Lex, how did u lose that much money on Tuesday ? All you had to do was short the market after 1:30est and rake in cash. Were u trying to buy bottoms ? I could see getting chopped out before that b/c we were ranging, but after that was easy pickens, IMO.
You are right, I got chopped several times in the morning. I then missed the sell-off because I was out walking the dog. Then during the last hour all discipline went overboard when I was trying to regain my losses. It was stupid and I'm very disappointed. I hope to get this under control. LL
Here are my rules as a newbie, and you should follow them as well. Its helping me. 1) Max dawdown is $250 for the day trading 1 contract. Emotions get in the way after that for me. YOu have proven the same 2) No buying downtrends and no selling uptrends unless you have a very profitable entry. 3) your opinion on how oversold / overbought the market is DOES NOT MATTER. Continue trend trading until the market tells you its over. If you follow those 3 steps, you should be ok. PS: If you have an edge, your lack of discipline can be taught. Not having an edge means you are throwing money away. Figure out which one you have and react accordingly
Today I did several trades with only 1 contract. It is a big relief and I find it much easier to stay in a trade. Since I feel much more comfortable trading only one contract there is again the danger of over trading. I am not quite sure how I will continue with this adventure. I hope to go on vacation next week or the week after. I think getting away from my computer will be good. At this moment I need to control my emotions and improve my discipline. I have thought about my main problems that currently prevent me from being profitable: - I never want to accept a negative daily P/L. This causes me to take impulsive trades with bad R/R late in the session - I want to trade every move. This causes me to over trade - I wait for too many confirmations so that not enough profit potential is left in a trade - I get out of winning trades too early One of the things I will try to change is to trade a slightly larger time frame. Until now I worked mainly on the 1 minute chart and occasionally glanced at the 5 minute chart. Also I will use a new rule from now until I go on vacation: max 6 trades per day! LL (still struggling big time )
Mr. Market knows how to make you suffer - after a pretty mediocre first half, I got a nice entry after the pullback, accidently cancelled my bracket-order when about 10 points in profit, so decided to close manually and re-enter at an even 'better price', market order ended up netting only 5 points, then the market took off, never looking back. I spent the next two hours waiting for another entry signal that never happened. Worse, my simple mean-reversion stock strat closed EOD at a loss as well... So, chin-up, lots of us here are suffering in silence - damn fustrating day, all things considered...
Thanks for the encouragement. I guess it helps knowing that I'm not the only one struggling ... although that won't solve my problems. What makes it so difficult to accept is that it all came so unexpected. I was doing fine and improving my trading constantly. I actually expected to have turned the corner and to be profitable in June. Secondly it is very painful to realize that I am repeating the same mistakes every day. Mistakes that I thought I had under control. I am currently working on a new (personal) trading journal where I will not only note my trades but where I will also rate my discipline, trade selection and trade management. I hope that will help. Well anyway omelette, thanks again for your soothing words and good trading to you, LL
Hi guys, I'm done for the day and for (my worst ever) week. This week was very painful and I'm trying to see how I can learn from my mistakes. Usually I start the days well focused and the first couple of trades are pretty decent. It seems to me that the longer I sit in front of the screen the more I am inclined to lose control. I then tend to take random impulse trades that almost always lead to disaster. I may have to reduce my trading hours and I should probably try to take a break every hour or so. I will now work on the layout of my new journal and I will do some reading about discipline Enjoy your week-end, LL
from the sound of it, you should not be trading at all. You are clearly not ready and have no restraint. I'd recommend paper trading for at least 6 months before real money.
Hi wiesman, you are right, I will certainly continue making losses until I have my emotions under control. However I don't believe your recommendation is the best solution. Paper trading does not involve emotions. Therefore if I return to money trading in 6 months time I will again face the same problems I am facing now. I will have to face them sooner or later so my aim is to find a solution as quickly as possible. Regards, LL
Little Lex, as Wies says papertrading may be the way to go, at least for a few weeks! I know it does not directly deal with the emotions. But, you could separate your strategy from your emotions ie. if you can papertrade consistently with profits, you then know for sure it is your emotions & not your base strategy! I tend to think if you were papertrading only you would still be having problems. Good luck!