a neutral perspective. I tell myself everyday, go in and fight, but then as soon as I sit on my station, I feel the burden of loss weighing on me. I started trading with 100 shares on each trade, on a cash account and I was relatively doing okay. Then someone suggested in September I sign up for that Tim Sykes course (it was the stupidest 80 dollars I spent in my life). I continued by signing up with Benzinga, which is a good service, and totally worth the subscription fee, if you are profitable. Then was the time when, being completely market illiterate, trying to become educated, I found out about The strat. So I started learning the strat, and when I started learning it well, or so I thought/think, stopped making profits, at all. There are people out there, who are consistently profitable with it, but I am not. It seems like I buy the setups that are ending up failing, and don't buy the ones that are working out well. I consistently pick the wrong tickers to trade. And if a setup works, as soon as it goes positive, I have a surge of heart beats and the urge to press the sell button. It wasnt long ago, for example when I bought a stock called ALNY at $134 (01/07/2021), held on to it for 1.5 hours, it went against me for a dollar more or less, then it went marginally positive and I sold it, afraid that it might reverse again and causing a loss. And watched it skyrocketing for the weeks ahead, and I have had at least 20 similar trades. Even today, I traded HYLN when it went above the previous week's high, put my SL at the bottom of the previous 15 minute candle, the stock somehow didnt continue higher but instead continued sideways-downwards, and when the new 15 minute Time Frame opened, I changed my Stop loss to the bottom of my previous 15 minute candle. I got stopped out, and the lowest point the price ever went was 2 cents above my former Stop Loss, only to continue more than 1.5 dollars above my entry price. Also, when I signed up for IBKR I exchanged my Euro to Dollars, and then after November the Dollar started decaying a lot, which I did not notice, and by December, I lost over 600 euro from that decay. I changed to a margin account when I had an equity of more than $25000 and ended up with 750 euro of total profit (all of which were made in the first 1.5 months of trading). So currently, taking into account all the money I invested and the subscriptions I paid for to have an edge in the market, I am at the starting point, with the only thing different being the total abscence of self confidence. I do not know, if there is a recipe to improve, and come back from that hole I currently regard myself being in, but I surely would love to. I just don't think, that I will ever be able to make this work for me at this point and I do not want to have false hopes. I thought I had somehow a good level of intelligence, but recently, I doubt it.
To the OP, you are on a downward spiral. Under capitalized, over risked allocated, and under educated and under practiced, and scatter shot trading. The fact you are concerned means you are NOT dumb. Dumb is thinking you can do it despite the facts. What to do? Address each problem one at a time. Get alternate cash flow. Your experience in your job has transferable skills. Think how you can apply them to other jobs. Don't trade something you do not know well. Each instrument as a different behavior. Slight but it can make the difference in profits. Either learn how to trade for real, or don't and just copy trade (not recommended) Don't revenge trade to get back losses. It is the wrong approach on many levels. If you want to learn to trade, allocate time to do it. 1 year would be a good target. Respect the fact that Professionals trade and that is the bar you need to meet. Best of luck and hope this helps.
It sounds like you're jumpy, so maybe consider trading straight long call or long put options. Keep it simple. You get leverage (control 1,000's of shares) for a small amount of outlay. Just make sure they're heavily traded so you can exit at will, and the bid/ask spread is tight. If you don't understand volatility, learn it. I personally love long puts. The swings can be so profitable and wild. I've been trading for 16 years, 6 of them full time (2012-2018) and made most of my money in "buy and hold". But for those 6 crazy years of trading just options everyday, 'keep it simple' was my friend. Each time I'd get all fancy, it would cost me, big time. This is just my opinion, good luck.
You need to get off your current path before you do something stupid and blow up your account. It can take years to master trading, and you just don't have that time right now. You question your intelligence. But right now the truly intelligent thing is to slap yourself in the face and man up. Find another path for your life. Trading will always be here for you later.
I'd forget everything you thought you knew about the market and start fresh. As an individual trader, you are really doing three jobs at the same time: 1. Idea generation -- finding good trade ideas that are driven by information, fundamentals, or defined catalysts 2. Trade execution -- fill your order (good to check charts here, is the stock mean reverting or following a trend?) 3. Portfolio & risk management -- managing the weight of your position (max 8-10% for 1 position, open at 2% and scale It based upon conviction) You can tweak each layer (idea generation, trade execution, and portfolio management) but it is important for you to have three distinct steps to avoid mistakes.
I take it as a positive that you have the courage to check yourself - most mortals just blow it out because they are caught in a spiral. In my mind it is really counterproductive to beat yourself up - because the fact of the matter is that your expectations and your skills set were never adequate. Get a job, regroup, and work on your skill set. And yes, you can accomplish a great deal towards developing a trading system without risking capital in a live market. I've had a shit ton of people that I've never met or talked to in my life email me out of the blue that they've burned through insane amounts of capital trying to develop their trading acumen and skills in live markets. It's really sad TBH.
Trading isn't just about buying something, making a profit, then selling. Trading is a SYSTEM of many components like a jigsaw puzzle, it's your personal jigsaw you create. If there are components not completed within that jigsaw this us what happens... You place a trade which becomes profitable and sell at a profit. That profitable trade makes you believe you have 'arrived'. If the profit were due more to luck (which it is for noobs) "enter the rabbit hole". Unless you are mentored, trading is a hazzard to your wealth, or alternatively, pull yourself up by your bootstraps- it takes years and years.