If you have an edge, you gotta keep working that edge as much as you can. You'll still have streaks of good luck and bad luck, sure- that happens and is a part of trading. What you cannot do, however, is let the bad luck dictate when you stop trading for the day. Unless you have tested data that shows that a stop loss is somehow profitable for you I see know reason why you would. Here's an analogy- I play a lot of poker online. It's good money bc of the poker boom and it's enjoyable sometimes. I have an edge over the guys I sit with. That doesn't mean sometimes I won't have downswings of thousands of dollars at a time though. Luck is a big part of it, but I have to keep digging and playing my game because, eventually my edge works itself out. Having a stop loss would be idiotic because I'm not losing money because of poor play, I'm losing it because of bad luck. Same with trading. You need an edge (YOU DONT HAVE ONE and that much is clear, I don't think you really know what one is), when you have that edge you push it as much as you can unless you've got something specific telling you that at this moment you don't have one. Something specific = tested data. But you don't know how to test, you don't know what's relevant there at all, so this is wasted on you. So you'll keep gambling and trading with no edge and trading with your gut or some edgeless "system" that's not even really a system and you'll keep going broke, eaten alive by commissions. I guarantee it. Don't let positive days fool you- you aren't learning to trade, you're just getting lucky. I'm not trying to be mean. Go learn what an edge is, go learn how to tell if you have one, and then don't trade again till you know you have one. Anything else is just lighting money on fire. This might sound harsh, but it's 100% true and your own experience bears it out. Don't be willfully blind to this.
Day 50 Winning the WAR... You can never cheat the market. If you cheat, and get by it once or twice.. you'll be caught eventually. You can break one or two golden rules of trading, cheat around the market.. but eventually the market will catch up with you. You can never win the WAR with mediocre trading skills, only a battle once in a while. Its always the same thing.. when you're out for a day or two, you feel like you missed out on an eternity. But, it was awesome to get back into the swing of things.
Day 51 ...whole ATTENTION I had a Doctor's appointment at 10:00 am. Then while I was driving on the highway coming back, a lady in a maxima was rear-ended by a huge truck, 24-something wheeler. Because the last time I had witnessed an accident, and ran away from it without stopping when I should've... (because a month or so ago, 9 or so people were run over by a drunk driver while helping out in an accident scene.) This time, I decided to redeem myself. I was there for like an hour giving witness statements etc. But, even with all that.. I was able to put together a great trading day. I thought I wasn't going to trade, but.. the market moves were pretty predictable later on into the day. Great day for trading yet again.. Now ON.. I MUST never put myself in a position to drive before the market opens. I must have my utmost attention, and that focus completely on the market open.
Day 52 BoTToM pIcKing will get you HURT... I should never try to pick tops or bottoms. My trading must be reactive rather than predictive. I need to take my trading to the next level ASAP. I must be profitable EVERYDAY. No time to waste out on...
hey Rip, I just started reading this journal today. Are you net positive across all your account this year so far or net negative?
Up around +$ 5,500.. but I'been taking money out and buying me a newer computer and couple of LCDs etc... And I am currently holding to a severly losing position in my Swing Trading account ( -$ 2,000)
I thought my position was automatically (ACCIDENTLY) liquidated already. TradeStation account statements are non-decipherable as to whats going on. I actually thought they took me out of my position by looking at the account statement. This was due in part to not having a full understanding on what the exact margins were. I thought they were applying something higher margin rate than what was published on the website. I called them and found out that that wasn't the case. Then I had trouble with my TradeStation platform... where my charts and everything were messed up for a couple of days. Then I couldn't find my position because it was right around the contract rollover date, but on a TradeStation platform, the order entry platform is just like a chart.. you need to change the symbols.. (I actually had the YMM06 position, but my order platform was saved to YMH06).. Then, by the time I located my positon... the losses were around -$ 1,500 (15% of my swing trading account) and climbing higher....-$ 2,500 Then I thought about the "reversion-to-mean" nature of the Financial Indexes, and the upcoming rate hike.. Thus, I decided to meet the margin call head on.
Reversion to mean is not a guarantee and sometimes it takes years to revert back. Can you handle hanging onto the position that long if its sucking money from your account? I couldn't and wouldn't. "Meet the margin call head on" sounds like a line from a Rambo movie. It has no place in my trading world. Assuming that a postion is closed is a typical rookie mistake. The problem is that most rookies end up being broke. You really need to spend a little time developing a system or checklist to make sure you always know every single one of your positions and their status. Trading is not a hobby. It also sounds like you need to spend some time learning how to use Tradestation before you use real money. Not knowing if you have a position on because you are having platform problems for a couple of days is not acceptable. Why didn't you call Tradestation and talk directly to customer support and ask if you had any open positions? If you are not sure, ask. Hopefully some of my comments help and make sense. Trading seems to magnify errors. Simple mistakes and laziness have a habit of turning into huge losses. If I lost 15% of my account because I was not aware of a position I would be seriously pissed. And I would stop the bleeding immediately.
Maybe you could learn something from a newbie which made it - and only used 5 min per day on the stock market: http://www.stressfreetrading.com/darvas.htm