I have been papertrading until about a month and a half ago and then started a real money account at Think or Swim. Needless to say I was doing well with papertrading but not with real money now. I definitely do not want to lose all of my money here. I started with 95000 and now have a bit over 75000. I have been bitten with some option trades. I just started learning about Candlesticks and after looking at some charts I would definitely not have done some of the trades I did. After looking at the Candlesticks I bought foolishly at tops and got kicked shortly thereafter by selling on a drop. I will never know but I do think I could have made a profit if I had known anything about the Candlesticks rather than losing 20000. Am I being too simplistic?
You should probably start your own thread, but... this post raises more questions than answers: Why are you trading a 95K account as a beginner? Do you have your living expenses taken care of? How long were you paper trading? Did you trade a different style using real money? What position sizes were you trading? Why didn't you trade bare minimal size for a while after paper trading? Why didn't you do a lot more reading before trading real money?
The answer to your questions are as follows: Why 95000, the amount of cash I had in a self directed ROTH IRA. This is not all I have in the ROTH and we own several pieces of real estate as well in the ROTH that produces more income that I hope to trade. My living expenses are taken care of since I have invested full time into real estate for 28 years and hold quite a bit of of the incme producing real estate even though I would like to sell and invest in the market but not until I can get a grip on it. Paper traded since Sept. 07, lost for about 4 months and then all I lost was made up plus a 20% paper profit on the entire account in the first 3 months of this year Account was started with 100000 and now is at 121000. The account was down to 84000 the first of February and did very well after that. I must not be trading the same but after reading to understand Candlesticks seems like they would have helped put me into theprofit with the additional information. This is my thinking but we will never know since when I started trading real dollars I have not profited. I have been reading and studying since Sept. a lot more since I started trading real money. The more I read especially when I read about this guy trading for 8 years without a profit I become very concerned about what I am doing.
ALL OF YOU SHOULD STOP TRADING WITH LIVE MONEY UNTIL YOU CAN PROVE TO YOURSELVES (AND YOUR PNL LEDGER) THAT YOU HAVE A STRATEGY THAT IS A CONSISTENT WINNER. ... AND I MEAN A CONSISTENT WINNER
Don't get too hung up on the candlesticks, they are not the holy grail of trading (nor is anything else). Go ahead and learn about them if you like but don't assume they would have been the magic bullet that would have saved you 20K. Patterns always look obvious in hindsight. The original poster in this thread made some big mistakes early on, the first of which was allowing living expenses to eat through his substantial savings (he claimed in another thread to have started with about a million dollars). What I would do if I had this kind of money is to separate my trading and investing activities. I would be looking at something like what is described here to invest most of my liquid assets, and the more money I had, the more conservative I would go. The idea would be to live off some of the income from this while still allowing the premium to grow. Your real estate investments are serving a similar purpose, so that seems OK. Then I would devote the remainder, maybe 10% or so, to active trading. And even with this I would take MandelbrotSet's advice.
I feel your pain, brother, and I'm concerned. The fact that you posted this topic about your losses keeps me from being more than concerned. You're in a dangerous place and you need to seek safety. Stay with the therapist, share this with family/ friends, don't isolate, and cut back on "mind altering substances" if you partake. And take a defined amount of time off from trading. What's at stake: A Wall Street veteran of over 10 years who worked for one of the most recognizable men in finance, who returned to his home town with 6+ million/wife/children, who traded his own account for a few years, who was in process of starting a hedge fund, who was always "doing great"/smiling/jovial--------this man, my friend, shot himself last month. He had lost everything: the January lows nailed him, the lower lows blew up his account. No one knew anything, because he never let on. Now his family is reeling...emotionally & financially. It's darned difficult for men to admit their business failings to others, especially men in our age bracket. The fact that you were able to do so, even masked in the anonymity of an internet forum, is a sign of strength---I salute you for that. Personally, I went full time trader in February of 2000...bubble burst in March and my education began. For me, it took 3 years to stop the bleeding and become a break-even trader. I'm in my second year post "oh, now I get it" period and am quite profitable. My opinion: If you're feeling the "fight or flight" level of anxiety when trading, something is amiss. You're either trading too much size, or you're not sure what you're doing (no plan), or you may be getting a little too much of the excitement rush that can interfere with success. I'm not qualified to teach, so I won't try. Stumbling upon your topic, in light of recent events......well, I just could not not reply. The money stuff will work itself out in time. My advice: step outside, look up and let the sun shine on your face for a while. The weather is great this time of year, and no amount of money can buy that.
Limit, OK, sorry for what in hindsight was an overreaction. The way you originally replied was pretty darn rude, though. What did you expect? So don't take my inventory about foul language or anything else. In this life, we don't get to wrong others and then sit back and pass judgment on the reaction we get . . . right? Anyway, no hard feelings. Let's move on. And thanks for answering the question, although I have not read anything substantive to support this yet. The contract doesn't seem any thinner to me than usual. It is a little different than trading ES as the tape is not as helpful (size getting cleared at levels on ER2 is not as meaningful as ES in my opinion) but what I like is the volatility. It tends to shoot through targets nicely and often trends real well.
With all respect meant, yes, you are delusional if you think it is not likely that you will spend at least a few years learning how to trade.
I also believe it's possible for a person to try to sabotage their own success.Maybe you're one of these people?I lost over $240,000 in the markets.It's good that you admitted your loss too.$75000 sounds like a lot of money to a 30 year old Ukrainian woman.You have too little cash to try trading anymore imo.Better to get a job,pay the rent and have a few beers with your mates in the evening before logging onto UkrainianBrides.com.