I knew a trader once...he used to talk about how he started out. He had sold a business and pocketed a half million $. He started trading and said, "I turned that into 25 grand." Last I saw him, he had been known to have 100k days. (don't know how he's done since 2001 -- it's been rough on everyone).
I was one foot out the door, but finally found someone who could take all that knowledge in my head and get it organized into one successful system. Ever since then I have been successful in trading and training.
good question. for most of my trading "career" i traded stocks. as i said, i never thought i would lose as much as i did. so when the wonderful PDT rule came about and my account dipped below 25k, i was pretty pissed. i then started entering at the close and holding overnight. that way i could at least trade and not violate the PDT rule. what a bad f*cking rule by the way. anyway, i liked trading overnights and i had some good ideas, but i found it hard to control my trades with the gaps. yes, some gaps go your way and some don't...but it was hard to control losses according to plan when you get gaps. basically, ever since the PDT rule came out and i went under 25k, i've not been trading much. i still watch the markets and think of ideas, but i don't make as many trades as i used to. i know the eminis are an option for me..and i've traded them a little, but when you don't know what you're doing, you can get wiped out fast trading those things. so this is why i'm thinking i should just sell the car, close the trading accounts, put it all in the bank....get a job, save up some more money and in the meantime think about the markets some more. i'll trade again when i come up with something profitable..
why don't you post some of your most recent daytrades (and why you took the trade) and let us have a look at them. perhaps the community can shed some light on your trading funk.
Hey Vad, Are you the guy from Realitytrader.com? If so, what is the name of your book going to be and when is it coming out?
I am. Title is in discussion yet, working version is Tape Reading Techniques: A Trader's Jorney to Reality. Not sure on the time line yet, optimists say till the end of this year, realists count on Q1 of 2003 Vad
Tape Reading Techniques, sounds interesting. There is never any good books dealing with tape reading. I'll be looking for it. You think you will offer it on the site when it comes out? Sorry for taking your thread off topic Gordon. I'll stop.
Honestly, no idea how distribution is handled... but in any case it will be posted on our website. It's about tape reading in its original sense - system designed in times of Jesse Livermore and adapted to today's market (I consider it necessary to say about it to distinguish from the idea of tape reading as pure staring at T&S) Vad
Well, I have not really shared any of my personal story here, but since it is so damn similar to GG's, I figure I ought to give GG some support.. When I started trading in 1997, I also had the initial surge of beginner's luck...I had the opportunity to trade some borrowed money, a significant amount and take a sizable draw from the profits...In my first two months I made a killing just doing the typical newbie buy the tech stocks that are going higher...In those days, I mainly traded DELL, Ascend Communications, Netscape, Apple...This is over 5 years ago, prior to the real daytrading boom, but right around the time that Block Trading was making headlines and Harvey Houtkin and the SOES Bandits were popular... Anyway, to make a long story short...Within a few months, I bought a new car for 25k(lol), I was 24 years old as well...I started thinking like I was some sort of a King and all sorts of idiotic bs that still nauseates me 5 years later...RIght after I bought that damn car, I lost a huge amount trading a bunch of NSCP overnight...I then proceeded to go into a period of insane equity fluctuations...up, down, up, down, etc, etc...It all caught up to me in 1999...All of my bad habits caught up to me and I found myself in early 2000 in a similar situation to what GG is into now...It is a gut wrenching experience that is made worse by the fact that family and friends KNOW you are not making it...You want to scream at them and say "I know what I am doing", but you know that you do and you don't and the same time...I can identify with that... The biggest problem you have GG is that you are "scared money" now...You are probably trading with the knowledge of every single tick and how it will affect your living expenses...When you get down low enough on the account equity, you have absolutely no pain threshold and without that pain threshold, trading is an emotional beast...The worst thing you can do for your long term trading plan(which it seems like you want to be doing for the longer term) is to continue to trade even when you are emotionally damaged...Once you return to trading, you are going to have to work it out of your system for a few months...You are going to have to forget the bad habits you developed when you were, more than likely, living and dying by the ticks...That is the biggest danger you have by continuing to trade...You are now destroying your mind with it, so its best to sell the car, put the money in the bank, do something else for a year of eighteen months...In the meantime, just become a casual observer of the markets...Remove yourself from the emotional need to have money in the market and then you will start to find your answers...
predicament is the word, vulture. i can identify with you totally..your car situation and everything. the worst part is definitely friends and family. anyone who knows me knows i'm into the markets. i don't discuss my trading much with anyone though because it just causes problems. i've learned to not say anything if i have a up day or a down day. if i sell my car and/or get a job, that will be the worst. the bright side is, i have zero debt, unlike most people. all my friends are in debt. so it's not like they're in any better situation than me. what kind of car did you buy? heh.. and did you end up selling it? buying the car might have been a blessing in disguise for me. if i didn't buy it, i probably would have lost the money. at least now i can sell it and i have some left. "I know what I am doing", but you know that you do and you don't and the same time...I can identify with that. i can relate to that a lot. i feel like i know so much, but at the same time, if that's true, why can't i make money? it's tough.. in the end, i just tell myself this..... that quote that goes something like, whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.. it's so true. in the short term, we don't want any problems in our lives. but in the long term, it makes you a stronger person. so although this sucks for me right now, maybe i can learn something from it.