I see alot of people on internets dismiss the importance of psychology in trading, claiming that just technical skills and market understanding can pull you through. In a rare instance where you get lucky and develop right mindset from the begining. but its about as lucky as wsb degens with their favorite stock. my personal example. I started learning about 6 years ago extremely casually trading. And was not scarred by big losses yet. Was making decent money. Got my account from 200 dollars to just over 30k in the bull market. Then got raped by the bear market. Lost about 25k of that account in a year(15k in single trade on dpw) After that i could not get any trades right. Even now i keep losing on almost every trade on my cash account. last week i hopped back on my paper trade with a fresh 5k account. And havent touched my cash account. Im at 14293 dollars in about 6 trading days. Same exact strategy i was using with my real money account. Same exact start (5k cash) Every trade on paper account works out in my favor while just last week i was losing on every trade in real money account. Same strategy different mindset. Completely opposite results. Now im afraid to go back to my cash account because now i can see that its not the strategy but its me that is losing money
Not sure what to do about it yet. Obviously im fuvked up from those big losses Donno how to fix that. Advice would be good if anyone had this issue
I know its slightly different. Im taking that into account as well. But even with that, the success rate is much higher in paper
Not suprising. Everyone goes through it. Some worse than others. Things to do: 1) configure your screen so you can't see the PL in dollars or the daily PL. 2) Best "emotional" method is to monitor your heart rate and breathing. Master that aspect. 3) Automate. 4) Alternate between sim and live. You forget which is which after awhile. Things not to do 1) "just work on it and suck it up". This is a huge time sink. There are better ways. 2) Trade when you are tired, sick or distracted. 3) Trade when you are under pressure. Best of luck.
if you can't trust your stats 100% and execute that idea 100% without modification as you trade it then don't trade.
Demo trading - is like walking on a long plank just a few inches off the ground - is like sword fighting with a plastic sword Live trading - is like walking on a long plank a mile off the ground - is like sword fighting with a sharp metal sword Although you posted the thread in the Psychology session, you say nothing about negative emotions (anger, fear, anxiety, impatience ....) And you don't say anything about neutralizing negative emotions. You can't make progress unless you address the root cause.
Number 4 is way more important than traders recognize. As traders we must train our minds to simply execute the process. Trading is a process to be learned: by acquiring the necessary knowledge, practicing CONTINUOUSLY the concepts, while simultaneously applying them in live trading. To this very day years later I still practice on a SIM as well as live trade. WHY? Because I still make mistakes. Want to see a couple? Just look at my last video posted yesterday in my journal. I have ways to correct my mistakes and mitigate the damage they cause simply because I need that. We are human. We make mistakes. We are working in an environment full of uncertainty. We have to learn to embrace that uncertainty and adapt on the fly. We navigate in a fog. Nothing, and no strategy or technique is ever 100%. Nothing can be mathematically 100% in trading because there are simply too many variables. Some can be known. Others are not known until they happen. Some are simply unknowable. An old man once said: “I see that there are many young people here; as an old man, a little advice... Life can set us a lot of snares, a lot of bumps, we can fail a thousand times, in life, in love, in the social struggle, but if we search for it we'll have the strength to get up again and start over. The most beautiful thing about the day is that it dawns. There is always a dawn after the night has passed. Don't forget it, kids. The only losers are the ones who stop fighting." Trading is a PROCESS that must be assimilated to execute successfully. It can only be assimilated by constant review, self evaluation, and PRACTICE. No matter how great an NFL players get to be he still must PRACTICE is craft over and over again and the execution thereof if he wants to grow and continue to be successful.
Assuming that you're the only thing standing in the way of your approach making money, consider trading much smaller in your real account until you get your bearings again.