Is it time to throw in the towel?

[SteveM]

I'm not entirely sure as to what is causing the negative results..

Could be a variety of things...Here are things that have screwed
me up:

Risking 60 cents to make 20 cents.....not realizing I need to be right
90% of the time to make money (after commissions) using this scenario.

Refusing to simply take the loss, and instead pulling stops or moving stops lower....wind up
erasing last 15 good trades because of 1 huge bad trade.

Losing on 3 trades in a row and then deciding to revenge trade....not
realizing it is simple math...if you flip a coin you can wind up with 3 tails
in a row no problem...why can't same odds apply to trading.

Impulse trading rather than sitting patiently at waiting for a setup.

---------------------

OP I bet if you sat behind the screen and did nothing for the 1st hour of
the trading day, and limited yourself to only 2 trades a day (with stops,
and profit targets for each trade), you'd probably wind up finishing most
weeks profitably.

It's the impulse trading and lack of discipline that kills most of us.

 

[destriero]

Idk where to even start. I'm looking for advice, motivation, or similar stories. For a little context, I'm 25 years old turning 26 in November, I still live at home and am being supported by my family to pursue my goals of becoming a successful trader.

I've been trading full-time since June 2018 and 2.5 years part-time before that. Last year I traded 33million dollars and ended up with $7000 in losses, $2,249 from trades and $4,213 in commissions. My average green and red days are $300-400 I managed to get up $2500 in the first two and a half weeks this year. The fourth week I took an $1800 loss one day and the week after I took another $1600 loss. Fast forward to today and I'm down -2302 for the year and only $174 away from my account being locked out due to the PDT rule. Total over the last 3.5 years I am down $17,000. Im not focused on making the money back, I know that if I just become consistent then the money will come. I'm mentally in a rut right now due to my performance over the last 3 weeks and slightly "Burnt out" from showing up every day for the last 3.5 years and making no progress monetarily.

I planned on trading till June and if I was still struggling then I would switch to part-time and start working on real estate or something. However, nothing is more attractive to me than being a trader, the money and the time freedom make this my favorite career option in life.

If you were in my shoes what would you do? Do I fund my account and switch to paper trading for a week or two to get back in the zone? Do I lower my size to 100 shares and start with my back against the wall? Do I fund my account and go on a "vacation" while the funds settle to clear my mind? Or my least favorite option do I throw in the towel early?

A week or two? You're nearing $25K and taking 10% daily var? No, you should not be trading until you have found an edge.

 

[TheDailyTrader]

From my experience: people how really have a dream, who want to reach a certain goal, no matter what, who dedicate all their effort to something special... they would never even consider to throw in the towel, to give up. This possibility does not exist to them. Because of this, because of the dedication and willpower, they sooner or later fulfill their dreams.

This is how I feel about it, it's just that I want it sooner than later. I don't want to quit and I believe that success in trading is one of the greatest things in the world. I just want to make sure I'm not being unrealistic, I don't have a lot of comparison points so idk how to measure where I'm at. I never want to quit, I just don't want to be the guy who blows his entire life savings because I wasn't being realistic. I'm pretty sure based on my collected data that I CAN be successful here if I can stay mentally focused.

 

[fordewind]

Throw in the towel you are not fit.

 

[mushinseeker]

This game is tough. If you don't have a verifiable, replicable edge that can't be expressed in some algorithm, my advise to you is to take a break. If you are a keyboard "cowboy" where your triggers are "gut" and you are producing these bad results... stop. Like Robert said, if your process yields X , trading till June won't change X. There are very few gut traders with a sustainable success. "Trading freedom " unless automated can be illusory .. what used to feel like "freedom" starts to not feel not so once you get older and HAVE to stare at your screen 6.5 hours a day.Now algorithmic trading where you turn on a pc then watch oprah all day is another story. Dude.. at your age.. learn a skill preferably related to STEM , many doors will open... not to mention if you learn something along the lines of AI/ML, you can then fail fast and cheap thru backtests,etc.

 

[mbondy]

I'm not entirely sure as to what is causing the negative results. I trade breakouts mainly which does add a higher risk to my trades. Today I took TWTR short at 9:33 and closed 22 cents green. Then I took NFLX short at 9:38 and ended up in the money about 40 cents before it reversed on me. I took TSLA at 9:54 due to fomo and again got 40 cents in the money before it reversed. Then I took another trade in NFLX at 10:00 again 40 cents in the money than it reversed.

I don't understand this reasoning at all.
If anything, breakout plays are pretty tight and 'less' risky - if the stock breaks, you ride it with a close stop, if it fails, you bail.
So you had a bunch that failed today... and the broad market is down... it's bound to happen. 3 out of your 4 trades should have been scratches.

 

[TheDailyTrader]

This game is tough. If you don't have a verifiable, replicable edge that can't be expressed in some algorithm, my advise to you is to take a break. If you are a keyboard "cowboy" where your triggers are "gut" and you are producing these bad results... stop.

All my triggers come from some "pattern" that ive seen 1000 times now. I generally focus on parabolic breakout moves in the first 30 minutes of the day then I transition into trading wedge breakouts with a stop above/below the most recent move. So I'm not just assuming things will go my way and getting into random pos if thats what you mean by "gut" trading.

 

[Robert Morse]

I don't understand this reasoning at all.
If anything, breakout plays are pretty tight and 'less' risky - if the stock breaks, you ride it with a close stop, if it fails, you bail.
So you had a bunch that failed today... and the broad market is down... it's bound to happen. 3 out of your 4 trades should have been scratches.

In my experiance, it is very hard to make money in the first 2 min. Many traders play breakouts, it jumps, then dips to the old break out point, maybe a little below, and all the day traders stop out, then 30 min later, we are higher.

 

[TheDailyTrader]

I don't understand this reasoning at all.
If anything, breakout plays are pretty tight and 'less' risky - if the stock breaks, you ride it with a close stop, if it fails, you bail.
So you had a bunch that failed today... and the broad market is down... it's bound to happen. 3 out of your 4 trades should have been scratches.

I do agree with you. my mentor tells me "never lose a trade to fear, only to your price" So setting a stop and going for a scratch trade mentally makes me feel like im losing to fear and not giving the trade time to work.

 

[Maverick1]

I'm not entirely sure as to what is causing the negative results. I trade breakouts mainly which does add a higher risk to my trades. Today I took TWTR short at 9:33 and closed 22 cents green. Then I took NFLX short at 9:38 and ended up in the money about 40 cents before it reversed on me. I took TSLA at 9:54 due to fomo and again got 40 cents in the money before it reversed. Then I took another trade in NFLX at 10:00 again 40 cents in the money than it reversed.

What would happen if your reversed long on say NFLX and TSLA today?

Have you considered going over your past trades to see if that would have worked?