Hey lilduck; fwiw, I traded ES & YM for 3 hours a day for 2 1/2 years from a closet converted into an office in the 2nd bedroom of an 840 sq ft apartment. My point being, do whatever it takes... it's well worth it. See you soon Osorico
good luck duck fwiw, I have this right posted next to my trading station âNothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human raceâ this week's events will actually be a blessing in the long run IF you learn from your mistakes. I know i've learned more from my screwups than from all the trading books in my library. cheers,
Hey LD, sorry to hear about your losses. I was just starting to enjoy the journal . At the very least you gave it a go at it, hopefully I'll be able to start mine as soon as I'm done with my taxes for 2005. But for what it's worth you seemed to do well on trending days and even picked tops and bottoms accurately, but I think you got killed on the range bound days. Unlike what you've said about yourself, you're quite disciplined. It takes whole lot of discipline to stop trading after 1.3% loss on a 50K+ account. A guy like me would have kept going until I get a margin call Hope to see your journal continue in the near future.
I was only using 1. Also... the main reason i recognized i needed to stop, was not so much the loses... i really don't care if i get loses... as long as i stop when i reach my daily limit and weekly limit... loses are really not my biggest concern.... as long as losses are taken in accordance with the trading plan. The red alert was because my trade frequency had more than doubled on a daily basis since i had started. Also in the beginning i would not always trade if mkt conditions were not clear.... i would wait until conditions met my trading guidelines.... last 2 weeks i just didn't care... i was taking trade after trade. The biggest red light....... and this goes for anyone... is if you find yourself trading more and more regardless of mkt conditions. Its the same as binge drinking..... eating....and drug use. You are trying to find that "fix"... as your loses get bigger and bigger.... but, like a mad man, you don't care... you are on a frenzy to get that win to erase the prior losses.... its a vicious cycle. Well.... maybe i got carried away with the drug analogy.... but never the less....look out when you see your number of trades double or triple.... with no increase in P/L.
The market will always be there, take time to work out the demons. Most people do not have the discipline to quit before the market actually forces them to quit. Have you read any books by Marc Douglas ?
I just ordered The Desciplined Trader. Looking foward to reading it. Today i also installed my 4th monitor... so its all rearin to go when i feel i can get back in the game.