A shoulder to cry on
- Thread starter hjkl
- Start date
Did you papertrade until you could trade your system in your sleep? Could you papertrade your system emotionless?
Until you can do this and show a decent profit you have no business trading with real money.
Trading = exploiting fear (and greed is another form of fear)
Sherlock
PS papertrade using market orders, go for the longer trades and do not scalp. The shorter your timeframe the more you'll compete with robots and professionals and you cannot win from those at your stage.
Quote from hjkl:
This has probably appeared here a thousand and one times, but I am feeling so upset and frustrated at the moment, I wish to talk about it.
I started trading 3 weeks ago; now my account is down 19%. It is not the losing that bothers me as much, since I perceive it as a necessary tuition fee. What really upsets me is the fact that I always make the same mistakes, again and again, without the ability to break from them.
From the books by Mark Douglas, I know that in the end it is a trader's psychological ability that determines his success. Every day, before the markets open, I even try by telling myself repeatedly to be disciplined and stick to my plan. However, once I am in the environment, I just cannot control my emotions, and make all the mistakes again:
- rush to enter into a position due to the fear of losing out;
- when the price does not move immediately as expected, I begin to panic and close the position, before the stop is hit;
- then the price begins to move in my original trade's direction; I blame myself for not sticking to the stop and mourn the profit I could have made, and miss the second opportunity to enter;
- after that, the price takes off, and I just sit there, frozen, thinking of the mistake I made and the profit I missed, unable to enter when a new signal comes along.
This process repeats, and I am so upset and frustrated with myself. How can I break all these bad habits and learn discipline? Or am I simply not cut out for trading???
One way to break bad habits is to slow the process down into slow motion i.e. start swingtrading and do it with discipline... only when disciplined, move to daytrading...
Now ive been re reading your situation, you are ok with putting the trade on. If you are happy with your method for selecting trades, maybe try. getting your entry setup signalled place your market order with a stop loss and limt order. that assumes you know when to get in and zone to get out right?. then get up and bugger off out, go for a run. if you cant do that then at the very least, push your chair back and sit on your hands.
Oh no using your feet/head to click that order out. Look at yourself from outside yourself as if you are instructing a novice.
he's saying "gee its pulled back quite quickly im gonna get hit. your shouting "touch that order and your fired, I dont care if it hits your trading stop because thats ok. we put a sensible stop in place. weve planned to take those normal losses,how many times I gotta tell ya its a cost of doing this business, but i do care if you close this trade out before its home and cost me money!"
Oh no using your feet/head to click that order out. Look at yourself from outside yourself as if you are instructing a novice.
he's saying "gee its pulled back quite quickly im gonna get hit. your shouting "touch that order and your fired, I dont care if it hits your trading stop because thats ok. we put a sensible stop in place. weve planned to take those normal losses,how many times I gotta tell ya its a cost of doing this business, but i do care if you close this trade out before its home and cost me money!"
paper trading is a good idea because you can condition your mind to keep calm despite big losses or wins.
when you switch back to live, you can 'carry' the state of mind that you learned with you.
when you win or lose big with real money, it's easier to remember that you can keep calm and life goes on.
if you never paper trade, you might have never managed to keep calm after a big loss or win. therefore, your mind can't take example from it.
when you switch back to live, you can 'carry' the state of mind that you learned with you.
when you win or lose big with real money, it's easier to remember that you can keep calm and life goes on.
if you never paper trade, you might have never managed to keep calm after a big loss or win. therefore, your mind can't take example from it.
You say this because you have been trading for ages.
Did you overcome your emotions or did you manage to control them or did you just forget that they exist or do you simply fight them everytime and win?
No newbie can 'carry' the state of mind from paper trade to live trading.
Armstrong the astrounaut must have trained zillion times before he landed on the Moon and he is learned, educated and psychologically prepared, it is his job and it is his life. Did you check his heart beat when he came out of the lunar module? If I were him, I would have collapsed.
Quote from hjkl:
This has probably appeared here a thousand and one times, but I am feeling so upset and frustrated at the moment, I wish to talk about it.
I started trading 3 weeks ago; now my account is down 19%. It is not the losing that bothers me as much, since I perceive it as a necessary tuition fee. What really upsets me is the fact that I always make the same mistakes, again and again, without the ability to break from them.
From the books by Mark Douglas, I know that in the end it is a trader's psychological ability that determines his success. Every day, before the markets open, I even try by telling myself repeatedly to be disciplined and stick to my plan. However, once I am in the environment, I just cannot control my emotions, and make all the mistakes again:
- rush to enter into a position due to the fear of losing out;
- when the price does not move immediately as expected, I begin to panic and close the position, before the stop is hit;
- then the price begins to move in my original trade's direction; I blame myself for not sticking to the stop and mourn the profit I could have made, and miss the second opportunity to enter;
- after that, the price takes off, and I just sit there, frozen, thinking of the mistake I made and the profit I missed, unable to enter when a new signal comes along.
This process repeats, and I am so upset and frustrated with myself. How can I break all these bad habits and learn discipline? Or am I simply not cut out for trading???
Anyone out there in ET-land who still does not believe in paper trading before going live?
Carrying the state of mind, hmm.
Thats the ideal, but i never lost paper trading. I even tried to, big time, but ended up making more.
Thats been consistent for over a year, its absurd.
On that basis, is it a rational, or irrational fear to be "afraid" ones method or mental state will screw up going live?
It must be a marvellous thing, being overcapitalized for the job.
Thats the ideal, but i never lost paper trading. I even tried to, big time, but ended up making more.
Thats been consistent for over a year, its absurd.
On that basis, is it a rational, or irrational fear to be "afraid" ones method or mental state will screw up going live?
It must be a marvellous thing, being overcapitalized for the job.