Bwolinsky, I love guys like you, so easy to take money from. You remind me of an old Kashmiri proverb. "Empty vessels make much noise" ************************************** Neke, You're getting a lot of advice from well intentioned people, however I suspect they have never been in your shoes. Forget what you did last year. Last year is over. Market conditions are vastly different now. What you did last year won't work. Your problem is a simple one. You plan your entries carefully but have no plan whatsoever for your exits. Your risk management is non-existent/insane. Continue on like this and the results will not change. This may be harsh but there is no offence intended. Your type of trading is what the Street refers to as 'dumb money'. It's up to you if you want to continue to be dumb money. There's so few on this site who have a chance to make big money. You're one of the ones who can. Sad to see you piss away your opportunity.
Stop averaging down. That shit is lame. It won't ever turn a pig into Beyonce. If you don't know what your exposure and expectation is going in, then you're no different than mom and pop who haven't the desire or brains to understand what they're doing and are just riding the wave. Good trades don't test you, they're all smiles. Stop hoping. Stop trading to trade. Wait until the easy play comes like I told you. You will be alright. Wilt
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Neke, don't be in a such a hurry to "blow-out your account", or in your case, hit your yearly account stop-loss. You still have a pretty good sized account right now. You think you feel bad right now...think about how you would feel if you hit your yearly stop-loss. You should consider taking time off from your trading to stop and smell the roses and re-group. Now is not the time to get aggressive. Instead, since your trading is obviously "off the tracks", I would suggest you drop down to a much smaller position size, and focus on developing your EDGE, CONSISTENCY, and DISCIPLINE. Consistency, Discipline, and an Edge are to a trader what oil is to a car. And you sir, with all due respect, have neither consistency nor discipline. And, it's debatable whether you have an edge. Think about it for a second, what is the point of trading if you can not achieve consistent results in your trading? You would be better of going to Vegas. I know I would not want to play this "game" if I had no EDGE. I can think of a million other things to do with my money other than trading without an EDGE, CONSISTENCY, and DISCIPLINE. Consistency and Discipline are the easiest to overcome if you have a true and good Edge. Developing a good edge requires keen knowledge of how markets really work. A good edge is OBJECTIVE, SIMPLE, ROBUST enough to work on ALL MARKETS, and has, "thus far", withstood the "test of time" (I don't really believe that edges last forever but that is another story. I'm happy with "now"). Unfortunately, it took me years to find an edge that consistently works on all markets, and all time frames, but it can be done.
The things that is worrying about nekes averaging down is that if he does this on his losing trades then he maybe doing it on a lot of his winning trades too. And they wouldnt be winners if didnt average down on them. I hope this isnt the case for neke but it normally is for traders who habitually average down.
Averaging down isnt the main problem here. If MM is in place he can risk the same buying the stock 3 different times as he could buying it all at once. I almost never average down btw. I think the problem is his size, and getting emotional after losses. If he's getting more and more depressed after each week then cut size. from now on, dont risk any more than 7200.00 which is roughly 3% of your account, and then divide that in 3 or more for when you average down.
Oh god, here comes all the wonderful advice from those who never made a dime trading (except red_ink). Also can't leave out the misery loves company crowd. How predictable.