============= Last 2 month DIA,SPY,YM ,ES havent been strongly uptrending ; must simply be you need some more charting/bid/ask experience. Also BIG difference between picking a TOP AND ; the market showing you it has topped , by trading/crashing below 50 day moving average. Experience, more months/years the better on this also. Top picking without confirmation can be simply ego/inexperienced , a lack of wisdom; unless you are a district attourney, dont call yourself a DA,OK??? People tend to live thier names/nicknames Aspen boy; hope this helped , it helped me
And Aspenboy; let me repeat a pattern, dont call yourself a DA unless you want to be a DA,OK????? Many in our family have hard heads, thickskullls, this can be a gift
You haven't lost enough money yet. I assure you this will prove to be a great motivator. Just give it time.
just buy and hold in these markets make lots of moeny dont worry about TA for now cause it is waste of time iun bull market
Just want to Thank everyone for their input. Alot of wisdom and experience here...and it certainly helps those of us still relatively new on the path. Mark Douglas's -Trading in the Zone-has been helpful and may address action such as mine. Probably need to re-read and ABSORB/ACT on some of it. A Happy and Safe 4th to all!
Aspenboy, This is a serious problem faced in various degrees by most traders at some stage in their development. Many never get past it and so they end up just supporting the development of other traders with their funds. And for that we do thank those who never reach consistently profitable trading - seriously, thanks Its likely that in your search to understand the markets you have found things that work sometimes and internalized them. These things are often very appealing and can be very satisfying - I picked the turn to the point ... Yahahaha! This satisfaction makes them addictive especially when you are bored waiting for another trade or have maybe taken a couple of losses and are feeling bad and want to feel good. But they are not statistically reliable and part of your plan so they will sabotage your success. You have a number of "patterns" that are destructive to your trading. Douglas's stuff will help remove them. Anything about getting rid of (replacing) bad habits will help. Robin Dayne's lectures talk about them. One key is to get anything that helps you take the pattern instead of follow your plan off your charts. Its much easier not to trade reversals if you don't ever put the fibs or pivots on the chart in the first place. So, IMHO, simplify, focus on your plan, focus on being very patient while you wait, and take all the temptations out of your environment that you can, walk away for a bit if you feel bad or unsettled. This is just a bad habit (pattern) that you need to extinguish. Remember that it takes 21 days to a few months (depending on who you listen to) to finally extinguish a habit you have lived with for some time. http://www.robindayne.com/archives.html http://mhnet.org/psyhelp/chap4/ http://www.tgorski.com/clin_mod/dmc/dmc.htm http://woodiescciclub.com/Lectures/coach/coach-adrienne.htm http://www.markdouglas.com/pages/1/index.htm http://woodiescciclub.com/Lectures/coach/coach-adrienne.htm
The answer to your question You do what you do, because there is a part of you that does not have confidence in your judgement. You are not trading a plan that you have complete knowledge of, that you have complete confidence in, nor do you have sufficient knowledge of the limitations of your system (if indeed you have one). At least one, and probably all of these conditions exist within you when you are trading, and that is why you are having a problem. The solution is Research your system until you know it, and its limitations inside and out. Paper trade it for a while so that you are used to taking the signals in a disciplined way, AND you are used to taking the right action at the right time (stopping out for instance). When you have "earned" some confidence back, start trading small size (1 contract, or 100 shares) and work you way back. The alternative is to win some and lose some until you bleed your account dry. Think about it. Steve