stay away from the market if you got a gambling problem..the game has no limit and directly linked to your bank account. just like any business, one bad trade one bad mistake or one bad recession the business is over. or goes chapter 11 with this economy there are a lot less fewer traders in the market as compared to 20001999 2006 2007...just way less. many traders have automated their trades and have second jobs now.
What rules? The first problem is that he doesn't have univocal rules. Otherwise he could test them, or at worst he could paper trade them, and if they didn't work, he wouldn't use them. Would he use rules that do not work? No. Would he not use rules that work? No. So this means he doesn't have any univocal rules (just general flexible ones, open to interpretation, which is like having no rules). Like most discretionary traders (I was one, too), he doesn't know exactly what he's doing. Stoploss here, takeprofit there... but doesn't know exactly where. As for the entry, he doesn't know exactly where and when. It all depends on the unique situation he sees in front of himself. This is very normal for discretionary traders. That's why I've never been able to make any money as a discretionary trader. It took me 12 years to realize it. My advice is forget the psychology, and switch to paper trading until you find a univocal method that works. Then there's no way to go wrong. If you don't find one, then you didn't lose any money. But if you have a clear method, a set of univocal rules, that is profitable, there is no sick mind that will keep you from using it. Why would you refuse sure money from the market? No. So, if you "break your rules" (misleading concept), it means you don't have clear rules, and if you do, you don't follow them because you don't trust them, because you don't know if they work. The fact that "stoploss" is such a widespread and famous word doesn't mean that stoploss is always good, and besides nobody ever said stoploss where. So obviously we do not trust it. Same applies to all other concept of technical analysis. So, once again, you should go back to paper trading until you find a profitable method, which means a clear set of univocal rules (never to be broken).
Been there done all that. Still doing it once in a while. It all comes down to how well you take your losers. The wicked irony of taking losses is the larger they become, the more unlikely you want to take them. I used to let relatively moderate losers turn into huge givebacks like yourself, weeks of profits gone in one trade. How did I fix this? By becoming a better trader, period. Most people cannot take losses because they don't have the confidence in knowing they can make it back with ease. Nowadays I can say that I take those same moderate losses in stride, because I believe I can make it all back and more on my following trades. When you lose hope, that's when you start to gamble. So the bottom line is this: How do you get over taking losses? By making even bigger winners.
That's the conundrum with discretionary trading. To succeed in it long term means always being flexible, always shifting with the market, so you're eternally prone to second-guessing yourself. Psychological scapegoats tend to show up when that which once worked no longer does.
'Hire somebody to beat your ass to the ground each time you break your rules. Now THAT is discipline.' True, it might actually work!
Hey, psycho babble just going to cost you money,I'd rather get into TM, or other version of meditative relaxation. TM cured H Stern from OCD and it seems that there is nothing wrong with your strategy, but you are self-destructive and hate money - ask yourself why!
George, do you realize that in order to actually make it as a trader, you are going to have to beat 9 out of 10 other people at this game? Only 10% of traders (some say less than that) actually make money on a consistent basis. If you can't make money on a consistent basis then there is no point in trading, as you are just wasting your time at best (assuming you break even), or else just giving away money to other traders (assuming you are in the majority who loses) . How many activities in the world are you better at than 9 out of 10 people? If you're like an average person, maybe you have one skill like that. Many people have none. Is trading one of those skills for you? Currently it's obviously not because you're not making consistent money, but you do truly believe that if you work hard enough, you can get to the point where you CAN easily beat 9 out of 10 traders here on these forums at a trading contest? If the answer is "no", or "I don't know", or "golly gee, I really hope so", then you need to quit. NOW. You can be better than 17 out of 20 traders and still not be good enough to succeed, so think about that before you put in too much more time. Only the best are going to ever make it in this game, and if you have been at this for years and years and still can't make it, then either (a) you are not working hard enough, or (b) you just don't have the talent. The truth is that trading successfully requires talent, just like everything else that is hard to do. You can't expect to play basketball in the NBA without talent. You can't expect to make it in the music biz without talent (although a whole bunch of people don't seem to realize that simple fact, as American Idol demonstrates). You can't do ANYTHING that requires you to be better than 9 out of 10 people if you don't have talent. I was not successful for a few years as a trader, but that's because I wasn't putting any work in. I was lazy. I thought I was so good that I didn't need to try. I was wrong, and the market taught me that. But once I did put in the work, it only took me a few months to "get" how to read price action and become a decent daytrader, because I actually do have trading talent, and there is not the smallest shred of doubt in my mind that I can easily beat 9 out of 10 people on these forums at trading. I never had any doubt about it from day 1, it was just a question of how much work I was going to have to put in to get there. This is not bragging, it's just a simple fact, and it's there to show you how much confidence you need to have in yourself and your own talent if you're going to make it. Maybe the case is that you're just not working hard enough, and that's why you're still failing. You need to eat, sleep and breathe this stuff 24 hours a day and practice your ass off on a sim until you are so confident that making money is as easy as driving your car. Until you have seen and prepared for every single situation that the market can throw at you, and nothing can throw you off any more. Then start trading with the smallest amount of real money you can, and build up from there. If you are impatient and want to get there faster, the only place you are going to get to faster is the poor house. Part of trading talent is instrinsically understanding the value of patience, and if you work at it for a long time and still can't develop patience or break terrible habits, then you have a serious problem and should consider quitting. Maybe trading doesn't suit your personality very well. Maybe you're better suited to do something else, like start your own business. Think about the other things you could be doing with your time. Anyways: if after reading all this advice telling you to quit, you still feel that you have a passion for trading and are willing to work as hard as is humanly possible to succeed, AND if you have at least a little bit of talent, then maybe you will eventually make it. There are some traders that have made it after 15 years of constant losing, but not many - most get it before that point. Only you know what's best for you, and what you should do... advice on these boards will only get you so far. The truth is that for 9 out of 10 traders on these forums the only rational thing to do IS to quit, because only 10% will ever become successful... that's just the way this game works.