I've been trying to make it as a trader for eight years. I have yet to have a profitable year. I have been living off my savings from a previous venture and that is now below $75K. Everyone I talk to says to quit. My family thinks I am just a gambler. My psychiatrist thinks I am addicted to trading. I don't know what to do. I'm 51 and alone. My last two girlfriends left because they were worried about my finances and couldn't deal with the down days. I have no idea where to turn from here. What am I supposed to put on a resume - eight years as a daytrader? I don't even want to work for someone else, anyway and don't know what else I would do. All I ever wanted was to find a consistent way to pull one point from the market and trade size as my account built up. I only need $200 per day to keep going. I'm sure I'm not the first failed trader being faced with these options. I could sure use some words of advice, though.
8 Years!!?? You better sit down and rethink your plans--Not about trading but your life in general. Your loves one could be right about you being addicted to gambling or trading.
Don't quit, as you said...what else are you going to do. Personally, I would just get a job for a bit to take some of the pressure off and really drill down into what your doing wrong. Way too much pressure trying to trade tactics that clearly are not working while your savings bleed. Look up some interviews with Mark Cook if you need inspiration too. He lost like 200k in 1980 dollars, half of which was his mothers life savings and then worked on a farm for 5 years to get back in the game then took 10 years overall to become profitable.
Hi You sure are in a dark place right now. My fear is that with your capital to invest so depleted, and the fact that you don't have income from another source the pressure on you to perform is just too great. Do not see this as failure, rather see it as a learning experience. One is never too old to learn. The chances of even the greatest traders coming back from your situation are low. With all the negative feelings I am sure you are suffering from now this makes your task that much harder. My advice would be to take care of your finances 1st thing, i.e. get a steady income. Accept the fact that you need to work for someone, you are not in a position to dictate that you don't want to work for someone. 99% of the world work for people, if they are lucky enough to have a job. Once you have got a steady income then you can entertain the idea of trading as a source of additional income. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself. Draw up a business plan, detail everything. Without a well drawn up plan, and a measure to check that you are adhering to it, you stand no chance of success. Take control of the situation and turn it around for you. Good luck you can do it. Mickson
I've been trading ES and ER2 both. With ER2, I use R100 constant range charts with a volatility stop set to 1.5. I take both long and short signals with a 1 point stop. I try to just trade in the first two hours when the market tends to go somewhere with conviction.
After 8 years of trading and you still haven't had a profitable year, I'd say hang it up. The OP just doesn't have the psychological capacity for daytrading. To the OP: You just might have a gambling problem. If I lose at trading for 8 years straight, I wouldn't be on it. Imagine, if you ran a business and lost money for 8 years - do you think you'd still be in that business or would have closed it down?
Yea that would have been great advice to Mark Cook too. Instead of winning the 1992 trading challenge and being interviewd by Schwager, turning 100s of ES cars a day now he could have had a nice safe life as a dairy farmer. sorry, but anyone who stays in the game for 8 years is past the point of no return.
What time frame do you trade with? Is it technical based? $200 isn't a lot to hope for in my opinion. T http://actionpointsta.blogspot.com/
I use constant range bars. Each bar is one point in the ER2. It's not a time frame, per se. It's driven by changes in price. I do mainly trade from 9:30-11:30 EST since that seems to produce the smoothest moves and avoids the afternoon chop.