Hey Folks! Probably like most of you on traders on the message boards I'm losing my ass on the markets! Lately I've been doing some hard thinking about what I'll do if I (or my account balance) decide I just can't cut it as a trader. Well, "losing my ass" is bit harsh, it's really more like I'm slowly, aganozingly getting blead to death. I've been at this bitch for nearly a year now. I win some days, lose some days, break even some days, nothing ever too drastic (although there have been a few nightmare downside days, but hopefully they're in the past), but the last months have been showing a slowy, yet steadily, declining equity curve. My savings have all but evaporated too(even though I've been living like a hermit). I'm on my last legs. Damnations! I feel I'm frustratingly close to cracking into the hallowed ranks of the profitable, but it's beginning to look as though I'll run out of equity before I ever get there! Arggh! This trading gig has consumed my entire life! I quit a decent job (that I really enjoyed!), broke up with my fiancee, turned my back on an emotionally nourishing (and fun) social circle all to chase the almighty $$. Ever since I was 'privileged' enough to catch a glimpse of how the "other half" live, the seeds of discontent were sewn and I simply had to become one of them! Trading was gonna be my ticket! Is there any turning back? I really don't know if I could go back to being Joe Average again. I'm not looking for trading advice for anyone. I'm aware it's all a skill that you either learn (before your cash runs out), or you don't. This isn't going to be one of those "Losing money - please help" threads, my question to all you budding trading aspirants is what would you do if you blew up as a trader? Where would you turn to make your pay? (Reallistically - none of this "I'd be an astronaut" stuff). How would you handle it? Perhaps some of you that already went through this, but hang out on the boards for old time's sake, can answer this. Or you 'successful' traders (there's probably like about 5 on the whole board), hypothetically, what would you guys do?
I never really quite left my "day job". I do electrolysis on Saturday and a couple of nights a week. Since I am the only one who does it within 150 miles, I felt really bad about not continuing. I think it gives me an extra security and makes me trade better. I am not scared money. That is my 2 cents.
Redart, Firstly, welcome to this community... I notice that this is your first post... Most people blow up or slow bleed at one stage in their career... even the world's top traders... get out a copy of Market Wizards... several of them blew up or chopped around for years before finally making it... If you are running low on resources, such that position sizing and expectancy considerations make further trading statistically not feasible, I would strongly suggest you take a 1 or 2 year sabbatical from trading, take a job and accumulate resources for another go at the game... The market will always be there and trading is something you can do till the day you die... think longer term... if your resource levels are becoming less than feasible, take a holiday from trading... come back later... Regards, Candle
If I blow up I will go back out there and do it over again. But before I do that I need to rethink my strategies and find out why I lost that account, make the proper adjustment and come out fresh again. If Joe Blow could do it and I cant then I have not work hard enough. With anything good in life, u need to earn it the right way... with lots of hard work.
Larry Rosenberg, Former Chairman of the MERC didn't do so well his first year trading. Lots of people take a year or more to learn and that is under ideal circumstances - with a trading mentor, on an exchange floor or in an electronic station using someone elses money etc etc. I typically see people take at least a year to become profitable. FYI: You should not be doing trading for a living unless you truly love it. If you switched industries to do trading without a clear understanding of the job and what it entails then shame on you. A beginner without any experience in the business needs to learn from someone: in these cases a prop firm or something similar is a better path than trying to learn it on your own .....
I felt compelled to post a reply because I am going through a similar situation that you are. I am slowly bleeding, on an almost daily basis. But I have had the experience of blowing out before, back in 1998. In 1997 I started trading full-time (and this was the beginning of the tech bubble, mind you) and I made a small fortune very quickly. l I came to believe that trading was incredibly easy, and it was....then. I was ignorant to the use of stops in those days. One day in 1998 I took a major equity hit (not the mother of all losses, but a 10% equity drawdown in one day). I had never experienced anything like that before in my trading career at that point. After that loss, my trading psyche began to change, little-by-little. I became increasingly less strict about my trade entries, week after week. I took on riskier trades. I wanted nothing more than to make my money back, and do it quickly. The equity curve was looking bad. Actually I cannot say that I truly blew out, because I did not whittle my account all the way to zero. When I reached my initial starting equity (from 1997 when I became a trader) I decided to call it quits. here's what I did: I returned to the corporate world for several years, read books & saved my pennies, until I started trading again in January of last year. In the trading world, I've visited both extremes: the highs of making the kind of money each week that made my friends green with envy, and the dejection of incrementally bleeding an account down to the "stopping point." Right now, I am looking for a part-time job to help alleviate the financial burden of going through my "tough first year" as I like to call it. I'm a rookie all over again, but this time the rules of the game are different. Regardless, I feel confident that I will become profitable this year. If you love trading, stick with it but be realistic, too. If you can find part-time work that doesn't interfere with your trading, that could be an option for you before you go all the way and capitulate entirely. Good trading. I hope things work out for you.