I wonder if the author is doing well, has anyone had a update for our friend here? This forum has provided very good insight a trader would pay $600 a hour to a Trading Psychologist to get. The quality of your posts and insights into his thinking and taking your time is very unique and altruistic on some of E.T.s best traders. You don't expect this to take place but it's true about people who spend their time helping others, I think Karma will flow back your way in a good sense! I can think of a problem one of the traders I was working with on Yahoo Instant Messenger had back in 1998, he was starting to have some really bad personal issues (his girlfriend was screaming at him and I could hear it on the phone and when Yahoo I.M had voice added and he forgot to hit "Mute") and it destroyed his account. He took $2.6 Million in the greatest Tech Market Bubble and blew up all his cash! We don't realize the impact all the bad and good stimuli we get from from watching as many as six to ten monitors (I can't do that anymore, my body would break down from overload!) has on our brain and eyes. The actions of our loved ones who still don't understand we are not trying to be aloof, angry or snappy when we can't discuss the "kids lunch" or "report card" or some "emotional issues from a fight the night before we might have had." The best Trader I know of had the gift of "Social Blunting", some traders get the ugly disease "Financial Emotional Blunting" when they become calloused to gains and losses and allow the later to run them into the ground. Something in a Trader's brain snap's and he start's to "not give a dam, this stock has turned against him and tries to put on two other trades to counter that nasty trade he/she is still holding" Our friends might get angry with if we are totally emotionally and mentally spent after waging a massive battle of wits against the smartest people in the World. We get tired and decided to sit in silence or make a long Island Ice tea instead of trying to get out and exercise to clean our mind and read some spiritual material to refresh our souls. We become a recluse over time and our body is in that state of hyper-vigilance after a crazy day. How long can you run on low sleep and adrenaline after two decades? Jesse Livermore said he felt is was impossible to trade if you did not get eight or more hours of sleep each night. He also said "There is a time to go long, go short and Go Fishing!" I pray you are making money or fishing in some peaceful cottage by a nice lake! We all have been in your situation, the fear of losing money is going to manifest itself in another location, after reading you post I was worried if you keep trading until you get clarity, you could suffer some type of PTSD from a possible internal and external issue you don't know is attacking your subconscious mind. Books at times help and other times our brain won't read and learn, maybe it's burnout? My library seems like it's loaded with every book on Trading Psychology, the only thing that can wind my ADD mind fast enough is video games, board games or watching some crazy cartoons. How do you unwind your mind after a crazy and hectic day of Trading? Around 2010 I was on the phone with "George Trader Tax (name changed), Roberta George was telling me I had did ok and she said one of the great Lone Wolf Traders was trading when they felt insecure and were suffering from burn-out. The Trader was working on giving back the entire $30+ Million he had made in his incredible previous year and said he was "emotionless" and losses and money were meaningless." I was told he had a major health scare and it was either his Mom and Dad he loved greatly died out of the blue! We both have been in this game a long time, I hope you get your Mojo back and discover what is at the root of your problems. I don't like seeing people lose money, there are plenty of wicked posters on Yahoo who enjoy seeing people suffer pain from losses, Elite Trader has a much better support group. We are old geezers of the game, please get better soon!
================== Ais; So if you made your money on ''ticks'', sounds pretty good if you did market making or something like that noise. Ticks for a position or swing trader seem more like noise; may stiil work '' trading in ticks'' but I prefer weekly charts/study monthly. If you made money for 2o years/+,wonder if your fear could be actually be legit, not that all fear is?? DEEP Draw downs are less fun as one ages-less time to re-cover.
You are obviously trading very small timeframes manually, and it has been well documented here on ET about the travails of pitting your mouse and DOM order ticket against automated HFTs. You are not used to drawdowns, and the HFTs have introduced a great deal of turbulence into the microstructure of the markets. And all of pissing and moaning in the world is not going to change that fact of life. It is here to stay because they are subsidizing exchanges. You simply have to develop a system with longer holding timeframes and you have to come to terms with the fact that every position you put on will, at some point in its' lifespan, be underwater. If you require so much certainty in trading that you cannot stomach a drawdown, then this is not the business for you. Not trying to be a douchebag about it, just trying to be factual.
Getting over fear can be obtained only if the trader has good knowledge regarding the forex market for carrying out good and profitable trades.