in the words of the prison warden in cool hand luke...."boy, you've got to get your mind right". In my experience so far, loosing streaks are partially random chance and partially bad mental attitude. Nothing messes with my mental attitude like loosing more than I planned on. I don't have any good psychiatric drugs, so I just have to take a break from trading for a while.
I agree. I truly believe that the unavoidable streaks of bad "random chance" lead to "bad mental attitude" and if you don't take a break, you will cause a break. There are no "good psychiatric drugs" to my knowledge. Good post. Thanks. A welcome relief. rs7
And I thought I was the only one that did the firecrackers and little green army men thang Anyway RS7, My biggest losing days have also involved trying to play catch-up after a bad start and it sure is difficult, at times to be disciplined enough to take myself off the 'pitchers mound'. Wasn't it "uncle Jessie" who said something like, " nothing like losing it all, to learn what not to do". in the reminis...remines... well you know the one. I focus on being a survivng trader, first and foremost these days. But it sure has taken a lot of hard knocks ( drawdowns on my account) to get to the point of placing my stops with my orders and honoring them. I also have a written daily stop loss (relative to my account size and risk tolerance) and I do my best to honor that. When I have several of these in succession, I stop and watch the market for at least one full day - just my way of exercising some discipline on myself - doesn't have to suit everybody. When I sit out at least one day - sometimes more, almost everytime I return, I have a green day. This has worked most of the time for me and so far seems to be an effective way for this trader to curb losing streaks. Just my 1.5 cents worth. Best Regards and good L-abor U-nder C-orrect K-nowledge in your trading. Plum-loser- I mean-lazy
When I was a kid in the late 60's we used to build cannons, rockets, pipe bombs, etc.. We used match heads, caps, tape, empty CO2 cartridges, copper tubing, gunpowder out of pilfered .22's and model rocket engines. WE HAD A BALL and nobody thought a thing about it (except for the occasional lecture about "that poor boy who lost all his fingers" ). Those were the good old days. Boy did we have fun. It's not that way anymore. . Kids nowadays have to be politically correct, "safe", and "non-judgemental". It must be hell.
Updated for todays market. Trader: shouldn't we bury them Market makers? Guru: to hell with them Market makers. buzzards gotta eat same as worms.
I trade a certain size. If after a certain specified time period I am losing money in that time period, then I cut my size in half. I keep on cutting (in half) as I have more losing time periods. If I start winning in one time period, I add to my size, but I add slower than I cut (for example, my size might become 1.5 times my old size or I might add size arithmetically instead of geometrically). I don't like losing size, so this rule makes me into a patient trader. It also makes me "prove myself" after a losing streak before I am "allowed" to trade greater size. Carl
Rigel, I did the same dumb stuff at about the same time. Maybe we did it together. Once time we tied a bomb to fifty of so helium balloons and let it rip over the water. But the wind changed and it blew up over a college football stadium during a game. Scared me straight!!! It's a good thing it got hard to get ahold of "saltpeter". Used to be too easy. rs7
CarlErikson and PlumLazy and ElCubano (in the following thread. this is a first edit just confirm the same stuff. So for the newer traders, just try and keep this stuff in mind. It's the whole purpose of this thread. Good luck to all! Don't know if there is anything left to say. Happy Trading, and Happy Trails to You! RS7
Revenge Trading can be a killer.. I have found myself in that situation quite often.. The way I have worked on this is to also set stops for the day and month...If I am down X amount during the day and that is my stop; I stop ( same with month). Like you said there will be another day to play. I have also set stop gains for the month and day which I will increase in the future. This keeps me from giving money back...What do some of you think about the stop gain??? Should I keep pressing.. Anyways, I think this is a great thread and losing is definitely a part of the game. The way I see it is: If my stop gets hit and I am out of my position; I made an exellent trade. Once I blow my stop is when my emotions get the better of me and fuck things up...So I live and die by my stops. That is really the only thing you can control once in a trade....