Knowing when to get out

You are most likely FAR more knowledgable than I at trading, but from what I've seen and experienced so far over the years (and more notably lately with futures) it seems to share a few basic fundamentals with poker. At least it's a way for me to relate. I don't know if you play much poker but the two matches I see are:

- Strong discipline is needed. Need to stick to your system. Your hands (trades) need to be done for a reason. It's all too easy to let emotion get the best of you and if you do you are sunk.

- Play very few and only high probability hands (trades) with proper reward ratios (pot odds) and exit strategies.

Just how I see it. At the very least it let's me see and hopefully understand how to control emotion and discipline.
 
Quote from gluebunny:

Strong discipline is needed. Need to stick to your system. Your hands (trades) need to be done for a reason. It's all too easy to let emotion get the best of you and if you do you are sunk.

- Play very few and only high probability hands (trades) with proper reward ratios (pot odds) and exit strategies.
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I happen to agree with you on these two points!
Both "games" are about precision.

good trading!

surdo

PS : i am trading right now
 
Quote from gluebunny:

[
- Account size is very large for the 1 contract im trading. Part of my non-futures portfolio was brought over. So I'm not fear trading in the slightest, other than the fear of being wrong...getting over that :)

-QUOTE]


gb, i may be wrong.....but i think i see at least part of the problem. setting a daily loss limit is excellent advice, and using a journal is also excellent advice. but fear is still lurking.

having supported my family as an equities swing/position trader for several years before trading futures i can relate to your experience. you say that you are not trading from fear. i would encourage you to really examine that.

you might consciously think that way because you have an account that can withstand it. but the next thing you said was that you do have a fear of being wrong. i don't know you personally, but i can tell that the biggest issue i face as a trader is my fear of being wrong. and in the futures market, one has to admit their mistake immediately or give back profits.

inmho, futures being more volatile then stocks requires the trader to have even less fear of being wrong. i think you may still have some of that fear and now that your trading futures you conciously think that the 'fear' is still the same 'controlled fear' you had with stocks...but the futures market is a different animal.

you seem like you have a level head, so you stand a good chance of getting past it. but it won't be easy.
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Good points and I understand what you are saying. It's definitely something I need to work on.

My fear of being wrong is best explained like this:

If I do the right thing with the information that I have and I have to stop out for even/loss when I realize it's not going my way, that's fine and I'm OK with that. That's part of life.

It's when I do the wrong thing with the proper information where I run into trouble cutting it short.

Basically I don't mind when I'm beaten fair and square by the game, but when I beat myself...I get down on myself and pissy. Today's bad trading day I made 4-5 bad trades in the morning and knew it, and that compounded. I beat myself in the morning, and then wouldn't give up trying to prove I wouldn't beat myself again...which of course is silly and very self defeating :) At least I realize I have a problem with that. Step 1.
 
sounds like what some would call 'revenge trading'...thinking you'll get it back but really you're just fighting yourself. i still wrestle with that at times myself.

when you do the wrong thing and don't get out are you freezing like a deer in the headlights or are you smoking hopium waiting to 'breakeven and get out'? or maybe something else??
 
Quote from xxxskier:

sounds like what some would call 'revenge trading'...thinking you'll get it back but really you're just fighting yourself. i still wrestle with that at times myself.

when you do the wrong thing and don't get out are you freezing like a deer in the headlights or are you smoking hopium waiting to 'breakeven and get out'? or maybe something else??
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Yes :)

Actually it's not really a problem with taking big losses on any one trade. In general I'm pretty good at limiting them (with one exception today). It's more about entering silly trades at silly times with low probability hoping to "hit that one that will bring me back". It's a common phenomenon, seen it all around the trading world. It's just amplified in the more aggressive more volatile futures world it seems :)

When I'm trading well I don't do those. Today I racked up 4-5 bad trades at the start and I started saying "wow, I wonder if I can lose $1k today with how things are going!". Right there, turn off the computer. I knew it, I said it. I didn't. Discipline.
 
i'm sure you already know this.......

we are our own worse enemy (impulse control)......but we are also our greatest alley (discipline).

maybe try rewarding yourself after you exercise good discipline that you otherwise might not have. and after an impluse gets the better of you and you're flat.....and you plan on trading more that day , get up out of your chair and take a walk. do something, anything to get yourself out of the 'space' you were just in. so then when you do sit back down you might feel like its a fresh start.

oh....and consider hiding your PnL until the market closes. controversial, i know. but it works for me.
 
My worst trading is called revenge trading.

After 2 months of no losses, I mean that, no losses not just profitable months, but I did not have a single losing trade, I had a loss this month.

I got pissed off, and decided to break my own rules, and put in a directional trade to try to make the money back quickly. I then lost and did it again, and of course lost again but what sucks is if I left the profit target in for that last trade it would have been a winner, but the problem was I tripled the position size, so my drawdown became hugh, so I basically killed the trade when it got back to a rational size.

After that I went back to my normal forex trading rules, and made a 100 pip profit in a single night.

Still down for the month, but not as bad as it could have been.
 
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