Help! These breakouts are killing me

Quote from Zen Student:

How can self deceit help in trading or in life generally?
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Quotes by the Zen man.

.........................................................

There are many different individuals in finance generally and trading specifically - but it is full of arseholes.

" take a look in the mirror and add yourself to the list...."

along the lines of "fuck off and if I have anything to do with it you'll never work in the City again".

" the use of 4 letter words here and previously in the thread is directly proportional to your IQ......"

Honest work for me is a bargain struck by free consent of all parties and without violating the rights of others.

" practice what you preach..........."

two years opportunity cost - not earning a salary while learning how to trade correctly.

" this clown has 2 years under his belt and thinks he is a trader....."

Pissing away money getting it wrong != tuition.

" welcome to the learning curve, glad to see you were not exempt........."

Trying to peddle this particular agenda on a website for traders is like trying to flog your bacon sarnies down the local Synagogue.

" the zen man passes judgement on yet another poor soul ............"

I am told by the same person that traders may also be apples or oranges, and that the citrus ought not to be condescending.

" good advice, start by zipping up the hole in your face..........."

.................................

here is an idiot with 2 years under his belt and now fully qualified to expound as a trader.

" a newbie know it all " with a condescending attitude, a block on his shoulder and a burr up his ass.

fully opinionated on most subjects, but unable to respect the rights of others.

his way or the highway......

he will pass judgement as he sees fit.

a bull headed, cock sure, conceited son of a bitch.

i snack on these single celled pond scum daily in the trenches.

toxic waste traders always blow out as gutter trash.

i can hardly wait for the rebuttal from this dancing fool.

cheers,

s
 
As you somewhat eluded to earlier...to get the attention of some that are in denial requires the stinging truth.

Some stepping stones to growth, sometimes require pain...isn't pain the meaning of life?

Seriously this thread is a great thread...lets make it so...don't turn this into a personal war. There are many traders in this thread and it has been my experience that traders do not get along...lets outdo ourselves, just to see if we can....

ES

Quote from Zen Student:

This is the problem. Why should it sting? The truth will set you free. Why are we so attached to our beliefs and preconceptions that it is painful to listen to a contrary argument?

Eckhart Tolle writes about this in his books. Being attached to our opinions and confusing our beliefs with our identity. Then we look to make ourselves right by proving others wrong. If we are proved wrong, we are personally affronted and feel suffering rather than being pleased to have gained knowledge and understanding.

Making excuses for not doing our own thinking, or ignoring reason when it comes along because we don't like the way the facts are presented to us ... just kidding ourselves. How can self deceit help in trading or in life generally?


This is an opportunity for us all to learn a lot - if we are willing to. Ultimately it appears that this and similar opportunities are passed over by the many on ET: this is yet another thread with the usual replies to the usual beginner fantasy:
-posts about "trading psychology" as if this were a panacea...check
-recommendations for a particular strategy, technique, website or guru...check
-statements that the OP just needs more practice, patience, discipline, or "an edge"...check
-suggestions to change instrument, timeframe, analysis technique, leverage, etc...check
-suggestion to keep taking more trades until the problem micraculously resolves itself...check
-suggestions to perform backtesting, references to statistics and odds...check
-at least one sensible poster remarking that the OP doesn't know enough to be successful...check
-various posters condemning the frank poster as 'rude', 'unhelpful', 'mean spirited', 'discouraging', etc...check



Now we're debating the relative merits of various posts telling the hopeless to pack it in before they lose more money. Unfortunately, some are so thick skinned that no amount of discouragement will penetrate. Dream crushing for them? Bankruptcy? Divorce? At least the OP isn't quitting his job!
More...
 
Quote from Matt Houston:

Hi,

Hoping for some advice, I am a total mess right now.

I have spent years learning about the markets, reading books, reading forums, staring at charts for hours every night after putting in a long days work at the office. I have tried dozens of methods on loads of instruments on every timeframe.
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And what have you learned "Grasshopper"? If a couple trades have you are a "total mess", it isn't the markets you are at a loss, it is your loss of confidense based on whatever you did for backtesting. Since I started in 1978, slow was my middle name back then when you had to chart by hand, you were forced to learn Price Action and there wasn't any kind of day trading as costs were $125 for buying 100 shares, so investing was long term in nature.

You have to ask yourself are you a trader, keeping stocks short term, investor & keeping for months to years, or dividend investor-buying for income. When you are drawing trendlines on a stock that is "basing" over a few months, and most of the time out of basing is upside price action, this leads into a move that normally into holding periods of months to years. I really thought your charts looked long term, so why do you even care about the news since you are drawing trendlines? None of your reasoning of getting into the trades offered about the finances of the company.

There really aren't any "tricks' to trading, there is however, education, which is only learned by great amount of study. And when one speaks of "edge" that is different as to degree of years of study as That transforms as years go by. What I once thought a great entry was my edge is not as important as my Money management rules being most important, and my edge is ultimate disipline to apply them. Getting the edge for me has been in stages of over 30,000 hours of screen time, over 100,000 trades and have no clue the hours of backtesting of myself and others.

My method of trading stocks is using weekly bars, (entries on dailies) very slow, only check on weekends. I wait for basing and draw trendlines, wait for breakout then retracement and if it goes back up, I buy. Real hard, real boring and look to reward many times over the risk, often times reward to risk is over 10 to 1.

