Day Trading is a Powerful Addiction

[BONECRUSHER]

If I remember correctly in the first Market Wizards book, multiple traders expressed having to put together a new "bank roll" to continue trading.

They eventually became "market wizards"...whether they were addicted or not was my point.

 

[BONECRUSHER]

In daytrading risk is reduced because money is “in” the market for very short periods of time hence it’s exposure to risks decreases as opposed to investing.

Your exposure to profit also decreases trading if you do not hold overnight.

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So...just buy at the close and sell at the open?

 

[Handle123]

as a day trader, do you constantly tell yourself addiction is just another word for “passion” or addiction is just another term for “hard work?”

Do you constantly tell yourself losing money while trading is a learning experience?

Or losing a lot of money on a specific day trade was the “ best thing that ever happened” because you now finally learned to stick to your disciplne?

How about losing money day trading is supposed to happen just like any other business you start, the first few years are always a loss? What business causes losses of 10k in just one day or even more?

Are you using credit card checks to fund your trading account or use credit card checks or borrowed money to cover margin calls?

Do you do really well for a specific month or week and then use that rare positive experience to convince yourself, “ if i made money then, i should be able to always make money trading?

Do you want to make one last trade just to recoup losses and then retire from trading?

Do you hold on to a really bad daytrade and convince yourself its now an investment that you will hold because it will eventually pay off big?

Do you constantly find yourself on the computer searching for reasons as to why your stock went the wrong way and spend a lot of time on message boards looking for words of encouragement?

When you take a big loss do you just claim its “ market manipulation just so the big boys can buy your wonderful stock at better prices” and then use that as an excuse to hold a bad trade?

Do you withdraw from friends, family, or other activities because you on on your computer looking at charts and other info in order to figure out why your trade went bad? Do You justify this by saying its actually work and you are just very focused? Do you get depressed and claim every business has ups and downs?

Do you take a big loss and then just make a very small amount back and then claim you are done trying for homeruns and now finally reallize its all about “ hitting singles” just like a good hitter in baseball?

Remember, you can lose everything day trading. Even las vags doesnt give 10-1 margin.
Do any of you actually have gambling addictions and use some of the excuses outlined above?

In four decades, except for one of blaming others, and the other I never called it an addiction, all the others were a yes. When I was 18-21yo years I worked for a bookie, first rule was this is a business and if I play-treat it like a business, and I did. Life is a gamble, living and dying, whether your turn to die on battlefields or crossing the street, it is a gamble. Trading is definitely a gamble and changed my mind about this some years ago. But it has always been a business/hobby to me. In the losing years of learning a heavily margined commodity markets, I use to lie to myself often, trying to justify the losses. Till then, anything in my life I put effort into, had always succeeded and only now I was up against the worst enemy of my life-me. I have depression anyways, so whether waking up or flying a kite-it is what it is, so trading didn't help, but now I laugh so much at the real dumb ass things I was doing back then. Passion? Absolutely am passionate about getting better, even though I think I am pretty good now in trading, but always areas in which I could be better at, the difference is now I know my weaknesses and don't lie to myself. Now have few monster huge profitable trades that comes from very long term commodities, but generally I am a singles chartist scalper. But even when I played thousands of hands of Blackjack in Vegas back in the 80s, it was a business, I still play the ponies from time to time, am decent at reading the lines of a horse, how the horse acts just before the race, know the local jockeys, but it is a business. Even when I can line up a trade to have positive expectancy, it is still a gamble cause of the mountain of hours it took for me to get this far. Life does take twists and turns that are unexpectantly.

I never expected at my age to develop great friends through trading either, John, John, and Xela, one John has saved my life twice as one is a physician, the other has saved me through laughter, and Xela has taught me you can live and do well with Aspergers.

You never know...as life is a gamble, and trading is probabilities. If you are into baseball stats and chess and math, you might become a good trader. Go Cubbies.

 

[Cabin111]

I do all the studying and my wife makes all the money!! I read and read. I present different options to my wife for her Roth IRA. She finds these great stocks (growing common sense companies) while I do more covered calls...And get my great stocks called away. She finds gems (a small growing regional bank [great locations...Buyout candidate], a heart stent maker...Less heart bypasses, more stents now) and holds tight. I'm coming around to her train of thought more. If you bought it for the reasons you see, unless major changes, hold tight!! I think I should skip a few days in between making market moves. Less gamble and emotions...More Zen type of moves. Slowly chew on the moves...Less emotions.

