Look forward to reading it OZ. Maybe we should all post our blatant acts of trading stupidity and get someone to publish it. "How I went brain-dead in the markets and lived to tell about it."
Well I'll start off. ** Blew out 1M+ in the last year+. ** Got myself in a situation where I have daily anxiety. ** Degraded my health immensely in the process. ** Obtained some grey hairs and lost some hair follicles. ** In reality I should quit, because it has become hazardous to my health. But I keep at it (relentlessly) because I'm getting very close. This should take the prize.
Thanks for the replies fellow trade dwellers. A couple of thoughts on feedback so far. (1) What % I did in options is irrelevant. I only mention a % figure to give you guys an idea I was successful. And yes, in hindsight, I should have probably just kept trading my account options. However, at the time I thought I could make even more money daytrading futures. And, to be honest, I didn't have enough time to do the research and trades for both given my extensive research process. (2) Daytrading equities with Bright? You miss the point, part of what I discovered is that I didn't like the process of making trade decisions intraday and sitting in front of a screen for 8 hours. Besides, I have worked prop and it is not something I intend to do again. (3) I don't considered I 'failed'. I found it that this trading style didn't suit my personality. Remember, in the future I will still be trading index futures on a daily basis, but purely on a limited basis when the one trade setup that suits me sets up (which is usually between 1-5 times per month). The idea of the book is for my benefit mainly, but considering the amount of information I learnt in the process and how not to go about day trading I think others might find it useful. I could also give some reflections on working as a prop trader.
I would never tell anyone to stop trading index futures. Even myself, I think I learnt a lot about the market and trading in the time I have been trading index futures. So, although the performance wasn't great I am grateful for the learning experience the market taught me. Also, remember I will still be trading index futures daily going forward, just on a strictly limited basis, perhaps 1-5 trades a month.
Why don't you go back to trading options ? One of the main reasons I jumped from options to futures is because of the spread and sloppy executions.
I am going back to trading options. Spread is definitely a minor issue and I reject certain option trades if the spread is too wide for my liking. Executions were never an issue because I always place limit orders. I would never place a market order in an options trade. I say a minor issue because my option trades were always major position trades taking months rather than weeks so the reward was never less than 50%.
I'd definately read your book Toad I'm in a similar boat; going from options to futures. Although I never made money consistantly trading options; I have had alot of successful trades. <<< my money managemnet skills is what the main problem is and lack of a solid trading plan. I've been trading futures for the past 6 or so months and well I have the same feeling. You need to make a decision in the split of a second and you often fake yourself out and do things you wouldnt have done if you looked at it from a different perspective. Also I agree feeling like you have to stare at the screen for 8 hours often times makes you anxious and stressed
I had the opposite experience, toad. I never could seem to make money consistently in options but seem to have the knack for futures. Thing is, the options market was my first stop after getting interested in trading. I was learning TA along with options terminology and concepts. I suspect that if I went back to options now after all I've learned along the way I could probably start over and be profitable this time around. Out of curiosity, what option trades did you do mostly? i.e. credit spreads, condors, calendars, diagonals?
I was a long only option trader. So, I would buy calls or puts based on a technical directional model I had created. It worked rather well and although I won't say my exact return it was more than 20% on average per month. Yes, it is highly risky in some respects in that you can lose a lot of money as well as make a lot of money. I had losing months of around 30% at times, but that was balanced by often having winning months in excess of 100%. Also, there were very few trades on a monthly basis. I never held more than 4 positions at once. These were what I call long term trades, lasting a few months usually. I am slowly getting back into my options. I closed out my first option trade yesterday. At the end of October I bought some DJX calls for $2.80 and closed them the day before yesterday for $3.90. It was nice and relaxing to have trades that I could monitor and think about on a closing basis once again. I prefer that a lot. Although, doing some day trades in futures, a few times a month have their place in my approach as well. I moved from stocks to options to futures. After trading all three I prefer options. I started writing my book. Could take a while. Even if it never gets published that's fine by me, it's worthwhile to put your thoughts down on paper and look back at all the good and bad points.