i have traded off and on for 20 years seen well over 200 different traders styles and been lucky enought to work with a multi million dollar local pit trader of the sp500 who swung 200k a day up and down when he was busy and i have probably donen over 100,000 futures contracts in my own accoutns over the years maybe more including options. and guess what? is till struggle. i still makes mistakes everyday. i still do things i know i shouldnt no matter what you think you are or who you are you will at times do stupid stuff that costs you a lot of money. I have edge that i know and even knowing that i still have losing days and losing trades and losing weeks sometimes. edges come and go then reappear again. you need more than just 1 edge you should have a lot of them ready to apply when you see the mkt give you the opportunity and not before but sometimes after. that is why i like brooks if you think about it. he gets you in after the move after the signal. you are always going with the trend with him if you are following it correctly. this keeps you from getting totally crushed all the time chasing bottoms and adding to losers until you look up and you are like holy crap i just lost every single tick for the last 45 mintues and i have a 10 lot mini on and im losing 500 bucks a point now!! brooks methods wont let you do this. Brooks ideas teach you stop being fing greedy and be happy you can make some points throughout the day. i like his stuff. i never saw it until 6 months ago. i dont think you need videos or to pay for classes. maybe try his room for 99 bucks and see if that helps. i would read the books and try the room for a month and see if that helps you learn anything. outide of that all you can do is play play pl;ay the game. pro poker players log massive hours pleying poker online and practicing like 3 to 5 games at a time! they do this for a reason.
here is an example for you right now. i have a short bias tonight and guess what. i got long! sure i shorted it early on and then for some dumb reason i started buying and as i bought it they just started selling it and seeing how it is sunday night i need to be well rested for a solid week and here i am screwing around with a sac small account challenge becasue i dont want to lose! see i had 3 chnces so far to exit completely at a net gain for the night and i did not. i should have and even after the first shot at exiting at a small loss i ddint take it.. then i was down big.. i held. then it cam eback and i could have gotten out at almost break even.. did i tak eit nope. i didnt listen to the mkt. i let my own ridiculous judgement on a low volume algo feast buffet cloud my jusdgement even now .. as i sit here i can exit and lose 32 bucks but guess what it will be my first losing day in this account overall if i exit right now. so see i dont want that on my record i am tryng to be flawless which is a fools errand. i have missed 10 opportunities by holding this trade this long for what? to end up getting out at break even anyway? and now its cutting into my sleep schedule and i am still running the possibility of having a good sized loss as it runs against me now and in overnight it can do whatever the hell it wants. you are just as butterfly in the wind hoping the algos go in your direction carrying you to profits but if not YOU LOSE. i have edge and didnt follow what i know is my edge.. and here i am paying for it. wasting time nursing a trade that has a high prbabilithy of omly getting worse at this point not better!
I know that feel. The adrenaline rush from trading really screws my sleep cycle up. I can't trade within 2 hours of sleeping, forget it. Probably points to an error of mine (having adrenaline at all in the trade), but outside of taking drugs I don't know how to prevent it. I don't like the adrenaline, for the record. Not my kind of drug.
i wouldnt say for me it is adernaline for me it si trying to get my mind my thougts my eyes everythin gin tune to operate at higher level than just normal mode. i need to be like a cat ready to pounce at all times or a prize fighter ready to bob and weave yet i get sloppy and slow and asi get tired it only gets worse. . i could would shoulda exited when i had the chancees? why because i knew from the get go that my entry sucked that is the truth. i knew the entry was bad. it was against my bias it was againtst the short term trend it was against price action it made zero cents to try and buy early i had ZERO SIGNAL BARS telling me to buy.. but i bought even though my big plan was to sell all night all rallies. see. once you bank some money it opens up a whole new set of problems your mind gets sloppy you get sloppy you say well i have 100 profit i can be a lil loose.. nope.. you cann never be loose you are either on always or don't play but yeah i must turn of the screens and the mind at least 2 to 3 hours before bed or forget it. I would say it is similar to driving on the highway at 80- miles an hour in a 70 mph zone at night on the look out for deer and cops and then pulling over and expecting to sleep right away. maybe it is adrenaline that sharpens your skills and senses who knows. over the years i still get excited at times and i love the mkts but clicking to make a trade isnt really all that exciting these days..
Oddly enough just breaking even (net commissions) is satisfying. I survived lol. They aren't even big trades in my big picture. It's the fear of being wrong, I gotta tame that beast.
my goal is to win and sometimes at any cost which means i will at times do dumb stuff that works great and others dub stuff that crushes me. it is much better to not get crushed and take on all that risk. this year alone a large individual trader and i had a conversation and he said.. i was down 3 million today to make 500k and i need to stop doing this because one day this bull just wont come back and should it fall i will be crushed wiping out my entire year in a day. he is up 10 million net for the year
His books only help you to build very basic knowledge about price action. In order to find your trading edge, you need to understand well about market behavior or market structure if you are trading futures, probabilities and how well your trading edge getting along with HFTs. Without HFTs playing along, your setups are useless!!! Good luck.
I can't imagine risking 10% of annual earnings let alone 30%. 1% is large for me. But if he does $10M a year maybe $3M is pocket change. Tough problem to have