Well I have given a lot of thought to this. I have decided to do my farewell thread. My swan song so to speak. This does not mean I will stop posting to ET. I will continue to be a participant. But for the foreseeable future, I will not initiate any more threads after this one. I started "superstition, luck and Voodo"...."successful trading".."common sense and TA"...and "keeping it simple" (and maybe some other worthless threads that I don't remember as vividly). They all got a lot of attention, and they all deteriorated into nonsense. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily. But they got way off the subject. Particularly the "superstition" thing which went on for about a million pages. So basically, I will try and conclude disseminating my trivial and questionable knowledge with my take on "HOW TO LOSE". Which is not a joke. Losing is a MAJOR part of trading. The key is to do it right! So I will gather my thoughts as opposed to my wits, of which I am devoid, and do my treatise on how to lose like a winner. And losing is something I happen to have a lot of expertise in. So now before I begin, I must fortify myself with the necessary nutrients (solid, liquid and gaseous) of good posting, and I will return for the final words of whatever it is they are. In the mean time, I fully expect some feedback from the more enlightened ETers. And I will be happy to field any specific inquiries about how to be a good loser. Peace, Harmony, Love, and all that good stuff, RS7
I will continue to "imput", but just in a different way after this thread. I will contribute, but not initiate as I said. Maybe after a while I will think of another subject and change my mind. But as of now, I think I covered a lot of material, and don't want to be repetitive (if it isn't already too late)
Well it is time to talk about what we all do as traders. We lose. Now it is unfortunate that we lose more in the beginning, because it is so disheartening. But the good news is we learn from our mistakes (hopefully). But even after becoming highly experienced, we can expect to lose about half the time. (I know there are guys that make money 70% or 60% of the time, and they can prove it). But this is all beside the point. The bottom line is we all lose frequently. Now we all know that if you use stops, and are disciplined, you should make more on your winners than you lose on your bad trades. But it doesn't work that way in real life all the time. But it should work that way often enough to make us winners overall. Listed stocks will spread against you. Nasdaq stocks will run away from you. You will know you should get out of a loser, but before you do, it gets so much worse that you stay in because you KNOW it has to get better. Or even worse, you DON'T know you should get out, and it gets worse and so on.... Whatever the circumstances, none of us are robots, and the market doesn't always cooperate and give you a chance to cut your loses like you planned. This is why I am not a big fan of "paper trading". It isn't real, and it doesn't apply to what you will do in a real situation. Bottom line.....there will be debacles. And they are a part of trading. Happens all the time. The key is what to do after you have booked a horrible trade. Or a horrible day, week or month. The tendency is to try and "get even". This equates to overtrading and being more aggressive exactly at the wrong time. But this is human nature. The thing is that it was human nature that got us in the jam in the first place. So you need to give yourself the hook. You need to slow down or stop completely when you are down and out. You need to think about the only thing on Earth that makes sense. That is, of course, baseball. (apologies to you non American traders...) Now you NEVER see a pitcher give up a bunch of runs and ask to be taken out. The manager comes out and makes the change. The pitcher, being competitive by nature, is pissed. But he can't argue with his manager, so out he goes. We don't have a manager....other than ourselves. So as hard as it is, we have to pull ourselves from the field. Then we have to pitch out of the bullpen the next outing. Meaning we have to ease back in. We demote ourselves from Ace to middle relief (at best). You cannot make it up all at once. You need to chip away slowly to recoup a big loss. I know that every single one of my worst ten or so days trading were the days I lost early and tried to get it back. And made it worse. I know that I successfully lost big early and got it all back approximately zero times. A lot of this is attributable to the fact that I lost overnighting and those gaps against you just cannot be made up during the day. But my style is really irrelevant. The fact remains that when you are out of sync, it is definitely not the time to swing for the fences. This is the sure recipe for disaster. You poker players know there are times you even have to fold a full house. It isn't your moment. Take the loses, regroup, take a walk or take a day or a year off. But don't rush right into the next trade. Speaking of baseball, it is breaking my heart that these turds can't settle this thing now. Personally, I would gladly have played for 2K a year if I could have. (plus bus fare and cheap motel rooms of course). But these guys can't figure out how to divvy up 3 Billion dollars? They should get rid of Bud Selig right now and put me in charge (as I have recommended several times to George). Well enough for now, and my sincere regrets for the unavoidable repetition of things said before. But having been said previously does not invalidate them. Peace, Love, Music and Harmony. RS7 PS: Attempts at humor forthcoming.
RS7, This has the potential of being the best thread ever on ET, because successful trading is ALL about handling a bad streak. Today, Lost $200. The last few days have not been kind to me. nitro
Yeah, but you put the periods and commas in the right places!!! (after you edited) (Why quote the whole post?) RS7
you get a gold star for timing. I don't hold things I know I should get out of. I get out of everything pretty quickly. But I have like a fool gone back over and over into a market that was clearly in abuse mode, posting offers only to drop the bid, and the other way round, repeatedly; when there wasn't a prayer of a fair fill or any real order flow, when it was me against the specialist, when banging my head against the wall might be better for me. Yesterday and today were classic examples. What is odd is that I have been warning people about the thin soup this week, and how I expected it right up until 9/11. But Monday's money was really easy and so Tuesday I was caught off guard. Today I was hooked by a lust for revenge.
She is definately not without a sense of humor Best loser on the micro level will be biggest winner on the macro level!
How ironic. I lost last wed-thurs-fri. So I took off Monday. Then yesterday I sat in my office and did not make a single trade (only because nothing was appealing) Today I had a good day. I told MrSub about my "break" on Monday and yesterday. This is something I have tried to make myself do religiously. I have complete belief in breaking a bad streak by eliminating the potential to extend it. Wife home from a meeting now, so I have to obey the REAL MANAGER and leave the game for now. (She's already 15 minutes past her normal bedtime). Later, RS7