Yeah, a good relationship can offset the negativity that trading can bring. Your girlfriend probably helps to keep things at equilibrium. wrbtrader
It also depends on your personality and tolerance for abuse. During the 2007-2009 GFC I would stand "bell-to-bell" on the trading floor with no bathroom breaks, no breakast, and no lunches...just 100% non-stop, obsessive, extreme machine-like day trading. I once took a $25k lunch and vowed that would never happen again whenever it was busy...which it was everyday for 2+ years during the financial crisis. Thank God night trading was almost non-existent back then...otherwise I probably would have traded around the clock 24/7. Without a doubt that surreal period in the markets destroyed my physical and mental health...which caused me to take a one year sabbatical from trading to nurse myself back to heatlh. Looking back I'm glad I took full advantage of the unprecedented opportunities that market environment presented, but wish I would have taken better care of myself. If you are going to go all-out, nose-to-the grindstone trading, just make sure the market is busy and lucrative enough to justify the mental and physical sacrifices you'll be making.
Trading is extremely addictive and stressful, that's for sure. However, if you backtest your own trading system and it's profitable, then trading becomes 1,000 times easier, even boring, and 95% of the stress simply vanishes, since you are simply executing the trading signals from your system. Personally it took me more than 20 years to reach that level, and I am still learning/testing every single day, there is no way out (LOL ). Now about the "consuming lifestyle", it's true, but only if your trade on the smaller time frames, so try to swing trade instead, on the 4h charts for instance, it is much much more relaxing. Best wishes.
"Negativity" in trading will persist as long as the trader does not know what he is doing. But when he starts beating the crap out of the market every month/quarter with his fully backtested system there is no more negativity, only joy and the feeling of being in control.
Im asking Chef he is sure that nobody makes money day in and day out.. At the hedge fund I used to work out,there were 2 groups that made money day in and day out. One group was legit,the other group(trader) went to jail
The members of the "legit" group did not go to jail because they did not get caught (and/or were connected in high places), perhaps...?
The way I handle it; In Australia there are a HUGE amount of listed mining companies, many are gold, then there's iron ore, lithium, copper, nickel, but the predominance is gold. So in a way, the ASX has a niche in the world on unique type stocks. My wife is Asian and prior to being married she had a several year live in relationship with a geologist. Anyhow my wife enjoys trading and geology research. A typical trading day for me starts with me scanning ASX announcements prior to market open while eating breakfast, it's relaxing, no stress, no hurry, no pressure. The market opens and I have 2 laptops running, what I'm watching out for a large moves, again, I'm not under any stress or pressure, because I'm just observing, mainly out of boredom and because it fills my day. Whether a large move(s) happens or not in actual fact is rather inconsequential, I'll explain. 95% of the time I won't take any trades, I'll watch for maybe 30 minutes, then either walk out or drive for coffee, this kind of breaks up the trading day. When I get home I'll look again at what's moving and then do some reasearch on Co's. My wife loves gold stocks and she has a terrific memory, so we may discuss certain companies while she's pottering in the kitchen, typical Asian, loves cooking. Most of my day is scanning and researching and going into my back garden to tend plants or fish or try and spot one of several frogs hiding in the greenery. I'll take a trade most often near the end of a day when several stars have lined up. Good fundamental story of great future prospects, relatively new breakout situation, my algo is on one laptop giving me signals. If a new trade over the next few day fizzles out due to lack of market interest, I'll most often dump. I look to hold trades which kind of jump out the gate like you see at the races, the stocks have to propel, not languish. Sometimes I'll take a day trade when something goes ballistic right on open, but it's a seldom event.