How much are we willing to sacrifice in our pursuit of the possible but elusive chance of a better deal in life? If your job was decent and you actually enjoyed it, and if you could get that job or an equivalent back, you're lucky, and should probably take a break from trading for the moment and get that job back. Skimping on food water and electricity isn't worth it at this point. You can do as Candletrader suggested, keep papertrading, and come back to this game later. Those of us who have chosen to reach for the brass ring on this carousel have taken Robert Frost's "Road Less Traveled", and cannot expect the majority of our friends, acquaintances, and especially family, to be sympathetic or supportive of our path that is lined with signs saying "Danger! Warning! Falling Rocks. Turn Back Now!" We have made the unpopular decision to take a gamble in the pursuit of a higher payoff. But when are we sacrificing too much? It's not worth the loss of our friends and family. The negative feedback that those friends and family give us can put a psychological hex on our trading. We need to learn to separate our trading ambitions from our personal relationships. Confine all discussion of trading to those people who are in the same unpopular minority: that's us here. Do not discuss trading or markets with friends or family. They cannot be expected to understand. Lobster, when you've really struck it rich, you can go back and show the results to your father. But until then, include him in your life except for the money part. We have to be able to succeed in this game with or without the psychological support of others. We can't blame their lack of sympathy for our failure. If our trading skills are that fragile then in the longrun those people were correct to warn us that we aren't up to the task. This game is not worth pursuing if we have to cut ourselves off from food water electricity or family. But we can exclude friends and family from our discussions of this game.
True. I guess it is the old "being my own enemy" thing... Well, give me another year and a half and I should be humming along nicely without being disturbed by emotions that should not even be related to trading.
Redart here is my advice to you....forget about the daytrading and the need to be constantly in front of the computer 24/7. What you need to do is get back to your office job or a similar position and become a swing trade using smaller shares. Now what you do is you use the salary to live on and hopefully add surplus to your trading account. All the while your still trading without the high maintenance involved as you are doing so now. I was in a similar situation many many years ago when I first started out trading. I bit the bullet went back to work and began to swing trade for 1-5 days on the side. I made more money doing it this way then I ever did hyper trading like a lunatic who has to throw up 50+ trades a day. "Bottom line" is that your bottom line will still increase and you will not have to eat your seed corn (profits) in order to maintain a living. Do this for as long it takes for your account to hit critical mass where you are able to go back to full time trading. At that point feel free to give the hyper daytrading crap a try...but keep 2 accounts at that point where one is a swing trading account and the other is a pure daytrading account. You need to slow the markets down in your mind your caught up in a whirlwind of having to make money to survive and undermining your chance to one day become a self sufficient trader. Go back to work....if your really serious about this as a career you need to take a step back go work again and swing trade on the side. This is the best advice I can give you..think longer term and your account will grow and you can come back stronger than before.
I've heard of the 'detachment from the money' advice, and I suppose it would be useful to someone that whose trading is affected by constantly bouncing equity. I think that's only part of it. Yes, you need to be detached so direct loss/gain doesn't sink you emotionally. But I've always felt the detachment people talk about is more nuanced than simple equity swings. Many of the traders talk of how it's the game that still interests them-not the money. I read these comments to mean that the challenge balances the influence of money. Indeed the challenge is the motivation. And that's why they're successful-the challenge interests them more. My friends, not really having the same desires as me, found it difficult to understand. I'd try to explain, but I got sick of being told why I'm making such a stupid decision, why I'm going to regret it, why I'm going to fail etc etc. Have you read the Market Wizards books? Several traders talked about how people(friends) didn't understand trading, so they ended up not sharing that passion with people. I wouldn't want to be dragged down by the negativity, but at the same time, I wouldn't write off friendships because they don't get it. Many people don't. I just started feeling like too different to them to bother maintaing any kind of a friendship. I can easily meet another girl, probably far better than my ex-fiancee. You seem to be looking at trading as a way to a lifestyle you desperately want to attain. These last two comments and the focus on money/lifestyle seems... I don't want to be harsh... but they seem shallow to me. And I think trading requires real depth. I apologize in advance for my frankness. You've shared alot. But you did ask. André
If you blow up repeatedly, I suggest you get a job working for the Palestinian Authority. All their other employees only manage to blow up once. You could really be a success!!
When I left Corp America in late 1999 it was to trade full time. Dec 1999 and Jan 2000 were bliss as I netted close to $ 20,000 for those 2 months. And then the bottom fell out. Now I have been involved in the stock market since 1986 so I was not a novice , and had a good knowledge of investing. Day Trading was another matter , what killed me was the mental factor . Lucky for me I had a business that I had stared part time in 1996. That business turned full time and has become quiet successful. I run it from my home. In the beginning I was absorbed with day trading and would be watching the markets from 8:00 Am until 8 PM . When I started losing money that all changed pretty quick as I started to lose interest. After about 2 years of trading I realized that this was no way to make a living. I still Day Trade but very casually , maybe 30 - 40 trades a month. The excitement of the game still keeps me interested , the stock market as a whole is truly one of my real passions.
and I recently decided to get a part time night job 3 or 4 nights a week. Not because I need the money, but for three main reasons: 1) Gets me out of the house to interact with many different people, like people with most "normal jobs" do. 2) Lets me keep my mind off the market for a while so I don't burn out. 3) Emotionally easier for me to go out and have fun and spend money that I made at my fun, part time job, not my trading capital. NST http://www.northshoretrading.8k.com