You need, at the least, to spend some time looking for another job. Buy a cheap starter home. Unfortunately, you sound depressed. Don't leave any weapons of mass destruction laying around the house.
What do you mean ? That YOU can't make money at it? I know plently of successful traders, many with different styles. Daytrading is the best thing that EVER happened to me. My income went up 20-fold. But, of course, .....the mid six-figure tax bills I paid last year (and this year) must just be aberrations. I'm sure the IRS will be quick to treat my activities as just a "hobby" !!!
Good luck too you. Probably a wise decision to keep at your job. I went through the exact same emotional grinder for many years. I would often go to work in the morning with so much anxiety that I felt like I was going to explode in the car before I got there. After work I was so tired that I would just go home and sit in a chair and stare at the TV until I fell asleep. Like a robot switched on in the morning and switched off at 5pm. A tool of the company and not a human being. BUT, it wasn't always like that. Sometimes I would go for 6mo feeling lousy about my job and then the next 6mo I would feel pretty good about it and glad I didn't quit. Things might get better. There's a fair chance that your disatisfaction is only temporary. If it is, then it would be a shame to throw in the towel now. Best regards, Rigel.
Hey.....When I am really burned out....I will go to a classy strip club....No cheap sleazy one...This is my routine 1. Drive up to ATM machine...Get a 100 bucks... 2. Enter club. Go sit up at the bar, order 1 beer and set clock to 45 minutes tops...At 45 minutes I will bail if no fine decent women around.... 3. If a beautiful women approaches me...I will sit there and just give her my love and affection (OH By the way..The girlfriend is history). I dont let her dance...I just like to talk...It really helps with the stress...
A buddy of mine was making a lot of money trading part time in the mornings before work , we work 2nd shift . After about 3 months of steady profits (internet bubble era ) he quit his job and cashed in his 401 k ( taking penalty) to add to his trading account . Almost immediately after quitting he started to seem really nervous every time we'd talk . Within three months he'd blown up his entire account . When I called ,his wife told me "that idiot doesn't live here any more". Got the old boot . Then he held an auction and sold all of his belongings to get another stake. Blew that out within a month . From talking to his mother it sounds like he's had some kind of breakdown . Now lives with his son in a trailer out in the woods . Its kind of a horror story but I'd love to make the break to trading full time too. wouldn't recommend the house, to much of a hassle ( cutting grass etc.) Never felt like I had free time after buying one . I've used that same strip club method too , works wonders
Michaelday, ============================================== Regardless of what many "traders" on this and similar forums may be claiming daytrading is far from being a legitimate career choice. ============================================== Do you have money invested in mutual funds or regularly deposited into your 401k? If you have, then you have automatically acknowledged that daytrading is a legitimate career choice. These funds send orders often in the amount of hundreds of thousands of shares to traders in brokerage houses or on the floor to buy or to sell. Aren't these traders also daytraders? Market makers, floor traders, they are all daytraders. How significant is the difference between these traders, and daytraders, who trade for their own accounts? While I don't daytrade and I don't think everyone should, nobody can say it's not a legitimate career choice.
"Within three months he'd blown up his entire account." This is a great country. To be free to fail also means to be free to succeed. Maybe he'll sit like a madman in front of a little terminal in the trailer in the woods for two years and then make a comeback. Where there's a will there's a way. At least this guy has a will (of his own).
Anyway I would say that this story is a bit drmatic and I hope it won't happen to any of us. But life is full of obstacles and one cannot always succeed from day one. Moreover, I notices thos guy did not know much about the markets, since he started trading and making money 3 months before the krach and obviuously quit his job during the krach... Conclusion, trading is a real job and you need to learn the basics before starting to trade seriously. This guy did not apply the basics rules of trading and started trading like a madman since day one. Once, I met a guy aged 40 during a trading fair and he said to me I started trading before the krach, made load of money, then I quit my IT job and traded with full leverage all my capital and lost everything in a month. There is another guy during the same period that made 500% in 3 months during the bullish frenzy and then invested all his gains time 5 on a single stock. He lost everything and had to add from his pocket. Bear markets are great teachers and very often the same stories repeat themselves. Your friend is no exception and he just made the same mistakes that made million of people and instead of relaxing and trying to understand why he made such mistakes, he preferred to continue.... and as said Jesse livermore : "The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, or for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor."
A few weeks before the bull market ended many tech stocks were upsomething like 300% in one year. I had the wild idea to invest everything I had in 10 stocks, go for it so to speak. If things went my way I figured after a year I would be set for life. After kicking it around for about 5 minutes, I decided that it would be way too risky and never gave it another thought. An all or nothing attitude is very dangerous in this game.