Some pretty good advice above, relative to the useless vitriol seen in this thread. Peil, I took quick look at your journal and had one or two observations. It seems that if you analyze your distribution of winners and losers, you have far more extreme losers than extreme winners. At the same time, you seem to control your losses for a decent number of losing trades, while offsetting those with winning trades that are 1.5 to 2x bigger, which is okay, but not good. To improve your trading, you need to focus on the fundamentals of performance, which is risk reward and your odds of success. You can't risk 1 to earn 1.5. thats just not worth it if you trade stocks. It will deplete you of mental capital. You need to find a way to risk 1 to make 3 at least, on average. Until you have figured out a way to do that on paper, and do that systematically, do not trade. Secondly, you have got to follow the rest of trading fundamentals man, this is trading 101. What am I referring to? Don't average down, (aka cannonballing), don't let a small loss turn into a big loss, don't trade impulsively out of your trading plan. Easier said than done, I realize. But there's no other way. Rebuild your stake, embrace the fundamentals and follow your rules and you will make your money back and then some if you have real discipline. Discipline is the holy grail, once you have figured out what works for you. Good luck.
Thanks for all the advice. I finished trading early this morning and took the loss today because i didnt want to lose anymore...I just checked my stocks and if I held them I wouldve not lost 4k today but made over 2k. The stocks i was trading made a 4 to 5 dollar gain in the last half of trading. Ouch. Well....maybe I'll see some of you again in a few years. Good luck all.
Wish you nothing but the best of luck in whatever you decide to do peil.. Hopefully you can look back at this one day as a learning experience and just grow from it... Best wishes..
Hi Peil Do not disappoint. This is part of game. At least you have accepted where did you make mistake, so Why not avoid these mistakes in your future trading? I am also the victim of fear and greed in 2000-2003 bubble area and I have lost more than 600k. But once I found my weakest area (holding and hoping) and then I never did the same mistakes. It tooks me easily 3-4 years to come up with some kind of control on emotions. Right now I have very little account less than 25k, But I am making my monthly living (more than 4k) out of that since last 2 years. Hope you will find the way.
I lost half my dough (over $100K) on a single trade, just a few months after quitting my day job. Took a week off to get over the shock, got back on the horse, and had a profitable year regardless (and every year since). The trade was outside my normal strategy, though it started out within it, and I had pyramided from I think 300 shares to over 12000 when I finally puked the whole thing up a couple hours later because I couldn't take the pain any more. I take some consolation in the fact that the stock never recovered - Don't pyramid. Sometimes. Figuring out when you can safely do this is an art, and can only come from experience. Near as I can say, you have to have a good (and reasonably high probability) fundamental reason to do it (other than you're stuck ). You probably should have entered the trade partially, with the intention of adding. After a while, you just "feel" when it's right. Mostly, if you don't know, take the loss, even if it's the biggest loss you've ever taken. - Don't trade very bad or very good news (from either side). The moves can be horrendous, particularly in listed stocks, where it's hard to see a lot of the players (because they're in the crowd). - Don't exceed your position/daily/monthly loss limits. Make sure those limits are realistic. - Don't trade some stocks. Unfortunately, it take experience to know which ones those are, and you're lucky if you can find out without actually being caught in them. - Don't lose your discipline for the above depending on how well or poorly you're doing in a given day or even week. Don't try to get even on a losing day. Don't "play with the house's money" on a winning day. You can size up if you have a strategy change that is working for weeks, and you're not just getting lucky. I don't have any of this on a sign, have a written plan, hard stops, or anything like that, though it might be necessary for some people. It wouldn't have kept me out of this trade anyway, which was total adrenaline/fear/shock-driven by the time it got to a mid-4s loser.
I don't know if you care to hear any more advice, but I wanted to add my 2 cents worth anyway. After skimming your journal, I think you were trying to handle too many positions at once. Save that sort of thing until you can consistently make a profit. I know holding cash does not make you any money, but it doesn't lose any either! Good luck venturing back into the world or 'real work'. If the you still feel the siren song of trading in a year, I hope that you do better on the next round.
Quote from nkhoi: are you saying you're living on 4k/2y, 2k/1y or about 300-400/m. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- nikhoi I mean 4k per month. I do not trade stocks just only dow emini. Nothing else. One step at a time and only one set up until you mastered.
hey Peil why dont you try using Bracket orders that way you will minimze your losses. this all depends on if your broker supports these order types.