Quote from traderNik:
You said you are basing your strategy at least in part on something you read in Market Wizards.
Presumably, then, you know that many of the traders interviewed in that book voiced their disdain for people who use the phrase 'playing with the market's money'. I recall that Bill Lipschutz in particular said he thought it was ridiculous to think of booked profits as 'the market's money', the loss of which could somehow be viewed differently than the loss of... money that wasn't the market's, I guess?
I don't even think of open position gains as the market's money. I wake up every morning and ask myself if I would initiate the position at that moment. Of course I don't always close out positions that are underwater, but that's the way I try to think about it.
You seem to have some grounding in systems design theory. I wish you the best and hope you can recover from this current drawdown.