There are lots of staff shortage in engergy field since there r many new construction. You may get a 6 figured job, try: http://www.dice.com/ http://www.careerbuilder.com/?sc_cmp2=JS_Nav_Home Get a good paying job to get a fresh & positive mind set. When you feel good about yourself with a good job and normal life then you can see the big picture easier. Market will always be there if you decide to trade later. Hope this helps!
great post Broomy, great suggestion.... and, yeah, the pause that refreshes and changes one's visual acuity is essential, from time to time weight loss doesn't hurt neither....
I know that this post could seem a stupid and banal whitout results compromise.. but it's not. Jasper6, you see how many friends you have that really take care of your life? I'm sure you feel. Yes, opinions and suggestions are very different but they come from the hearts of different persons and life experiences, so how could be different..? All, I say ALL the suggestions they gave to you are valuable, and they really will help you, they are already helping you. But the road you will choose is not necessarly or this or the opposite. Or you will quit trading, forget about trading and accept your failure... or you will find new energy, go on trading and risk all you money and all your future following your dream. Sometimes life seems to ask us to choose so hardly, but if we look inside ourselves we can find OUR way, our solution. Don't throw away trading if you really love it, for sure the approach you had until today doesn't bring money, so throw away (very far) your actual approach and find another one, you will find some that you like. Don't live your life alone with yourself, find a job part time that let you the time to focus on what interests you: trading. Believe in me, it's not really important which kind of job, you don't need to gratify your ego with an important job that may be you will not find, because you are a trader and this is enough for you and I'm sure for your ego too. So even if ( I exagerate may be ) you will find to go to wash dishes in the evening, why not? Your soul needs to stay with other people, have human relations, and you need another income to help your daily costs and your mood. To have some normal earned money every day, even if not so much, will send away a lot of pressure from your trading days, and you will feel that you are a normal and lucky person that is trying to make his dream true. Don't focus on the 8 waste years.. of course if nobody helps you and you close yourself in a cave will be very difficult to arrive somewhere... you already tried and realize that it's not working. But from where you are now, if you do the right steps that so many hearts/traders here suggested to you, may be in 2 years, more or less at breakeven, you could became profitable, not bad is it? My summary: throw away your actual approach, find one from the many that you like, bring into your daily life a steady income ( it really doesn't matter how big at the moment ) and fresh and honest human relations. Believe in me: even if at the moment you cannot see how, this new situation will make miracles to your soul, mood, energy and why not later trading results. At the end, like most of us, you are following your dream, the worst that can happen is that you will decide to wash dishes more and more, but at least you tried and in the correct way. I think this is our mission in this life. I really wish you the best
"The one defining characteristic of successful traders is their refusal to quit in the face of adversity" "Being a successful trader also takes courage: the courage to try, the courage to fail, the courage to succeed, and the courage to keep on going when the going gets tough"
Numerous red flags in your post. #1 is trading with emotion. #2 is trading with money you cannot afford to lose (your family is right, you are gambling, which is addicting). You are obviously emotionally disturbed (I don't mean clinically) by losing money, as shown in your relationships and need for professional help. If one cannot see due to blinders, get rid of the problem and recover. For you, that sounds like quit trading, get a job and recover to where you were financially before you started losing money. You are also obviously trading with money you cannot afford to lose. Nobody can afford to lose ANY savings, in my view. If you cannot easily replace money lost to trading, then you are setting yourself up to be depressed after the first losing day. If you cannot afford to trade, don't trade. I just read a thread on ET about some kid who borrowed $5k from a bank to start trading cash. I would like to chew out whoever talked him into such a gamble with other people's money. I would view your choice to continue trading just as foolish. Get free from trading, at least until you get back to where you were. Then, others will be more apt to spend time with you and you will see trading in a different light, and emotion, than you do right now. Cash out and walk away.
