Quote from Learning2Trade:
My story: I've been trading futures for about a year with mixed results ar best. Recently, I've been practicing a trading system for a good 4 months and let me tell you, I ROCK the sim account. Ok great, so finally I go live and what happens? I have 2 winning days and 5 losing ones. Bad!!! Where do I go wrong? It's not the system's fault (nothing to do with slippage and whatnot), it's mine. My problem is that I can't take a loss. I basically go to pieces mentally and suddenly I am taking ridiculous trades that lose, compounding my loss. I can hardly even believe how fast I leap into a bad trade after having taken a loss. I feel particularly frustrated as I KNOW I can do better. I need to find a way to maintain a good mental state in the face of thr inevitable trades which don't work out. In fact, here are the pressures which give me difficulty:
-taking a loss
-thinking about taking a trade, hesitating, watching price move as anticipated and feeling like I'm "missing the move"
-trying to anticipate a turning point, jumping in too early
-taking a loss and still feeling like I need to "make it up" the next time I trade. In other words, it's still on my mind.
Amazing how much of a mental game this is!
I would greatly appreciate any insight or suggestions from others who have gone through this. I must conquer this problem otherwise I will never be a successful trader. Thanks in advance.
The bar is very very low for anyone considering trading.
You became a potential trader.
You set up an account.
For a set of reasons, you have gotten to needing emotional help.
Your mind has a heritage which it uses. It wants you out of danger and it wants you to survive. Your ancestors were lizard like so you now have acquired the Lizard Syndrome.
Item by item you must do the following.
If coming to having a loss, just do a wash trade first. All you lose is time and you remember you acted unlike a Lizard. You did not freeze on a rock.
For item 2. Take the trade on paper and when you get to item 1, do item 1.
Item 3 is the early exit. All this tells you is that your approach does not use trend monitoring and analysis. Too bad. Your approach is not sufficient to be trading it. Trends begin with a dominant move followed by a non dominant move (retrace), followed by the last dominant move. The trend ends and a reversal begins. You may not know this. Learn to monitor and analyze so you can know that you know these things WHEN THEY ARE OCCURRING. You focus, instead on "ROCKING". In trading rocking is not usually done.
item 4 is a money concern. Behind that you are being told you are not tinking about trading and instead you are thinking about just money. Money is not a big deal. Making money takes care of itself.
You are in the usual company of the majority. Only the minority makes money. Drive around rich neighborhoods. Talk to the gardiners. Ask what the homeowner does. You will not see any homes of traders.
A trend grows. They are only several bars long.
At the beginning write point 1. Later see the end of the first move; mark it point 2. Then look at the price move again as a retrace. At its end mark point 3.
connect points 1 and 3. right click with your pointer on the line.
click on clone or duplicate.
See another line appear. Drag this new line to the point 2 and put the left end of the line at point 2.
Make sure the lines extend 3 or four bars into the future.
Draw an small ellipse between the extentions of the two sloping lines. Watch the interior of the ellipse. This is where the next beginning point 1 of the next trend is found. It will slope the other way.
So in the future hold through the retrace after you enter with the sentiment just after point 1.
If you have a little sister, teach her to do this annotating for you. Also ask her to tell you the point 1 and ask her to tell you which way what she is doing is going to be going. Since she likes to draw and tell you what to do, she will be teaching you that the money takes care of its self.
Next month, your parents will start getting invites to cocktail parties. Your sister's friends will be doing what you taught your sister and those friends of hers will be asking their parents for subscriptions to the WSJ. Watch out for MILF's.
