I have lost all my dedicated trading capital several times over the years. My lowest times is when I shared my Journey here in ET. Not that I have not had high times here. I have survived and own a home without mortgage payments and no credit cards and a wife that has tolerated this over 31 years. Es
If your trading capital is a few part(less than 20%) of all your available money, and you have others sources of income, that stress is not possible and you can learn and enjoy the journey.
Lost 120K selling puts in 2000. Lesson: If you don't respect the Black Swan, she will bite you in the ass.
Basically, I meant immediate vol. Things like, shorts are about to cover; contracting range will occur at this level; this range and level are about to be abandoned; trend will increase in strength and narrow range. This kind of things. I spread index futures and daytrade index futures.
Exactly what i learned. Anything can happen. The markets will go to the highs you would've never expected and then to the lows you would've never thought of.
Lowest moment came twice,it was not about money,only about not being able to find any meaningful trading method.I was set on mechanical method from the start. I read all the books i could find,took a leave from employment and spend days and night on this,slept very little,ate little and it ended up i was forced to stop from sudden health problem i could not eat for few days.I quit for two years,then i came back fresh and started all over again.All this time i never traded live,because i was always of opinion that this will render ineffective any creativity and i thought being creative is a plus.Again i hit the wall,read quite a lot of game theory books,analyzed results from roulette tables etc. This time i went to casino and bet 10K on a single a roulette spin and i lost.This had a profound effect on me,i started to view everything around me in different way,quite often opposite to what i knew to this point,i started to question everything,but i was not searching for any trading method.This time i went back to work and took it easy,socialized,enjoyed company of people i knew,often went to cinema etc. One day i was in the park on Saturday morning and this elderly Chinese lady was practicing Chinese martial arts, like Shaolin style. I was watching her for maybe one hour and from that day i started reading anything that was said or written by successful people in trading,there are few,just very few.I thought they will make a mistake and say something that will be a breakthrough.One of them did,or maybe two.And this lady thought me a lot, first that the difference exist,that very few can do ordinary things difficult to most and that the ability to see it will not come by force,it can not be learned,it has to be stumbled upon by pure chance and it will take time,long years. So the first time i could not quit to the point that i was sick and second time came from putting on a bet which i lost.Losing 10K was not much of an issue,only the fact that i was wrong that i failed spectacularly,i did not want to be wrong like that ever again.This meant a lot to me,it broke my ego into pieces. Every step of the way came with new grey hair.
Even if the elitetraders might have not had such experiences... Seems like i am not the only one after all. A relevant podcast; https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/merritt-black-discusses-harsh-realities-traders-must/id1467395734?i=1000448897571 Amongst other things, the guy mentions he had coached an ex-military fighter who says the despair in trading is worse than fighting in afghanistan was. Worth the listen. Atleast it was for me.