Excellent & constructive. Do you have realistic profit targets that work with proper R/R and are you using them?
Lucky
I'mhaving a serious problem keeping my profits
- Thread starter Kovacs
- Start date
Excellent & constructive. Do you have realistic profit targets that work with proper R/R and are you using them?
Lucky
i have mentored many traders and money management is among the most important (and neglected) aspects of trading
personally, i have several accounts.
in all my DAYTRADING accounts (contrast with investment accounts), i am mandated to sweep profits AT LEAST once a month
mandated
you should have a written business plan
this plan should MANDATE how to sweep your profits
i have a set formula. some of my daytrading profits (i trade mostly index futures intraday) go to a moneymarket, some to a mutual fund, some into commodities, and some into "alternative investments" like real estate, collectibles, etc.
personally, i have several accounts.
in all my DAYTRADING accounts (contrast with investment accounts), i am mandated to sweep profits AT LEAST once a month
mandated
you should have a written business plan
this plan should MANDATE how to sweep your profits
i have a set formula. some of my daytrading profits (i trade mostly index futures intraday) go to a moneymarket, some to a mutual fund, some into commodities, and some into "alternative investments" like real estate, collectibles, etc.
I think the problem is your confidence. particularly when your plan frequently gets ruined by market whipsaws, you(subconcious)will try to find saftey/certatinity, avoid those very profitable trades and chase those "looks safe, sounds great" trades, but actually they are very bad trades. I have this problem too, after I read several psychological books, I realize it and I corrected it.
a trading plan is important, but that does not mean you can can do anything since you have a plan. you need patience/discipline to select the very trade which can follow your plan, this will boost your confidence. if most can work out under your plan, that means you are disciplined and you know how to find a trade which fits your plan. if you want to use $0.3 stop loss to trade a 100+ stock, and want to gain 3 or 10 points, then most likely it is a bad plan, I traded MA using $0.3 stop loss, but I find it is not suitable, lost of time I am right in the general direction, but I lost in those minor whipsaws!
trading is an art! when to put stop (not like some one said, you should always have a stop). which amount is right, when to hold, when to liqidate, when to enter, and forget about risk/reward ratio (market does not work that way) .... I enjoy it very much. after three years in the day trading business, I find I accumulated 300k+ annually from my tiny 30k account!
a trading plan is important, but that does not mean you can can do anything since you have a plan. you need patience/discipline to select the very trade which can follow your plan, this will boost your confidence. if most can work out under your plan, that means you are disciplined and you know how to find a trade which fits your plan. if you want to use $0.3 stop loss to trade a 100+ stock, and want to gain 3 or 10 points, then most likely it is a bad plan, I traded MA using $0.3 stop loss, but I find it is not suitable, lost of time I am right in the general direction, but I lost in those minor whipsaws!
trading is an art! when to put stop (not like some one said, you should always have a stop). which amount is right, when to hold, when to liqidate, when to enter, and forget about risk/reward ratio (market does not work that way) .... I enjoy it very much. after three years in the day trading business, I find I accumulated 300k+ annually from my tiny 30k account!
? All successful speculators lose money, it's part of the game. The only way to never lose money is to never take any risk. No risk, no reward.
To the original poster, I would say you need to stop thinking in terms of "keeping my profits". Every single day before the open, the amount in your account, market to market, is your capital base. It is no longer "profit" plus "original capital". 100% of the equity there is your capital, as of today. If you bought 1000 shares at $50, and today it's $52, then your capital today is $52,000. You do not have $2k profit today. So you should trade it as if you have just got in at $52, not as if you got in at $50 and have a couple of dollars to play with.
Think it terms of current capital and current market exposure. Would you buy at $52 and sit on a $2 downmove? If not, then you can't do that if you got in at $50, or at $40 or $10 for that matter.
Most traders mistakenly view open profits and original capital as different things. Once you see current capital as the figure to focus on, then you should naturally get more diligent at protecting it. Then the problem of "giving back" "profits" (i.e. taking hefty losses from your current capital & position) should disappear.
This advice has been given out before but I keep a trade journal for everyday I trade. Then I mark the biggest winner and biggest loser for that day. In your case, if you trade multiple times, record every single trade you made for the day then archive it.
Then every Monday, open up your journal and your previous losing week's record and go through it and remind yourself what you did wrong and what you should do to correct it.
It still occassionally pains me to take a loss but I do it anyways because that's part of trading. If you can't do it, then don't trade.
Then every Monday, open up your journal and your previous losing week's record and go through it and remind yourself what you did wrong and what you should do to correct it.
It still occassionally pains me to take a loss but I do it anyways because that's part of trading. If you can't do it, then don't trade.
have you read mark douglas book. you have to take losses. It hurts to make money 2 days in a row and to give it back in a couple of hours on the 3rd day. But like douglas says you must take the loss if your system says to get out. At the end of the month it will all average out . You must have confidence in your system that at the end of the month your P&L statement will give you a small profit that you try to make each month. The most important is consistency. ITs better to average 10% a month than 70% 1 month then - 40% the next month.