You need to read Mark Douglas now. ASAP. Go to http://traderslibrary.com and order his first book - The Disciplined Trader immediately. Instead of giving any more good money to other traders in the market, invest it in yourself and use it to buy this book. You might not be able to afford a psychologist, but this is even better. At a fraction of the price. When you are done reading that book, go and order his second book, Trading In The Zone. Read these books and then come back and reccommend them to the next person crying about not having any discipline. I am willing to bet that - if you are truly serious about becoming a successful trader - reading these books will be a turning point in your career. Anybody in this forum recommending these books to you has probably been where you are now - or worse. Of course, nothing will make you go out and invest the time and money in these books except the accumulated emotional pain and psychological damage you have inflicted upon yourself due to trading. If you have pretty much been pushed over the edge, this is your next move...
Agree. But I think if I visit your site a few months ago, I would have no idea what you are really saying.
I'm a little late to his thread, but this is an awesome post, probably the best I have ever read on ET. I used to think trading was 80-90% psychology, I am now convinced it is 99% psychology. Flashboy, look at your beliefs. How are they making you do what you do? Telling someone to "just stop doing what you are doing wrong" doesnt work. We have to understand why we do what we do. Best of luck!
Flashboy, I've read so much helpful stuff on ET that I wanted to share the solution I found for this problem. This may not work for everybody but it certainly worked for me. After a couple of years of losing money trading index futures I realised that my discipline problems were much worse and much more difficult to solve than I had previously thought. I had had the usual problems of not having a good enough system and not trusting it but then I developed something that backtested well and it gave me a bit more confidence. Still couldn't follow it. I decided that the best strategy was to get other people involved so that I would be unable to change my strategy mid-trade. I asked around friends and family and carefully selected 2 people from the rush of volunteers eager to throw money at a VERY consistent loser with an equity curve that made you feel you were holding the chart upside down. I guess people just like the idea of being involved in futures trading even if all the evidence shows it's going to cost them money. I showed them the backtesting results and promised to rigidly follow the system. The first week or so was so excruciatingly painful that I felt I needed to handcuff myself to something out of reach of the computer. I had to sit and watch profits disappearing (before I would have exited like a frightened rabbit), prices hammering towards my stop without any sign of retracement etc.. but I knew I couldn't face my investors and say that I had screwed up and not done what I said I'd do. Now I've lost count of how many times I would have loved to chicken out and cut a winner short only to find I finished up with more than double (or triple) the profit by the time the system gave an exit signal. Anyway, while I'm not exactly making a fortune, I've had 5 profitable months out of the last 6 which is gigantic step from having 1 winning month in 2 years. Once I had experienced the painful side of trades going against me but having to stick with them, it just stopped bothering me. Good luck!
Slow down on taking the number of entires and cut your position size. Think of an appropriate number and then cut that by 1/2. Also limit yourself to x number of trades. If you follow the above you'll find that you force yourself to be much more selective in taking trades. In this market, overtrading will kill you.
Speaking of bias, it's funny how the mind can play tricks on you. http://www.chem.vu.nl/~feenstra/confuse.html Check out the second one. How many black dots are there?
============== Flashboy; 1]I was suprised at my self when i first started trading,because; had plenty of discipline as a kid , still had trouble in trading. 2] Dont feed the monkeys, I have fed birds popcorn scraps and elephants peanuts; sounds like you are not trading enough to trade like a experienced mm/specialist , and too much trading for a swing trader. 3]Trading is more difficult than i realized at first-higher highs/bids and higher low/bids can also be a good helpful polar bear set up also. Just thought of a RE trade i lost money on, not enough experience; and too hasty to buy.You read this wrong if you think I am against market makers/specialists. Hasty-surely tends to poverty.-Solomon trader/investor king
I believe Banjo had it right.. I am too afraid my bias is correct and I'm going to miss out on the entire move... and the market couldn't go down any further yesterday is a great example.. I was convinced the market was at the low and turning up.. and couldn't see what the market was actually telling me which was .. it was failing at every attempt to make a run up..
Just follow the trend, and you will do OK. Don't waste money buying the books of Mark Douglas. They are crap. If you want to read trading books, read some of the good, old ones - written by Livermore, Baruch, Soros and Darvas. Market Wizards 1 and 2 are also good.