From Micros to Millions: 2% per day

[sstheo]

i wonder at what point should we call it quits? i remember in one of shark tank episodes, kevin stated that if the business is not working after 3 years, do something else. In the realm of trading that could be a different strategy and not doing the same shit over and over again. but at what point do we walk away altogether? At some point you gotta say, trading is not for me? what is that point of no return, cause obviously running out of money aint it lol.

Someone enlighten me cause i'm at that fork in the road with trading. i'm thinking i should invest in managers programs like you see in collective 2 site and just forget about doing it on my own. Then focus on other worthwhile money making schemes.

@himly83 Yours just may be the most important post in my journal and on the whole of Elite Trader.

The elephant in the room is that most traders are not being profitable. It took me 15 years to get here. That is just insane. I have been irrational. When I started, if I had known how much total money I would have pissed away in 15 years, I certainly would never have started.

If I had seen this picture 15 years ago and was told -- "THIS is what you are going to try to trade against-- these testosterone-laden professionally trained profit-seeking monsters." -- then I would NOT have done anything other than follow the newsletter recommendations.



And that's just the breathing competition.

Here is the other 90%:



Instead of merely following newsletter recommendations, I said- "I can do better than that guy!" And that was the beginning of the rabbit hole.

I thought it was just a joke when I read that large firms like UBS above hire trading psychologists. Seriously. But now I know why. This is tough!!! And it's mostly a mental game. We are wired as humans to act a certain way during market rallies and selloffs (greedy and fearful), but good traders have to trade the opposite direction during times of high emotion in the markets.

Between the money most traders waste and the lost opportunities of "other schemes" as you say, not to mention the mental and relationship damaging impact of losing real money (and lots of it in many cases), trading is NOT something I recommend to anyone.

Job advertisement:

Hi! Welcome to your dream job!

• 95% chance you will fail in 12 months
• You will lose your full account balance several times. ($100k+ gone!)
• You will be stressed out each day
• You will be grumpy and mean to family members because you had a "bad day at the office."
• You will fight against highly-competitive professionals and their quant-programmed Xeon-powered computers.

I didn't know all this stuff when I started. I would NOT have started trading had I known.

If you haven't succeeded after 2 years, then either get one-on-one coaching OR just move on and become a safer, passive trader. Stop beating your head against the wall. Collective2 has some good systems. Striker.com does. iSystems.com does too.

And those are my candid thoughts.

 

[rb7]

@sstheo, although your Trading Journal is so far impressive and profitable, it only shows a couple of weeks of profitability. Don't get me wrong, I hope you'll succeed, but I think that stating that you are now profitable and that you've finally made it might be a bit premature.
IMO, I'd wait for a full year before thinking that.

Again, I'm hoping that you'll get there. I know it's feasible (but hard!).

 

[sstheo]

@sstheo, although your Trading Journal is so far impressive and profitable, it only shows a couple of weeks of profitability. Don't get me wrong, I hope you'll succeed, but I think that stating that you are now profitable and that you've finally made it might be a bit premature.
IMO, I'd wait for a full year before thinking that.

Again, I'm hoping that you'll get there. I know it's feasible (but hard!).

Yes, I should not have been like President Trump proclaiming victory before it was certified. I have a long way to go indeed.

 

[Evgeniy]

i wonder at what point should we call it quits? i remember in one of shark tank episodes, kevin stated that if the business is not working after 3 years, do something else. In the realm of trading that could be a different strategy and not doing the same shit over and over again. but at what point do we walk away altogether? At some point you gotta say, trading is not for me? what is that point of no return, cause obviously running out of money aint it lol.

Someone enlighten me cause i'm at that fork in the road with trading. i'm thinking i should invest in managers programs like you see in collective 2 site and just forget about doing it on my own. Then focus on other worthwhile money making schemes.

Leave when you do not find the psychological strength to be 100% responsible for your decisions and actions. Within yourself, you always know for sure "whether you can generate the right decisions and actions in this risky dynamic environment" or "you are a chip on the waves of someone else's will."

 

[CALLumbus]

Yes, I should not have been like President Trump proclaiming victory before it was certified. I have a long way to go indeed.

If you set your goals a bit lower, to more reasonable and sane levels, you will enjoy the trip much more and have a much higher probability of reaching your goal.

Maybe over time you will overthink the need to set a 2% daily goal, and the problem you have with losing days. Maybe you will come to the insight that all that matters is that you make consistent money (which is not possible every day, but to aim for mostly green weeks is realistic), and that you keep the volatility of your daily returns under control. If you manage to do this you will see that it is no problem to add serious size over time, and grow your account to heights that will cover everything that you will ever need.

 

[sstheo]

Despite the volatility of the last two weeks, I survived. In fact, I finished up today about $184, and completed the election week at $7,905 (less about $24 for micro commissions).