I read the first 12 pages and skipped to here, so I'm sorry if I repeated anything. Are you still reading this post? I'll offer my advice, but I'll preface it. I am a losing trader. I have been at this for 4 years. I have invested, swing traded, day traded, trend traded, counter-trend traded and gambled. I feel I'm just now coming to grips with my deficiencies, and although I'm net red, I haven't blown up and I've learned a few things along the way. From what I can gather from those who have turned the corner to consistency, this is what needs to happen: 1. Develop a method that has an edge. You don't need to win more times than you lose, but the lower this ratio, the larger your wins need to be. You need to be able to prove this method on paper or in a simulator prior to even considering going 'live'. This means you need another job. Once you show consistent profits on a simulator, you need to start small. I'd suggest ETFs if you want to trade the indicies. Why lose 50 bucks per pt on the ES when you can scale down your share size in an ETF. If you prove consistent and profitable, then you can consider the benefit of futures. 2. Step one is supposed to be the easy part, and from what I've read, most people don't get past it and continue to look for a Holy Grail. Now, you need the discipline to follow your method. Identifying a set up, placing a trade, managing stops--this stuff is easy. Dealing with your emotions is the hard part. Breaking your rules and getting out of a trade too early to see it rocket on, not taking a set up and seeing it would have worked out, taking the next set up and taking a loss on it to see the market turn in your original direction, taking the next set up and not obeying your orginal stop---these are the challenges in trading. These things will destroy your psychological capital. Again, get a job so you aren't trading with scared money. 3. Learn to accept small losses. Do not take big losses. Again, do not take big losses! If you don't take big losses, then your small losers will cancel out your small winners and leave you with the big winners. Your well developed method allows your profits to run, right? Look at the base ball analogy. If a batter is batting .400, they strike out more than they get a hit, but they still make big bucks. Also, if you lose, don't lose the lesson. Keep a trading journal and learn something from each loser. Look for recurring patterns. At one point, I got fed up with my emotional swings. I piled every piece of trading literature I had in the corner with the intent to ebay it away. I was going to have my wife change the password on my acct. so I couldn't inflict anymore torture on myself. You know what? It was the most liberated Ihave ever felt. I could walk around outside and see all of life that I was missing while tortuing myself sucked into a monitor. I re-kindled friendships and including the one with my wife. So, I'd suggest taking a break. My advice might only be worth what you paid for it, but your problem is within you. You need to work with a trading psychologist/coach, and you need to work with a mentor. You need to see success. You need to see what those people do, and more importantly, what they don't do. How they don't get emotional over a loss. How they keep the loss small. How they accept it as just another trade in the journey. How they don't get emotional over a win. You need to change yourself, and if you can't do that, you need to stop trading. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. All of this has been said, but if you are anything like me, it needs to be beaten into your psyche. Now if I can just follow my own advice Good luck. I wish you peace and happiness more than I wish you profits. Eric
Daytrading is tough because unless you are a master trader you can't get the assymetric risk opportunities you need for good money management, I think risking 1 to make 3 is very difficult in the es once you take into account the sweeping back and forth, slippage, your processing time on trades and it is very difficult to determine in advance whether it is going to be a chop or wide range day. So you are up against all the master traders in the most liquid contract trying to make 1 risking 1 and half of those have the inside play as to what should happen that day and at what point with all the oscillators and moving averages pointing to the sky they are going to step in and sell it off into oblivion. Swingtrading at least you can make a stand at a major support/resistance point at a pullback in a trend and if it pans out 50% of the time you are ahead. You also have the luxury of scanning a lot of charts and seeing which one displays the setups which you find most profitable as opposed to taking questionable entries on the es becuase you have to trade and nothing else is available and you have to make 200 dollars that day or your next girlfriend will leave. Its also psychically exhausting watching every tick go by and every trading decision you make you had better be making at 100% capacity. You could also look at some of the better newsletters, Ive found Chick Goslin and particularly Re Mc Master good. Good luck to you anyway whatever you choose to do. They should have made this game easier and then we could all go to Monte Carlo for cocktails and have jets and model girlfriends and laugh about the first tough trading week when we thought we would never make it....
A wise man knows when to walk away from a fight he can not win. I don't know why so many people think they can trade when so few actually can.