How do I get out of the funk

[PAPA ROACH]

Dude, I am going to go against the common grain here. First off, forget your loss or your doomed. Secondly, do not attempt a revenge trade (see forget your loss). ALL FUND MANAGERS/TRADERS HAVE A DRAWDOWN PERIOD, ALL OF THEM.

It is my experience that instead of taking time off from the game, you stay in and reduce size for a week or two. You are current with what is going on in the markets, you leave and you lose being current. I was on the floor of the NYMEX for two years, Locals won and lost on a daily basis. I never really saw any successful traders take time off when they were down, they either reduced size or just watched until something was so blatantly obvious.

I trade Natty for an energy company. I had a bad January and the boss told me to take a week. I did and returned and was still in a little funk until about a week ago. The time off didn't do jack shit, I had to catch up with what had transpired. I reduced size and became a little less agressive and am now back in the rhythm.

If you dwell on the loss, you will lose more. If you attempt to make it back, you will lose more. If you trade the way you have always traded and delete the bad trades from your memory, you'll win.

 

[NY0BScalper]

Quote from flipflopper:

I use IB with Ninja Trader and neither have the ability to market me out of all my positions when I lose a certain amount in a day. I would buy a program that would forcefully limit my daily losses in a heartbeat. The problem isn't that I don't use stops I just sometimes get so heated that I will keep reentering my same position after I get stopped!?!?! I need something to turn my machine off if I start doing that. I am disciplined and patient 95% of the time but when something sets me off I get pissed and lose it!!!

I was having a nice easy day all day... was trading 4 cars and 500 shares at a time. Won about 70% of my trades... let my stops get hit with no problem... just perfect trading. Was up 1900 at 2:00 and figured the market was stale so I was done. I hopped in the shower and when I walked out saw the market had popped on the MBI/ABK news.

I didn't even want to trade but figured it would be foolish to let such easy money go... so I started buying as the market retraced. Got fully loaded waiting for the next leg up then bamn.... that high volume spike down at 2:45 stopped me out. At this point I was up only $500 and got pissed. I figured since I was stopped the market was in for a huge reversal so instead of stepping aside I went short... Compounded the problems and ended the day down $2300... all based on one event that confused me and I acted too strongly in search of fast money.

Same thing happened to me last week after the Fed minutes. Shorted the hell out of the market after the minutes... got whipped out... reentered my short got stopped out.... went long and the market reversed. These two pieces of news cost me about $8000... I need to find a way to avoid these bullshit traps.

During normal market conditions (No 100+ point moves in minutes) I steadily make really amazing money. Any time I try playing news with the big boys I get screwed!!!!

You sound like me. That sounds like the kind of shit I pull. Yes, I'm like you, 95% of the time patient (more like 98% with me), but that 2% can just fucking ruin the work of the other 98%. I just can't trade on a platform without a hard cut off. Find a broker who has that. There is no way around it for people like you and me. It's as much a necessity as having access to market, limit, and stop orders, or live data. It feels so good. Today I made $3500 and I know that no matter what happens, if I go on total tilt tomorrow, I.E. so bad that I'm just holding my losers against me praying to god that they come back, I won't drop more than 1/3rd of what I made today. If I'm just normal off, I.E. not seeing it, maybe trying to force too hard, once I hit -400 gross I'm done. I CANNOT BLOW MY MONTH NO MATTER HOW CRAZY I GET. IT IS BEAUTIFUL. IT IS THE HOLY GRAIL (for me)!

Quote from datamerc:

What software/platform are you using that goes flat when a max daily loss is reached? Thanks.

Laser. They all have it.


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Another thing about the autocutoff that's just so beautiful, is that it actually keeps you more disciplined. Sometimes when down, I say "fuck it", and without a cutoff, might not wake up until I'm down $900... then I realize I just blew $600 taking shots trying to make back $300, and I can't blow $1800 trying to make back $900 and must be patient for small trades. However, with the max loss at $400, whenever I'm red on the day it's constantly in my mind. I've had a lot of days where I was totally off, and would have kept losing normally, but just sat there, down $350-399 gross, and ended up coming back to positive by being absurdly patient, knowing that no matter how much I want to jump into every trade it doesn't matter since one or two more losers and that's it. So that forces me to be patient. It's just beautiful.

Quote from NJ1000:

its frusterating though that ill have 10-15 postive days in a row but my down days are so big have to work on that

you're not alone man. I'm just like you in that regard. without my autocutoff... oh boy...