However, the volatility of the last two weeks has really shown me some big weaknesses in my method:

1. I almost always take profits way too soon.
2. I am guilty of moving stops more than once in the last 3 weeks. "Stop-moving" is the main problem I have had since I started 15 years ago, and something I have preached against repeatedly on these pages. I am a lucky hypocrite, because blowouts are the inevitable result of this dangerous behavior.
3. I haven't yet been able to eliminate my big picture bias, and it gets me into a lot of trouble.
4. I still screw up at the open on most days and go the wrong way. (Starting the day with a loss really sucks.)

Despite the short-lived 4 week sojourn back to ET, I have decided that I am going to step away from live trading for a while to refine my system even further. I will address the issues above and consider other things to help me succeed as a trader who really wants to go full-time. (The Covid-19 world of real estate has really worn me out.)

I would like to thank everyone who posted. I know you are interested in my success. Even those who didn't believe I could average 2% per day were welcome - you kept me on my toes. And you were right too. I only had an average daily gain of 1.5%.

Below is my final and full spreadsheet. With a gain of $1,881 on $6k, I grew my account 31% in 4 weeks or about 370% annualized.

I suggest that if you are struggling that you start your own journal on ET. You will get a lot of great feedback from people generous with their time.

So this is goodbye for now. I don't have an official return date.

I wish all of you success!

 

[Evgeniy]

Despite the volatility of the last two weeks, I survived. In fact, I finished up today about $184, and completed the election week at $7,905 (less about $24 for micro commissions).

View attachment 243463

However, the volatility of the last two weeks has really shown me some big weaknesses in my method:

1. I almost always take profits way too soon.
2. I am guilty of moving stops more than once in the last 3 weeks. "Stop-moving" is the main problem I have had since I started 15 years ago, and something I have preached against repeatedly on these pages. I am a lucky hypocrite, because blowouts are the inevitable result of this dangerous behavior.
3. I haven't yet been able to eliminate my big picture bias, and it gets me into a lot of trouble.
4. I still screw up at the open on most days and go the wrong way. (Starting the day with a loss really sucks.)

Despite the short-lived 4 week sojourn back to ET, I have decided that I am going to step away from live trading for a while to refine my system even further. I will address the issues above and consider other things to help me succeed as a trader who really wants to go full-time. (The Covid-19 world of real estate has really worn me out.)

I would like to thank everyone who posted. I know you are interested in my success. Even those who didn't believe I could average 2% per day were welcome - you kept me on my toes. And you were right too. I only had an average daily gain of 1.5%.

Below is my final and full spreadsheet. With a gain of $1,881 on $6k, I grew my account 31% in 4 weeks or about 370% annualized.

I suggest that if you are struggling that you start your own journal on ET. You will get a lot of great feedback from people generous with their time.

So this is goodbye for now. I don't have an official return date.

I wish all of you success!

View attachment 243473

Hey man, there is no other way to grow than to fight every day.

 

[themickey]

My opinion, short term trading leads to high stress.
These stresses impact you negatively in all areas of your life, bad nerves, bad temper, sleeplessness and one becomes more prone to making mistakes.
However I will say, OP has been an extreme gentleman in the journal.
I have an engineering background (I'm now retired) and my experience in engineering, mistakes you make are very expensive. Most mistakes cost huge amounts of money to repair.
Likewise in trading, mistakes cost you huuuge.
Stress and being under time pressures lead to errors.
OP, your journal has been delightful, thank you for your efforts.

 

[CALLumbus]

Despite the short-lived 4 week sojourn back to ET, I have decided that I am going to step away from live trading for a while to refine my system even further. I will address the issues above and consider other things to help me succeed as a trader who really wants to go full-time. (The Covid-19 world of real estate has really worn me out.)

So this is goodbye for now. I don't have an official return date.

View attachment 243473

This is strange man. You have outstanding success according to your numbers, and still quit this again, to "refine" something that cannot be refined ? All you would have to do now is to keep trading, keep growing the account like you did the past 4 weeks and slowly add size when possible.

Thats what I try to warn new traders from... having unrealistic goals that can not be sustained for a longer period of time (2% per day), and then always hopping back to the drawing board, trying to "improve", perfect the system, the methods.

It is not about the system, the methods. Once you learned the basic mechanics of the markets there is not much you can tweak or improve in theory. All you should focus on from there is to step into the ring every day, interact with the market, do your trades, learn a bit every day, gain experience, and slowly grow your account. Not by 2% a day. But more something like 0.2% per day.


“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” -- Bill Gates

 

[cafeole]

Someone enlighten me cause i'm at that fork in the road with trading

For me, this year showed I don't have a plan for manual trading that works. I have decided to work on algos that I may or may not automate. For now I would be happy with swing signals that I can enter with my broker. I have a lot of work to do on an algo trading system, but I like that kind of stuff.