Has anyone ever gone through this?

THE SOLUTION IS VERY SIMPLE!

Take half of your profit off the table and place a stop for the other half at breakeven. This way, you reduce the risk of losing all your profit while allowing your winner to ride the wave. Should it completely reverse and you are stopped out, you still pocket money from the other half.

IMPORTANT! It's important that you make the distinction that this is more about trading "psychology" rather than "strategy". It's all about how you cope with the potential profit and loss and this belongs squarely in the proper realm of MONEY MANAGEMENT.
 
Quote from PENS WIN:

Now my problem is that i am having trouble pulling the trigger, even though 2 years of stats all line up to this being right and being worth alot of money if it works, i have some kind of fear that somehow my record keeping is going to go sour and this will just fuck up like the last one when it failed. I have habit of just getting rid of all my positions the second i get up 1-2k as opposed to letting it work itself out as the system requires. Basically on my "PROFITABLE" days i always cut my profit short out of fear that i will give it back. Yet i have no fear of letting my large "losing" days run against me. I always seem to have some ingrained fear that whatever "strategy" i am doing is in the process of collapsing so i may as well take profit now, and even when statistical analysis lines up the second i have one or two bad days i am panick stricken that the current system is failing me.

Clearly i am trading this system completely dysfunctionally, as the only real thing i need to do is "hold onto winners," for some reason i cannot bring myself to do it, i have my 5k a month goal in mind, and need it to survive but cant jump the hurdle.

I seem to have a permanent fear of systems failing me. (As this was how the first one worked out, and when it failed it ended up failing big time.)

Any help????

Thx!!
More...

Sir

I’m in a pretty poignant mood today - so.....


Time for "you" to cut through the B/S and make a decision…

Either you want to trade, or you don’t

If you do….. Then suck it up and trade

And as there are no guarantees for any given trade’s outcome (no matter what “indicator/ system” you’re using)…. Trade it and absolutely KNOW – each trade will either make or lose money… PERIOD..

Enter a trade, manage it, exit – wash, rinse, repeat – day in and day out – for the rest of your career

No way around it…., no way to soften it up…., it can be no other way…

This is what we are – this is what we do – this is what we face – every day

Paper trading (although of some value) ain’t trading – you won’t know your profitability till you trade

Now if you can’t do this – time to find another calling… No harm no foul… and know you’re no less a person for the experience (in fact quite the opposite is true as people who know their limitation are actually stronger than those who don’t)

Sir I know sound like an ass – but I will not coddle you and I refuse to make the reality of trading any less than what it is

And yes – I’ve been there and done that

Regards
RN
 
Quote from Redneck trader:

Sir

I’m in a pretty poignant mood today - so.....


Time for "you" to cut through the B/S and make a decision…

Either you want to trade, or you don’t

If you do….. Then suck it up and trade

And as there are no guarantees for any given trade’s outcome (no matter what “indicator/ system” you’re using)…. Trade it and absolutely KNOW – each trade will either make or lose money… PERIOD..

Enter a trade, manage it, exit – wash, rinse, repeat – day in and day out – for the rest of your career

No way around it…., no way to soften it up…., it can be no other way…

This is what we are – this is what we do – this is what we face – every day

Paper trading (although of some value) ain’t trading – you won’t know your profitability till you trade

Now if you can’t do this – time to find another calling… No harm no foul… and know you’re no less a person for the experience (in fact quite the opposite is true as people who know their limitation are actually stronger than those who don’t)

Sir I know sound like an ass – but I will not coddle you and I refuse to make the reality of trading any less than what it is

And yes – I’ve been there and done that

Regards
RN
More...

But......
 
Quote from PENS WIN:




To make a long story short i was making roughly 10k a month after the first 6 months then after a year i hit pay dirt, i figured out a strategy i could make 100k a month at (only 50% was mine.) Well i managed to make about 200k, take home, over the next few months. Then my strategy failed in a big way.
More...
What was your strategy? Even though it failed , I think a lot of us are curious as to what it was.
 
Quote from trendo:

What was your strategy? Even though it failed , I think a lot of us are curious as to what it was.
More...

The OP's strategy failed when market conditions changed. Failure of a strategy isn't a problem in and of itself; you can re-evaluate market conditions and change the strategy accordingly.

I'm going to venture a guess that the problem was that the OP was successfully trading a strategy without strict risk management because his success did not require strict risk management. Then when conditions changed, the lack of strict risk management led to disaster. A failed strategy does not blow an account; poor risk management does.

I speak from experience. Last spring I was a totally new trader who bought stocks/options when price fell off a cliff over news. Because the market had been in bull run from 1/22 lows, any fundamentally sound company that was dragged down over another player's bad news, or that had reported an earnings miss, would stage a great bounce off the panic selloff. Even the few trades that produced a drawdown for a couple weeks, before you know it "came back" and resulted in a profit eventually. This led to some great returns for a beginner, and I traded without stops and simply expected patience to create the desired result. It worked every time!

Then the bear market started in earnest and the most fundamentally sound companies no longer found support. You'd better have your stops in place or watch a small loss turn into a very large loss from which there was no recovery.

High tuition paid, but over the months I learned risk management. And it wasn't until two months ago that I learned risk management is critical on EVERY TRADE no matter what logic tells you.

Once you master risk management so that it's second nature, there is no more fear of pulling the trigger because you know in advance the most you can lose and you've accepted it.
 
Sir, I believe your fear is a result of trading too much size when you first started trading. You didn't go through the experience of building up that size and you didn't "earn" it. Now you have a monthly nut you need to attain in order to live your lifestyle and you are in a situation where you are clearly uncomfortable with pushing the pedal down the entire way and putting on max size.
 
Just jump. You have to have faith in your method. Consider yourself simply a tool for its execution. Cut your losers before they get serious. If you enter a position and it immediately is going against you, consider dumping it. It's better to be flat and catch the next one than hit homers all the time while sometimes striking out.

Just jump and trust the method.

Wilt
 
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