How do you get over fear of taking a risk?

I've approached trading from a few different angles.

The first was to sit down in front of a screen full of charts and try to make money. I'm about as far from a natural born trader as you can find and I have learned more about myself doing this than I wanted to know. One thing that I learned is that I CRAVE certainty. I want my stop at the level that isn't going to get run. I don't want to buy the first pullback. I want to buy the third. I want to sell the strongest market I can find because it is due for a retrace. I think that it is because so many people think like this that my stop gets hit to the tick, the 3rd retrace fails and the strong trend continues. All of this has made me appreciate that risk puts food on traders' tables.

The second way was to spend the time to discover and implement mechanical systems. Compared with the first, this was like a walk in the park. When there is nothing for me to decide, I can take trade after trade after trade. Having a few years of bad trading under my belt probably helped here.
 
Quote from jinxu:

Here's a description and a chart of my trade on 7-27-2010.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=187235&perpage=6&pagenumber=208
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=187235&perpage=6&pagenumber=209

Anyone have any comments?
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Yes I do……


Reading through this thread – here’s what I take away


1.) You’re significantly under capitalized

2.) You have no real trading methodology

3.) You haven’t the stomach – meaning as a greenhorn you haven’t been to battle enough times to build up the tolerance and/or more importantly appreciation of what it is a trader does…


First and foremost traders are experts at managing risk… We do not run from risk – we revel in it…. No way in hell someone can manage something they are scared of…..





Anyway – any one of the above could easily cause failure… You have all three… and likely some more…..



1.) Save up your money till you're adequately funded.

2.) Get on a SIM and build a methodology..., and a plan..

3.) Will come over time once you go live and trade for real – while using small shares – and learning to protect your ass..



This is a big boys/ girls game – get the hell back on the porch and prepare… Otherwise I and those like me will take every penny you own and not even give you the time of day



This Sir is the reality of things… how you decide to proceed is of course your choice…


RN
 
jinxu, from the trades you posted it appears you are afraid of taking a loss much more than you are afraid of taking risk.

"No stops" approach may let you avoid taking a loss 1, 2, or even 5 times in a row... but you will inevitably end up with a large loss that dwarfs weeks' worth of daily profits and losses. In other words, tolerating large drawdowns may increase the number of profitable days but will inevitably hurt P&L over long term.
 
If you want to try simulated trading, the easiest way is to subscribe to one of data-only services such as eSignal or IQ Feed and use popular trading software like QuoteTracker or NinjaTrader.... you can use both for simulated trading for free. Maybe, they even support your broker data.
 
Quote from Went Fishing:

Quote from jinxu:

I keep worrying about it every time I see a good setup and it makes me hesitate from entering.

What are ways I can get over this psychological barrier?


jinxu:

If you test your set-ups (back-test & forward-test) and keep records of their performance you will know how many winners vs losers you can except out of 100 trades, or 10 trades. Knowing for a FACT, your strategy has a PROVEN history of 7 wins out of ten entries may help to relieve your hesitation.

{note: keep your results separated, W/L for pre market & W/L for day session}

test test test

<*)))><
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BUMP to this guy...

Go sim, find your edge, make sure theres an edge, apply with cash.
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Really sound advise, thanks.

Quote from Redneck:

Yes I do……


Reading through this thread – here’s what I take away


1.) You’re significantly under capitalized

2.) You have no real trading methodology

3.) You haven’t the stomach – meaning as a greenhorn you haven’t been to battle enough times to build up the tolerance and/or more importantly appreciation of what it is a trader does…


First and foremost traders are experts at managing risk… We do not run from risk – we revel in it…. No way in hell someone can manage something they are scared of…..





Anyway – any one of the above could easily cause failure… You have all three… and likely some more…..



1.) Save up your money till you're adequately funded.

2.) Get on a SIM and build a methodology..., and a plan..

3.) Will come over time once you go live and trade for real – while using small shares – and learning to protect your ass..



This is a big boys/ girls game – get the hell back on the porch and prepare… Otherwise I and those like me will take every penny you own and not even give you the time of day



This Sir is the reality of things… how you decide to proceed is of course your choice…


RN
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jinxu, i have been in the exactly same situation like you for the whole 2009.
Tiny capital, feared to pull the trigger when i saw my set up, and got really pissed off when that set up went so well in my direction, then chased the price or made counter-trend trade. When those chasing or countering failed and i lose money, I got mad and did stupid things. Even when I did take part in the trend, i was afraid that my entry wasn't good enough to ride the whole trend because of my tiny stop, and got out with tiny little profit. By the way, i trade NQ, quite like YM.

It was like a cursed circle, and I had no idea how to get out of it, I was totally depressed,and started to drink alcohol.

Getting into to a bad circle is really easy, but getting out is so hard.

I sat down and wrote all the trades and emotions down, and found the circle i said above. I measured all the elements in this circle, tried to figure out the weakest to break. I found that having a methodology that totally fit my personality and capital would be the easier one. This methodology should prevent me from overtrading, should provide the best set up signal, and should provide the best R/R.

When i have this methodology, the next thing i have to do is to be discipline with it . When i have all of them, i will have my edge.

The disadvantages RN had pointed out are not three things, they worked like a system, that if you have (a), you will probably have (b). Psychology problems don't come out simply from the mental, and they cannot be simply solved by reinforce the mental power.

I suffered a series of failure earlier this year, that makes me totally convert to SIM. I am not gonna to risk my money until i completely find the methodology makes comfortable.
 
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