dude, i am just reaching the end of my rope and i'm frustrated. i am not looking for sympathy. i have nothing to lose by posting my honest thoughts on here. i am just a real trader with real trader problems. i guess i'm just venting...and it's a good place to vent because there are probably many traders here who feel or have felt how i do.
Some philosophy. If you imagine yourself like the moviecharachter Gordon Gekko perhaps you should investigate this persona. He is advising you at the bottom of your every post after all. Shouting FOOL in your face. What does he mean calling you a fool? There is a tarotcard named "the fool". You should investigate it. "A fool is someone who goes on trusting against all his experience. Then you will say he is a fool. He does not learn...." Fearlessness, risktaking, wonder are some aspects of this card. The charachter of Gordon Gekko represents a strong persona that seems to have made quite an impression on you. If this is the case you have expected a lot from yourself and failed beacuse you fixated yourself on an image. Let go of the baggage and reconnect with the suorce. Drop the image and get to the core of what Gordon Gekko is all about. The inner strength and leadership to be able to choose his fights and win.
GG, step 2: breathe step 3: push back from trading, from watching the markets, attend class or read a good book on "cuirrent sniper trading", "master traders", Pristine classes on CDRom or whatever step4: see step 1 ----- step1: attempt to quantify exactly what happened when you either "selected" your trades and why, your emotional state, you sugar levels, your concentration/distraction levels, the volume of CNBC on the TV (presumably you're watching this during the day) all these count significantly.... Just read the VanTharpe books on Trading Psychology, and Phisiology as it relates to decision making and trading..... VERY, VERY significant issue.... VERY, VERY significant contributing factor also.... attempt to quantify what went wrong and software issues, which are HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTING FACTOR, not to be deminished.... take a good look at that thread. You've got some serious research to do...
If you're looking for more than sympathy, why not post your trades? Otherwise, you're just looking to be told that you're special and that everything will be fine and you're doing all the right things and it's really not your fault blah blah Until you get serious about improving, it ain't gonna happen. --Db
Use a time stop. Keep your entries as they actually are and exit exactly x minutes after (the time frame is up to you). Statistically, if you forget the spread/slippage/commissions, the outcome that you win/lose is 50/50. Just consider that the exit price (the price x minutes after your entry) is a random function. Don't worry about nothing, you've got no stop, no target and you can't control the market. So, let it go and wait for the outcome. Do this with 100 trades and analyze the result : If you're negative (before slippage & commissions), you're doing something wrong because you're doing worst than random. Then, review the basics : go with the trend. If you go with the trend the probability to sell a long higher, or cover a short lower is more than 50/50 (if you don't use any price stop). If your PL after 100 trades is positive, go and analyse your winning trades : What was the worst Maximum Adverse Excursion for all them ? That could be you future stop loss value. Is there a profit target that you could reach a good number of time ? Could you define a trailing stop method that improves you exits ? Do the same with the losers : what was wrong with them ? Did you enter against the trend or for psycho reason ? Could you stop the losers sooner ? I have no clue about what you need. I just tell you what helped me to become positive. Good luck.
I think part of the problem is unrealistic expectations. It is one thing to back trade a "system" versus trading in the real market, especially with something as volatile as the S&P. I trade daily, in options and futures, and am quite successful. I use simple systems and procedures, hedge out the risk and try to be patient. Frankly, I know of no "system" that can reliably beat the market. It will either miss the moves, get stopped out, or get whipsawed during the lunch hour. It takes some discretion to filter some of that out. I don't believe in "targets" as that will limit my gain on a big move. I have a 2-point mental limit on losses, but may relax that in favor of increasing my position if it seems prudent. I have back traded many systems over the years (more than I wish to admit) and found that I was the weak link. There are "systemsâ that look good when back trading that fall apart when traded in the real market. We all know that. It is quite possible to make a good return in the market, but I donât think trying to find a âsystemâ that, if automated, will make a lot of money consistently. What is a good return? I regularly make well over 200% annual return on my portfolio. That is sufficient for me, even though I could increase the return if I wanted to trade more intensively. I often wonder, when I visit forums looking for ideas or opinions, just how many actually trade versus analyze. I have found that the only way I can test an idea is to trade it in the market and optimize it there. I will say that with my main present âsystemâ, I had intended to trade the S&P, however, I discovered that there are other things to trade that offer a higher return and the return is locked in. I just started trading with TradeStation 6 and find it useful, but I confess, I canât program it with the rules I would like, so I just do it the old-fashioned way with my eyes and mind. There is an order to the market, I have found. It is there and is consistent. I am market direction neutral. In other words, I donât care which way the market goes; I will make money and am not subject to catastrophic loss. It has taken me years to put this together, but it works. Good luck trading to all, Bob at Whidbey Island "Don't confuse effort with results"
I think you are completely wrong ! The natural behaviour is perfect for trading, it is just the way humans are hardwired by society that makes trading difficult. The more evolved human societies become, the more specialization they require from the individuals. Hence people are trained for the first 20-25 years of their lives to do something right. Does not matter what; but to do it right. Let's compare the hyena trading antelopes and the human trading futures : -reaction to loss : 1-a human seeing his trade go against him will probably let it go further : he is wrong and hope the trade will go back his way so that he will be right. Being wrong a little and being wrong a lot is still being wrong to the human. Sort of a binary reasoning. 2-a hyena hearing a roaring lion is in the wrong place and gets away. Maybe the lion would have got away, but better to be a bit wrong than ending up attacked by a lion. -reaction to profit 1-a human having a trade go his way will close his trade quickly hardwired to be right, he only cares about not being wrong. 2-a hyena having killed an antelope will eat the antelope until a larger predator comes. what matters to the hyena is not to have caught the antelope, but to get the most meat out of the trade. So, the average human reaction is the opposite of the hyena's reaction. The human seems to think in term of right or wrong : the issues of the trade are -1 or +1. A human in a 2% losing trade sees the trade as -1. If he holds there might be a chance of the trading getting back in the green, let' say 33%. So, 66% of chances of going from -1 to ... -1, a risk of 0 and 33% of chances of going from -1 to +1. Hence the risk reward ratio is infinite in the human perception. Which explains why our typical human lets the trade go against him until he believes the trade has a 0% chance of getting back in the green. Same thing for a winning trade... the human sees the green as +1. Nothing to gain by leeting the trade run, it would still be a +1. As long as it stays open, the trade can go in the red, hence here is a possibility a the trade going from +1 to -1. So, our average human closes a winning trade as soon as the vehicle starts correcting/downticking. So, to be a good trader, our educated human must revert to being a patient hunter, instead of a specialized insect. Getting the best of his education to design systems, and understand the markets, and getting the best of his instincts to trade the markets. OHLC