Day trading is quite the opposite, where often times, one is in trades for minutes, and must keep losing trade percentage very low and risk for me is always greater than reward, so I have to keep losing to a min. Ave trade varies between $15 to $37, so I has to do quantity to make it worth while. Where averaging down is refrained upon in stock trading, day trading when you concentrate on making systems where there is small losing %, taking more contracts with price against original entry for me works in my favor.

But there is litterally thousands of different ways to enter and exit, just pick one to start and concentrate all efforts on the getting out and the "whys." I always learned the most from the winning trades. And I have learned much from these forums through the years from it's members, but you have to read much to find those who actually work at trading and make a living at this.

Good Luck.
 

Attachments

Quote from Zen Student:

This is the problem. Why should it sting? The truth will set you free. Why are we so attached to our beliefs and preconceptions that it is painful to listen to a contrary argument?

Eckhart Tolle writes about this in his books. Being attached to our opinions and confusing our beliefs with our identity. Then we look to make ourselves right by proving others wrong. If we are proved wrong, we are personally affronted and feel suffering rather than being pleased to have gained knowledge and understanding.

Making excuses for not doing our own thinking, or ignoring reason when it comes along because we don't like the way the facts are presented to us ... just kidding ourselves. How can self deceit help in trading or in life generally?


This is an opportunity for us all to learn a lot - if we are willing to. Ultimately it appears that this and similar opportunities are passed over by the many on ET: this is yet another thread with the usual replies to the usual beginner fantasy:
-posts about "trading psychology" as if this were a panacea...check
-recommendations for a particular strategy, technique, website or guru...check
-statements that the OP just needs more practice, patience, discipline, or "an edge"...check
-suggestions to change instrument, timeframe, analysis technique, leverage, etc...check
-suggestion to keep taking more trades until the problem micraculously resolves itself...check
-suggestions to perform backtesting, references to statistics and odds...check
-at least one sensible poster remarking that the OP doesn't know enough to be successful...check
-various posters condemning the frank poster as 'rude', 'unhelpful', 'mean spirited', 'discouraging', etc...check



Now we're debating the relative merits of various posts telling the hopeless to pack it in before they lose more money. Unfortunately, some are so thick skinned that no amount of discouragement will penetrate. Dream crushing for them? Bankruptcy? Divorce? At least the OP isn't quitting his job!
More...

I havn't lost money, in fact I've made money. It wasn't a fluke the trades worked out exactly as planned, exactly as I knew they would (very similar to the trade handle took above), exactly as I have seen breakouts like these behave hundreds of times before, except I bailed out early, which is the point of my thread.

If my part-time trading doesn't work out as you are so convinced it will not lead to bankruptcy I can assure you of that. I keep my trading money separate from any other funds and I will know a long time in advance of blowing my account whether trading is not working out for me. I have played a lot of poker and done a lot of fixed odds betting, but I am not a gambler, I understand betting when the odds are in your favor, I have always been good with money and wouldn't risk more than I can afford to.

Why would I ever quit my job? I have a good job, and I actually enjoy it.

Thanks for all the replies guys but this thread has outlived its usefulness for me I won't be posting again. Glad people are finding it interesting have fun.
 
Actually I will bookmark this page and post at the end of the year and let you know how it's gone for me.

Maybe I will have given up on the idea of getting any money out of the markets, but I am pretty sure whatever happens I won't be bankrupt....or divorced (where is the rolls eyes icon?)
 
Quote from lucky lucille:

make your money now, another 30 years "BO's from an ascending triangle" will be the joke of your kids and trader grandkids.

we got 20 tops maybe (less)30 more good years to make OUR $ off our BS price action (if lucky)

getting worse each year

after this we will be as antiquated and useless as the IBM 8086 :(
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Of course, they have solved chequers and it won't be long until machines are beating the best human poker players, the markets are next.

30 years? That's optimistic compared to me. You think there will even be markets in 30 years?
 
Quote from Matt Houston:

I havn't lost money, in fact I've made money. It wasn't a fluke the trades worked out exactly as planned, exactly as I knew they would (very similar to the trade handle took above), exactly as I have seen breakouts like these behave hundreds of times before, except I bailed out early, which is the point of my thread.

If my part-time trading doesn't work out as you are so convinced it will not lead to bankruptcy I can assure you of that. I keep my trading money separate from any other funds and I will know a long time in advance of blowing my account whether trading is not working out for me. I have played a lot of poker and done a lot of fixed odds betting, but I am not a gambler, I understand betting when the odds are in your favor, I have always been good with money and wouldn't risk more than I can afford to.

Why would I ever quit my job? I have a good job, and I actually enjoy it.

Thanks for all the replies guys but this thread has outlived its usefulness for me I won't be posting again. Glad people are finding it interesting have fun.
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Like I said before....Matt, you're smarter than 99% of the people on this site....no "pie in the sky" dreams for you.......good luck bro
 
Quote from actionzip54:

Lol you obviously missed Real Thing's point.
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When i see track record of the Real Thing vs Mark Fisher, i may pay attention. Until then " NEXT".

That's not to say his post does not have some good points.
 
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