I took a trade and immediately the phone rang and it was a call I had to take. I saw the trade going against me and didn't have a stop in the market. I got distracted by the call, noticed the trade had moved even further away, but felt I still had my setup in place, but it was past my normal stop out. Finished the call and had a really stupid crap trade in my hands. I sat and worked it back to a 230 dollar loss. It actually went into profit if I had held. That naturally pissed me off. I then immediately got into a questionable, for me, set up trade that again went against me. I let it go because I knew it would come back, revenge frame of mind had taken over. I ended up taking a 105 dollar loss and watched it go into what would have been profit after that. At this point I walked away for a few minutes to collect my thoughts. I have now gotten back to down 87 on the day. I'm frazzled and thinking I may just call it a day. I'm up on the week at my usual size and no reason to make any more stupid trades. It's easy to think I'm good and just go back to what I know works, but I also know I'm still ticked off at my stupidity after all these years. I should have closed the trade when I knew I had a call I needed to take and eaten a 100 dollar loss at that point and come back to the markets after taking a breather after the phone call. I didn't and my frame of mind is screwed at this point. Yes, I am hoping typing this out will help clear my head and maybe serve a lesson to someone else. I've been at this 17 years and I still screw up on occasion. It's what you do with it after that will keep you in this business. Peace
Thanks for sharing but that's a pretty small loss to get worked up about. Give yourself some self-compassion. You're human, not perfect.
Telemarketers I ignore, but this was a call I had to take and I know I should have just closed the trade at a small loss when I took the call, but didn't. It is a small loss. but the point is I have it for my own stupidity. And boy I am as far from perfect as you can get.
LOL! I had the phone call / panic blunder in early September but the amount I lost would have definitely killed him a few times over! Took me a while to work through that one mentally.
When I first moved into the futures world I had big swings in equity. For me that was stupid and not worthwhile. I prefer the steady income and controlling my trades. the days of letting one go because it will come back are over, with the exception of today.
you will know you have a consistent edge when you can put a trade on and go mow the lawn or whatever you want to do because no matter what distraction happens you should stay unemotional from it and understand that the reason YOU lost is because YOU made the trade. if you work from this mindet alone then it should help you take on the monumental task time and energy of trying or becoming consistently profitable. sucks you lost but if you work hard you can maybe make it up this week. I know some people who lose all month and in 2 days end up making money for the entire month!! move on and learn from it but get back in the mkt
I lost a lot of profits because my stocks pulled back. Did not exit because I was following the trend and it was up. Part of trend following is staying with the trend as long as it lasts. Pullbacks are normal reactions. I had my risk management and position sizes set so, risk would have been limited. This morning my stocks went down and I stayed put. Now they have gone back up. You should always consult the stockcharts before getting in or out of positions. Have your rules set up before you even trade. It is up to you to exercise discipline.
Being able to calibrate absolute dollar amounts is as important as the desire to have good trade execution. By most standards, under 1K is small, otherwise you should not be trading. That was a cheap education. Couple of months in a room, a 27" UHD upgrade, etc. The fact this threw you indicated two possible issues: Being able to keep a trade execution (not a big deal, it happens) and the absolute dollar loss (a bigger deal if you want to scale). Nice to share though as many have gone through this. One step in going "around the block" 50 times.
As I mentioned, I've been full time at this for 17 years. I've used it to cover 2 college educations, a Masters degree, and a third degree in progress for the youngest. I am mad I didn't follow the plan and close out immediately when I knew I had another priority at the moment that would distract my attention. Then I went into revenge mode. For the most part I am way past that stupidity, but there it was after all these years. I thought it would help to get it out for my own sake and maybe a reminder for others. The dollar amount is somewhat irrelevant.