Today was my 7th day trading. This morning I got chopped to $#!+ in the first half hour. I'm sure I bought the highs and sold the lows, I let emotion and greed control me today while all my other days I have been in control. I gave up 3/4 of my total gains since I started, not acceptable at all. But I do realize this is a learning process and I can take a lot away from today. So my question ... when you have a particularly bad day what do you personally do to get back in line? Do you swear? Smack yourself in the face? Take the next day off? Be very selective the next day? Go back to a sim? I'm curious what the rest of ET does.
keep on trading with real money , maybe smaller size after each big lost ... keep on noting exactly what you did wrong, that is tuition you are paying there. Don't let tutition go to waste. you will go through this for the next 15 months enjoy
interesting ... your 7th day trading but you have so many posts on ET ? where have you posted before ?
Only your 7th day trading? You show a good attitude that you realize it's part of the learning curve. What you should do now is start being aware of why you are taking the trades that you do. So before you press your next buy or sell, ask yourself why you're going to press that button.
Seth - Well I was posting while saving capital (didn't want to start underfunded). To my knowledge it's ok to post if you're not currently trading.
Thanks dnaj. I'm actually glad I lost that much, it's a good wake up call ... welcome back to reality jho. I'm interested what the rest of ET does when they have an undisciplined day? Do you take a day off to get your mind right? I suppose every situation is different and only I will know what's right for me.
You mention emotion and greed in the post in which you started this thread. Emotion and greed are rooted by someone thinking in terms of money. Since you have identified yourself as a beginning trader, I would offer the following advice. All profitable traders have one thing in common they make a lot more winning trades than losing trades. You need to think in terms of profitable trades, not how much money can be made in a trade or for that matter how much you just lost and start looking to make trades that will get you even as quickly as possible. Whatever your target spread is for your plan, take and halve it or even quarter it. Set your target at the beginning of the day that you are going to make one profitable trade each hour no matter if the trades are not very profitable. From a psychological point this will give you confidence. In baseball when a player is in a slump, he told to try to hit the ball hard back up the middle and try not to do too much with the pitch. The hard part of trading is consistently making profitable trades, once you have established that, then you can focus on the money management part which is not as difficult to master. I will reiterate this again, if you make profitable trades then the money part will fall in line. As an experienced trader I do not think so much in terms of money as I do about profitable days. If I can keep my losing days to two or less each month, then I know I am going to be very satisfied with the amount of money I am making.
Not true, not by a long shot. Winning % is only one component that makes up expectancy. That is the key metric that has to stay on the right side of the line. You are correct in saying that not thinking about money is key. The goal of trading is only to trade well, to execute the plan properly. That combined with a positive expectancy system will yield profits.
Figureing out why you think that you lost money is a big step. Was it you being stupid, or was it one of those days when the market doesn't work well with your trading style. In the beggining, I would cut size. after you have some more of these days, (MORE will come) they start to get easier and easier to take. Think about why you lost, try to figure out how you could have reduced the lose. The next part is big.... Move on/stop worrying about it.