One of the best books available is Trading in the Zone. "Master the market with confidence, discipline and a winning attitude." - Mark Douglas Also, the following quote has been posted before, but it is worth reading again... “Being disciplined in the past isn’t good enough: on each and every trade you must be disciplined. Forever. Like a drunk in a program you can NEVER slip off the wagon.” -Al
Hi, Read a very good book on trader psychology. There's something missing in you're thinking and if you don't confront it you will undermine Your trading vision. As they say, everyone gets what they want from the markets, and you're subconscious mind does not want financial success but something else. Don't let it use trading activities to work out your baggage or neurosis. Keep a daily journal and write down the quality of emotions and impulses before during and after all trades. Losing is giving. You some satisfaction and you need to understand why... Otherwise you will never have financial success from trading activities ( you may have some hidden unconscious success though ??). I suggest you stop trading - you are out of control. Review how to write a real trading plan that filters out these negative emotions and stops you trading before you ouch the button. Here is something I came up with which is part of my trading plan and routine : In the meantime I suggest ( if you can't stop trading for a period of time to reduce your position size to a negligible level and fool your Subconscious mind by justifying it will only be a short time while twigging your trading plan. Please see attachment for an idea : If interested I can send you more info about how to develop your own trading systems
Update: Thanks to all for your advice and suggestions. I read them all and kept them in mind. I've done some post analysis and determined that the majority of successful trades occur during market hours while the majority of my losing trades were during over night hours. I was being over confident and assume my trading system would continue to work overnight but it didn't and were random. I were hoping the overnight trading would be good practice but didn't exactly work out. The analysis is very clear. The only time my trading system works is while I am working at my job and I cannot and unable to trade while I'm at work. I'm in no hurry to quit my job and try to trade full time, but certainly I can make more money trading as long I stay disciplined. For now I'm going to go to semi sim trading. My entry points are clear enough that I can see them on the chart at EOD so no need to be full time sim. Also, there's a personal situation at work that is going to keep me from quitting. The GF at work doesn't want me to quit. But the system will be there as an employment backup. My boss already know about my trading ability. Hehe.
I have backtested much, what is funny, most of what I have done through the years will work, and when you backtest, 2-4 on each side of optimum should be profitable as well, but when people ask me to check their systems for flaws or suggest something to tweak them, either there is mass problems or going the other way that it is a good system but they lack faith that they could build something that works. I often see in journals really good systems and yet they keep massively changing them, never will get anything perfect, I know my Goals of $200-300 per is low then cut back size, but by doing this way, I should be able to lose the rest of it by time to quit, and yet many are balls to the wall trying to make the most, which often leads to high losses. Learn to accept.
I have found that there is a way to HEAL emotion, which I am working on with myself, so I don't have to permanently have my "discipline" guard up. Because, all you need is one slip of discipline and you can be in trouble.
Update: Your boss caught you trolling porn on company time, you got the hook.. no severance...GF turned out to prefer women.... Time to get busy trading.