 

[schweiz]

as a day trader, do you constantly tell yourself addiction is just another word for “passion” or addiction is just another term for “hard work?”

In the learning phase it was hard work. Now it is the best job in the world (good money, always in holiday mode, freedom to work or not to work...)

Do you constantly tell yourself losing money while trading is a learning experience?
Or losing a lot of money on a specific day trade was the “ best thing that ever happened” because you now finally learned to stick to your disciplne?

In the learning phase is was a necessary evil to become a daytrader. I never saw anybody building a career in any job without making errors. In the trading education an error costs money. If that is a problem for you: don't try to become a daytrader.

How about losing money day trading is supposed to happen just like any other business you start, the first few years are always a loss? What business causes losses of 10k in just one day or even more?

And what about making 10-100K just sitting in your chair and watching the Mediterranean Sea or the Tuscan hills instead of watching the walls in a dull office from 9 to 5 for small money?
I lost already over 10K in one day, but on average I make more than 10K every day now. So it was clearly worth the risk. A few years ago Elon Musk was negociating to sell Tesla to Google as Elon (Tesla) ran out of money. That was worse then lose 10K that you can afford to lose.

Are you using credit card checks to fund your trading account or use credit card checks or borrowed money to cover margin calls?

I used the same way of funding that people use for starting any business. In my case it was money I could afford to lose. Don't remember anymore how a margin call feels as the only one I ever had was over a decade ago.

Do you do really well for a specific month or week and then use that rare positive experience to convince yourself, “ if i made money then, i should be able to always make money trading?

As I make money every week, for several years already, I don't have to convince myself. Even if I would not make any money anymore I have enough to survive in a decent way for the rest of my life.

From reading your question I see that:

• you failed or never even tried to become a daytrader.
• you are very negative or maybe even in a depression as you can only see negative things and even not once a positive thing. What you describe does not exist. Everything in life has a few positive and negative things.

I meet already several people like you who have only negative opinions about certain things. They in general never succeed in anything in life. They only see the negative things and already give up before they even start. And their failure proofs then that life is negative. A self fulfilling prophesy. Maybe read something about self-distructing behavior and go in therapy.

 

[bone]

From what I’ve seen and experienced - the more emotionally detached you are from a task or objective ( ie, day trading), then superior choices and decisions will be made.

 

[yiehom]

it is generally much easier to anticipate the market 10 minutes out than 6 months out.

Not sure. Six years from now, the markets will be up, no doubt.

 

[punisher]

In the learning phase it was hard work. Now it is the best job in the world (good money, always in holiday mode, freedom to work or not to work...)


In the learning phase is was a necessary evil to become a daytrader. I never saw anybody building a career in any job without making errors. In the trading education an error costs money. If that is a problem for you: don't try to become a daytrader.



And what about making 10-100K just sitting in your chair and watching the Mediterranean Sea or the Tuscan hills instead of watching the walls in a dull office from 9 to 5 for small money?
I lost already over 10K in one day, but on average I make more than 10K every day now. So it was clearly worth the risk. A few years ago Elon Musk was negociating to sell Tesla to Google as Elon (Tesla) ran out of money. That was worse then lose 10K that you can afford to lose.


I used the same way of funding that people use for starting any business. In my case it was money I could afford to lose. Don't remember anymore how a margin call feels as the only one I ever had was over a decade ago.


As I make money every week, for several years already, I don't have to convince myself. Even if I would not make any money anymore I have enough to survive in a decent way for the rest of my life.

From reading your question I see that:

• you failed or never even tried to become a daytrader.
• you are very negative or maybe even in a depression as you can only see negative things and even not once a positive thing. What you describe does not exist. Everything in life has a few positive and negative things.

I meet already several people like you who have only negative opinions about certain things. They in general never succeed in anything in life. They only see the negative things and already give up before they even start. And their failure proofs then that life is negative. A self fulfilling prophesy. Maybe read something about self-distructing behavior and go in therapy.

