Yes, another of those threads. And by a suspicious first-time poster who for all you know might be the sock-puppet of a well known poster on these very boards. Studied trading and traded demo and small accounts for four years. Funded my account in January and went full time, with enough savings to live on for two years. As of tonight, I'm down around 50%. Do I give up now or slog it out until I'm looking at an even bigger drawdown? The thing is, I feel I have a fairly good grasp of the market. I just do stupid things. *revenge trading *following the market - i.e. I see a sudden move and spontaneously put on a trade, right at the bottom of course. *not letting my winners run. *get married to a direction and keep fighting the market. I don't do these things all the time. Just enough to have blowout days which lately have been getting more numerous. It's all in my head right now. But realistically, how long do I keep on doing this for? OK, let fly with the witticisms.
Yes!!! Your rationalization of why you are losing tells me that you really don't understand the "game" that you are playing, you have no "edge". Get out before you lose the rest of your money. That doesn't mean that you can't dabble and try to figure out an edge, just not full-time and with less money. Get out now, you don't know what you are doing!!! Not trying to be insensitive, just trying to bring you to reality. Joe.
A lot of people trade a lot of years without ever cracking the code. It doesn't matter how long you trade or how smart you are or how determined you are. You either find a method that works or you don't. A lot of people are never going to make it. I would encourage you to quit or at least get a lot more conservative. Maybe look at swing trading with fewer contracts.
Try bringing up a chart of your favorite trading instrument, then place a few indicators and/or moving averages on this chart, then see if you notice any patterns. If you can figure out a system this way, devise a stop loss threshold, and a stop-win target, then trade in 100 share lots. Perfect the system over a year while you live off beanie-weenies, water, and bread. forget about women right now, they are too expensive. Noone said this was going to be easy.
I second that. I found that I was a crappy discretionary trader, for all the same reasons you mention. I decided to develop a system, and run it automated, day in, day out, and it's working well for me both emotionally and financially. Auto trading can still be hard psychologically. There are some times the system takes trades that you just <b>know</b> are gonna blow out, and they do. But then there are other times it takes trades that look like they will blow out, and end up being profitable. The market does not give up its riches easily. The market takes with one hand and gives with the other. A profitable system is just an unprofitable one turned inside out.
1. Is your trading discretionary? If yes, then give it up. You aren't suddenly going to find the light overnight. 2. Are you trading a system, and is the system profitable sans your mistakes? If yes, then scale way back on position size until you get get your head together and manage your psychology. Mastering your mind is, without any doubt, the biggest hurdle to successful trading. Some can do it easily, some never get it. After 7 years, I still fight it every day.