My over the hill brother in law can bench press 430 pounds (about 10 pounds per year of life). But he has not been able to trade profitably He has been at it only a few months. But he will be ok eventually. Because he has begun to have the discipline to: A: Cut his losses quickly B: Not trade unless he sees exactly what he is looking for. C: Not add to losers ever. D: Not let winners turn into losers. E: He realizes (mostly from listening to me) that this trading environment is not good for daytrading, and he is intent on outlasting the bad times so he will be able to take advantage of the good when they again come around. I would stress that this is not an easy market. It is essential to conserve your capital so it will be available when it can be used to your best advantage. A trending market. Preferably trending up. (It's just easier IMHO). Peace, Rs7
That's very impressive. I'm aiming for somewhere close by the end of this year. They have a university benchpress meet here and I really want that T-shirt and a copper statue. Vanity-vanity... Just wanna do it before I get old and can't do it anymore
Good post daniel_m. You are right I should have stated my trading style earlier. I messed up there. I think I would have taken heat either way, but maybe less than I did. Even after I made the post about my style I continued to receive renewed criticism. At that point I had been completely honest about my trading, about my intentions for starting the thread, and the reasons why I wanted to stay on topic with the thread before it turned ugly like a lot of other threads. I thought at worst there would be no responses meaning nobody cared to start a meaningful dialogue on the topic. But people chose to pull out the bow and arrows so I defended myself. The stupid posts (including my replies) can all end. I don't think I have started out attacking anyone so far. I have only responded.
I just wanted to add something I have picked up and plan for now after seeing a bunch of big time traders blow out their accounts. Yes the market is a lot tougher now and you have to be a lot more selective because in my opinion the light volume makes it much less forgiving. A couple of bad trades can ruin your day where as a while ago there was enough volume and volatility to make up for a few dumb mistakes. Now it is all about dodging bullets all day long. There are some traders that I knew who made a killing while it was good. They got in to making a few million in a good year. Well times changed and their expectations did not. So they kept swinging for the fences until they lost a big chunk of their money. They also spent excessively. Now they are scraping by again to cover the basics because they blew all their money on fancy cars, ect. The lesson I learned is to save well when it is good so you can survive the bad times. It is another form of money management but at a macro level. When you are making good money it is hard to think ahead that it will ever end. The people I knew felt that they were just going to get better at trading and keep making more and more money every year. They never thought the market would get this stagnant.
Not necessarily true for all. Here is something I thankfully don't need to re-type from a while back (this is not all of it, but it addresses what you say): PS: Since I wrote this, my youngest boy has enlisted in the Navy. So thankfully, my expenses will be that much less
This is incredibly important. I remember from some of the Market Wizards stories that many of them advocated taking a portion of trading profits and putting into Cd's , T-bills, real estate, gold bars, whatever, just so it is not exposed to the market. We never know what might happen.
downtickboy, you should really pay attention to what's been written above and work from it instead of getting sidetracked by other chit-chat in this thread. It's a good lead to a finer strategy. I am not going to repeat this nor am I going to say more
============== Number 5] Handle a losing streak, in ES e mini; cut back small, cut back quick, excellant reasons for that, like short trem/medium trend has usually changed. Therefore if i dont cut back quick, cut back small ; more ES emini losses usually follow. Mod mentoned a winner ,buy low sell hi; do that some , but more sell low trend, buy high trend 72]specific numbers like 72; aim & usuall hit working about 72 hours aweek. Posting is fun & work also, you always gain by sharing; Bill Gates may not give away a million $ as elite trader said, he is right , its billions he is giving away .
5]Handle a winning streak by mainly enjoying it; still aim at working 72 hours a week. And balance the ''you gain by giving away;'' balance that one with as my banker dad used to say''dont tell everything you know Good points bigscalper nickname.