You are totally missing the point of OP's post. It is not about benefits of being a trader or whether trading can be profitable for some. It is a zero (negative) sum game so by definition there will be losing traders no matter how hard they work at it. Do you realize that by taking i.e. 100 best traders in the world and putting them to trade/bet only against themselves, many of those trading "geniuses" would become a failed traders?

OP is talking about making a hard assessment of oneself to distinguish facts from lies, trueness from naiveness.

Trading is a very specific way of making money for a living and it is not for everyone. Reality check after years of unsuccessful trading is a very good and right thing to do. Just because someone can't make it in trading doesn't mean that person is a failure.

I laugh anytime I hear motivational speeches, Tony Robins and other BS. Be positive, work hard, you can make it if you "really" want it, etc etc. Los Angeles is filled with thousands of wannabe actors that are bartending or waitering the tables, many of them working hard at acting and many with actual talent, yet for most stars will never align properly to change their fortunes.

Who do you think is smarter? A fool "trying" till end of his time because he/she believed they can make it one day, or someone performing a reality check realizing he/she "failed at that" and it's time to move to something else.

Just like everything in life it is a probability game. The lower the probability the higher the payout (and more "casualties").

 

[schweiz]

You are totally missing the point of OP's post. It is not about benefits of being a trader or whether trading can be profitable for some.

For each seperate comment OP wrote I answered in relation to what he wrote.
I think it clearly is about making or losing money. This is why the OP wrote everywhere about "losing":

Do you constantly tell yourself losing money while trading is a learning experience?

Or losing a lot of money on a specific day trade was the “ best thing that ever happened” because you now finally learned to stick to your disciplne?

How about losing money day trading is supposed to happen just like any other business you start, the first few years are always a loss? What business causes losses of 10k in just one day or even more?

Are you using credit card checks to fund your trading account or use credit card checks or borrowed money to cover margin calls?

Do you do really well for a specific month or week and then use that rare positive experience to convince yourself, “ if i made money then, i should be able to always make money trading?

Continuously speaking about losses and borrowing money. He is projecting his personal experience on the entire world.

OP is talking about making a hard assessment of oneself to distinguish facts from lies, trueness from naiveness.

It is clear that he cannot distinguish facts from lies, trueness from naiveness as he only has negative comments.

Do you realize that by taking i.e. 100 best traders in the world and putting them to trade/bet only against themselves, many of those trading "geniuses" would become a failed traders?

You also have clearly problems to distinguish facts from lies, trueness from naiveness. In the markets everybody is trading against the market, never against one specific person, so that argument is nonsense.
By making hypothetical statements you can "proof" anything. By using the word "IF" you already admit it is not a real but an imaginary example. If you need to use imagination as proof it shows you have no proof at all. And reality is that the 100 best traders in the world are rich and made money. Showing that your example is complete irrelevant.

You might as well use the following argument: if an EMP bomb would be dropped on the US, all daytraders would lose money. It would be correct because there would be no electricity anymore in the entire US.
Should you then never trade? Because you never know if and when this bomb will come.

 

[punisher]

You also have clearly problems to distinguish facts from lies, trueness from naiveness. In the markets everybody is trading against the market, never against one specific person, so that argument is nonsense.
By making hypothetical statements you can "proof" anything.

I used very simple example so you could understand that in trading world, BY DEFINITION, there must be losers otherwise there would be no winners. Since you failed to grasp my message, I do not even expect that you understand one step further, that a person that failed at trading is not a failure as a person.

To paraphrase Ed Seykota that said "everybody gets from the market what they want", seems that you've got from OP's (and mine) post what you wanted, that is reason to boast your performance, claim that you know it all and call other's failures.

For any individual trader, it is of least importance of what the market objectively is or what is hypothetically possible in the markets in terms of (other's) performance. Your boasting is in fact a hypothetical meaningless example to them. What is truly important to each individual trader is what the market is subjectively to them and what kind of performance they are able to achieve (not you or anyone else).

As a result, after a long enough period of trading, everyone should reassess their performance and make sure they are not lying to themselves misrepresenting the "subjective" (for lack of better word) facts. That honest reassessment should be a base to decide whether to pursue trading further or call it quits and maybe devote his/her life pursuing other opportunities which they may excel at. In fact trading seems to be a constant rediscovery of who you are truly, trying to separate facts from fiction. That is what OP's post is to me.