<p>Well, it depends on what your goals are. I have traded for a long time, and I am no longer looking to accumulate capital. I am simply trying to take a nice income from the market. Psychologically, a common fear that I see from unsuccessful traders is leaving money on the table. I take a contrarian view. I have no problem leaving money on the table. I view leaving money on the table as placing my mistakes in category of leaving too soon. To error on the other side of the exit is to be losing or at the least losing what you have already gained. Experience allows a trader to be more efficient and effective, which is to say that I spend less time in the market, but my profitability has gained not suffered.
If this is 100% true, which I doubt it is, then you do not really have an edge or a good strategy but more of a 50/50 approach. Chances are you are trading into lunch and your "strategy" is worthless during those hours and is very selective in regards to intraday conditions. But then, it's only been 5 months, you gotta give it at least a year. If you're seriously doubting yourself now, maybe you should give up, cause you will have no chance when you will hit the rough patch, and almost everyone hits the rough patch at least once.
This is a great quote on whats turning into a great thread. To respond to Hydroblunt mabye the talk about giveing up was in the moment after a nights sleep (and a few rusty nails) Im up and ready to fight agian. But thanks for your words about my stragety not working for the lunch and the slow times. I believe your 100% correct and im going to try changeing my stragety for lunch time when the market is slower. I love the thing about chaseing the goals in the heat of battle as well. I thank you guys agian for all your help and Im taking every word into consideration.
you should also look back and compare your winning trades / periods with your losing trades / periods from the psychological point of view. what was the main difference? but if the main reason for your problem is that your edge (i hope you actually have a good one) simply doesn't work in the afternoon - then the solution is very simple.
Hopefully I'll make my point. $400 to $500 a day is around $100-$125k a year all depends on overhead costs. Once you get very good at consistenly hitting your goal every day you can move up in size little by little next thing you will be making $250k a year. The one thing that I learned very early is that there are superstar traders out there that make millions a year but very few started out unlike the way every trader does and that's proving their strategy and improving their confidence before they became superstars. Eventually they got there but it took time. For me I prefer to look at my trades in terms of tics. For the Ten Year futures i'll set my goal for eight half tics and if I reach that and I feel really good i'll keep trading but i have to go back and reread my rules in order to ground myself again before I go back to trading and once I have total control of myself I'll give myself 2 half tics of breathing room and allow myself to walk away with at least 6 half tics that day. Do that every day and you will be able to increase you size over an extended period of time until you are exceeding your monetary goals for the year.
I have to agree with HydroBlunt. Your problem sounds like one of timing. However, dont make the mistake of simply leaving once you're up 500... [that way you'll never make a $5000 day] Instead try lowering your volume at 11am [down to 100 shares or something like that where you're not risking your profits, you're simply learning]and then bringing it back up after 2pm... the most profitable times to trade are usually the first and last 2 hours... however, you may ocassionally hit a good trade during the lunch hours... so it's a good idea to know how to trade em too.
Well today has not been as bad as most but still really bad i Finshed $143 with a $388 loss from top. Today was differnt tho I tryed to stay really claim and not trade much during that luch hour unless it was on news like AA. But when the end of the day came I took one big hit and ended up giveing most of it away. This is odd for me becuase if I last till the end of the day it is usely my best time to trade. Thanks all for your help and I hope that while Im am being help by you others are being helped as well.
thats the problem im having its not all due to one trade. My biggest loss all day was about $100. Which is a little higher then my usual allowable loss.