I have been a lurker here for several years and only made one reply, but I have a confession. I quit. Perhaps some of you will recognize yourself. I traded part time for a number of years and then day traded stocks full time for about ten years. I started with about 5K 20 years ago and built it up to over 1.4 million until about about six years ago. I made money every year until about six years ago. I have put two kids through expensive colleges (one Ivy) and paid all living expenses out of my profits over the years. I started losing $$ about six years ago and continued to pay the bills out of my savings (profits from previous years). I wake up every morning now and dread trading and am afraid to pull the trigger many times. I believe it is an addiction and am quitting while I still have at least 60K left. I will either go back to my older profession or open my own business since I am now in my mid 50s and afraid I will not be hired. Obviously I should have quit when I had my 1.4 million but I was and am addicted to trading. I am writing this probably as therapy and maybe a few of you will recognize yourselves to be in a similar position. I hope to never see another stock and will just dollar cost average into mutual funds from here on . Good luck to all.
A friend of mine, working in his own Restaurant in Florence, driving a Ferrari btw, declared bankruptcy 5 months ago... Good luck
why not take a break, then start with a small $5000 account. maybe you just need a new system to start fresh.
as you already know, this place is filled with guys like you well I am one too, I failed so many times I actually thought about doing myself in you know with a gun the only reason I didn't is because I know it would create just shit for my family, if it wasn't for them I would be bloated worm food. but what happened is that I kept trying, I told myself you know what "fuck it I tried my best". I decided to let go of my dream to make lot of money and remove the time imposition I imposed on myself so I just took it slowly one day at the time I decided to focus on day trading a single futures instrument and I told myself I will keep trying until I am an old man and bloated worm food well the funny thing is as soon as I relaxed it just came to me, like something in me just clicked I am now proud successful day trader of YM futures it can be done, YOU CAN DO IT TOO just relax and slowly keep trying paper trade for years if need be
No, I still happily married and have a very supportive wife which is why I probably feel bad for my situation. She tells me that I was able to send the kids to college and support the family for years. I am debt free except for a small mortgage balance on the house. I knew I had to quit the other day when I just broke down crying at the end of a losing trade. I have limited my daytrading to only several stocks I became familiar with inside and out (price behavior and patterns, etc.) over the years but I realize now I have an addiction as I keep telling myself I will do better tomorrow and of course it doesn't happen. After all of these years I am also probably burned out. I don't want to be pitied. I am just moving on.
it might help to read words of this trader from some time ago on ET "I currently trade stocks and futures profitably but for me it was a long road. I used to ride the path train home almost in tears as I lost money practically everyday. It was umbelievable. I'd lose 3 or 4 handles and my wins would be about 3 tics. I was a mess. I quite the futures for 10 years (they're the toughest financial instrument out there). Just about everybody loses trading futures. Ever wonder why the futures brokers never talk about all their successful clients and the great returns that they're getting. The dirty secret is that all of their clients are losing money. The brokers are constantly chasing their tail trying to replace their losing clients with new suckers. Some of em are losing big money. I knew a guy you blew $600K in the ES in about 5 months. He just kept chasing those devilish breakouts. "
It's true nothing worthwhile is ever achieved without dertermination and the resolve to overcome setbacks but it should also be remembered that professional businessmen know when to recognise that a business is not working, cut losses and get what's left of their eqity out, whereas amateurs keep going with gritty determination and self help mantras until the bank forecloses. For some of us maintaining that level of concentration long after the thrill is gone becomes difficult.
Given the length of time you have been trading and been profitable, I assume you must have saved an equivalent amount (1.4mill) in safer investments to have 1.4million in your account. If that is the case, I guess you could start again with the amount left (60K) after spending sometime to examine your trade records for the last six years. Obviously something has changed. Has the market become more efficient? Has your edge been discovered and whisked away? Until you can show (trading with a much smaller balance) that you still have what it takes to make money, I think you should play it safe instead of looking on the market for monthly pay. Given that you made money every year for 14 consecutive years (?), I think you should have started asking those questions the first time you had consecutive down years and scaled down. It is one thing to loss a little money never having made one before, it is quite another thing to have made a life-time making money only to start giving it all back.
I probably had close to a 60% win record with an average of a 1% gain per week (50% a year on average). One year I made 450K. It used to be like taking $$ off a bush. Back then I believe the markets were not as efficient as today in the day of the internet. It used to take days if not weeks for a trend to develop which was easily exploited. However, the internet has changed everything and the trend can change several times in a day. I guess I believed I was invincible based on my past success and felt like if I only made a change in my trading that I would get back on track. I was derailed and realize it now. Writing this post has been good therapy; I guess like an alcoholic admitting to a problem. Life is to be enjoyed and I was miserable losing $$ the last few years. I actually look forward to doing something different realizing at my age I may not be hired.