Curious to hear what you other pros out there think is the toughest thing trading for a living in your day to day. I'm speakin' to you guys who have been around the block, are doin' this full time, and are making money consistently, not the ones out there who are trading part time/still struggling/haven't made it to profitability yet. For me, the hardest part is the woulda coulda shouldas. I execute like clockwork, I take losses with a smile, I stick with my plan, I know it's rock solid and I see the results in the fact that I'm making good money. But every so often those woulda coulda shoulda's put the strain on my brain when I see how much I've left on the table. The "what might have been" is what gives me the personal grief. For example, the brokers- MER, MWD, GS etc.- have been getting creamed. I gotta nice piece a' those guys recently and had a good month overall, cruising along, but I go back and see what I missed and it's like "man, sheee, look what ya missed...." woulda made this much more, coulda had this, shoulda done that. I tell myself hey jerky, u r makin' money in the chop n' slop, bringing in profits even when a lot of other traders are over a barrel, you know the pluses and minuses of your method, gotta take bad with good, why beat yourself up? So anyway that's the toughest part of the day to day for me- getting my emotions to pipe down when I see something left on the table, even when I know in my head I can't have the whole pie. Anyone else want to comment on the toughest part of the game for them.
Somebody here got me to completely relax about that, Commiso, Magna, somebody ,said" if your system, signal, whatever, tells you to get out then you didn't leave anything on the table. I always look at the continuation of a trade I was in as a new trade and ignore the fact I was just in it. Just having gotten out is irrellevant.
sure, and i know the maxim "trades are like fish, you cut off both ends and eat the middle." logically it doesn't bother me, but emotionally it tweaks me. My personal pet peeve that comes w/ being a perfectionist i guess.
I know the feeling, what used to tweak me was taking a swing trade position and watching it dance around without benefittig from the wiggles. I figured out that many times the wiggles en total over several days were worth more than the swing trade. Now I daytrade around swing positions and benefit . It takes part of the emotion out of the trade for me. You know I read your post and you are most certainly a perfectionist. Once when Einstein was asked what he would be if not his present gig he answered, " a plumber, everything comes out where you want it to."
I think you are showing a real propensity for trading by taking the time to ask these types of questions. It's the people who sit by and don't question themselves, their ideas, their strategies that I worry about. As far as your "woulda, coulda's" - we suggest that our traders do "half" on some of their "whims" ...if you trade 1000 share lots...do 500 a few times, and you'll be surprised that you probably didn't leave anything on the table...you are probably just being a bit smarter about your selections. Good Luck!! Don
I too had similar problem Darkhorse... Lotta woulda coulda shouldas... Still gets to me from time to time... I am not totaly immune to it but at the same time I have experienced more times than I would like to remeber what this can do to the only trade you have control over, which is the current one... So I just try to stay the course and take it trade to trade... Other than fully exerting myself in the current play I seldom dwell on past ones... Not to say I do not analyze and see what I could have better but I rarely get attached to the conclusion or let it interfere with the present... Like my father always said to me... If you haveone foot stuck in past and one in the future all you can do is piss on the present! PEACE and good trading, Commisso Oh and as for me I guess the toughest part is staying on the plateu and grinding it out when my equity curve is flatlining or worse yet declining... Over the years the need to always have a rising equity curve has heldme back... Each day I grow more and more detached to the monetary results on a micro time frame and really have started toapproach market in a selfess and desireless manner on a day to day basis...
Just lurk in the popular IRC chat rooms for a while. Most of the posters lose 2 cents when they are wrong and make dollars when they are right. Do what they do, and you'll never have another regret.
I hate chat rooms... It's not real regret because I don't actually regret anything. More like ghost regret. Logically I know that those extra gains are a mirage, because if I want bigger sized wins I have to stick around longer, and if I stick around longer I have to take bigger losses which cancel out the wins. My head gets this, my heart doesn't. The pain is purely emotional. My brain has it figured out and is cool as a cucumber. It's just the perfectionist emotional side that pushes my buttons. By the way this isn't actually a "problem" for me- it doesn't affect my trading in any real way. It's just my personal "issue"- the part of the day to day that gets to me most.
"Just lurk in the popular IRC chat rooms for a while. Most of the posters lose 2 cents when they are wrong and make dollars when they are right. Do what they do, and you'll never have another regret. " lol some in the chat rooms never post a loss.they must really be good.hmm.chat people have this thing about only posting winners and are silent about losers.