Made a lot of progress, but feel like there's so much more to go...

[ElectricSavant]

Nice post TraderEX...you seem to be less stressed. Or to put it from trader to trader...you seem to be in the sweet spot of volume..(only TraderEX knows what this means)

ElectricKeepItPositiveSavant

It's apparent you want the trader's lifestyle as do I. Been searching for easy big money and ego boosting my whole life. Always got in the way. I guarantee you if you lost your wife and child because the path you took was egocentric in nature, you would have very serious regrets upon that realization.
I went through the same thing almost losing that. Luckily, it was pointed out to me. The code for now is God, family, strangers, self. Every since then I have had a complete reversal of fortune. Not everyone is true to a single God but it works for me and has always had a place. When I was first on my list, everyone around me suffered. The best part of having a GOD around is zero anxiety. Believing God's got your back, because you have his, means you have the most powerful entity in the universe behind you. I can go into the Roman Catholic confessional tight as rope and leave in ten minutes a changed, for the better, human.

I started engaging in school yard crap with these guys and became entwined in it. Meditating, asking Jesus for help and BINGO, Savant shows up with the block button, problem solved. The problem was my bruised EGO from the negativism. I was foolish to fall for the trap.

After I posted to you, I thought, another options exists. You said 150k and lots of responsibility and time. Maybe a side step or a step down to a more suitable anxiety level. Anxiety made me the king of bad decisions.

With Jesus on board, anxiety is gone(completely) and my responses to a situation can be thought out carefully. When that goes wrong, it's just beyond me.

I trade with a bracket. Preconceived ideas during calm times. I had to enter and leave the room not to cancel the stop loss for months. The bracket was my discipline and removing it was my ego. The discipline is a much better result for me. The choice to answer to God's law is a good discipline. Putting others ahead of me, with my family being first over strangers, is a discipline. Cannot trade and have high levels of anxiety. I retired an RN from a psychiatric hospital in NYC. I know about anxiety and what it does to people.

Nobody loves being selfish more than me. Just didn't work!
Best of luck-

Ex

 

[RRY16]

Nice post TraderEX...you seem to be less stressed. Or to put it from trader to trader...you seem to be in the sweet spot of volume..(only TraderEX knows what this means)

ElectricKeepItPositiveSavant

Your wife definitely doesn’t know what it means.

 

[jinxu]

It's apparent you want the trader's lifestyle as do I. Been searching for easy big money and ego boosting my whole life. Always got in the way. I guarantee you if you lost your wife and child because the path you took was egocentric in nature, you would have very serious regrets upon that realization.
I went through the same thing almost losing that. Luckily, it was pointed out to me. The code for now is God, family, strangers, self. Every since then I have had a complete reversal of fortune. Not everyone is true to a single God but it works for me and has always had a place. When I was first on my list, everyone around me suffered. The best part of having a GOD around is zero anxiety. Believing God's got your back, because you have his, means you have the most powerful entity in the universe behind you. I can go into the Roman Catholic confessional tight as rope and leave in ten minutes a changed, for the better, human.

I started engaging in school yard crap with these guys and became entwined in it. Meditating, asking Jesus for help and BINGO, Savant shows up with the block button, problem solved. The problem was my bruised EGO from the negativism. I was foolish to fall for the trap.

After I posted to you, I thought, another options exists. You said 150k and lots of responsibility and time. Maybe a side step or a step down to a more suitable anxiety level. Anxiety made me the king of bad decisions.

With Jesus on board, anxiety is gone(completely) and my responses to a situation can be thought out carefully. When that goes wrong, it's just beyond me.

I trade with a bracket. Preconceived ideas during calm times. I had to enter and leave the room not to cancel the stop loss for months. The bracket was my discipline and removing it was my ego. The discipline is a much better result for me. The choice to answer to God's law is a good discipline. Putting others ahead of me, with my family being first over strangers, is a discipline. Cannot trade and have high levels of anxiety. I retired an RN from a psychiatric hospital in NYC. I know about anxiety and what it does to people.

Nobody loves being selfish more than me. Just didn't work!
Best of luck-

Ex

Why do you believe in GOD?

I offer the OP the secret to trading was in meditation once. He didn't take the offer.

 

[TraderEX]

Why do you believe in GOD?

I offer the OP the secret to trading was in meditation once. He didn't take the offer.

I believe in God because He gives me what I need. In this case, peace of mind and control from my instinctive greed as well as severe egocentric ism. With regards to my physical pain, He relieves the severity.
Jesus is my "go to" deity. When I analyze my stats, just do better when He is in the picture. Jesus promised us that good will be returned 100x. Karma is only even money.
Trading for profit or loss, Jesus works for me!

 

[TraderEX]

Your wife definitely doesn’t know what it means.

childish, as he is can be.

 

[jinxu]

I believe in God because He gives me what I need. In this case, peace of mind and control from my instinctive greed as well as severe egocentric ism. With regards to my physical pain, He relieves the severity.
Jesus is my "go to" deity. When I analyze my stats, just do better when He is in the picture. Jesus promised us that good will be returned 100x. Karma is only even money.
Trading for profit or loss, Jesus works for me!

I agree. Traders who trade purely for profits ends up being poor trader.
In the movie Batman Begins, Christoper Nolan writes that when Bruce Wayne wanted to just best up criminal he was just another ordinary dude. But when Bruce Wayne decides to dedicate himself to an idea, he became something bigger. He became Batman.

 

[TraderEX]

I agree. Traders who trade purely for profits ends up being poor trader.
In the movie Batman Begins, Christoper Nolan writes that when Bruce Wayne wanted to just best up criminal he was just another ordinary dude. But when Bruce Wayne decides to dedicate himself to an idea, he became something bigger. He became Batman.

Interesting dude, Thanks. Loved the movie.

 

[trader99]

It's apparent you want the trader's lifestyle as do I. Been searching for easy big money and ego boosting my whole life. Always got in the way. I guarantee you if you lost your wife and child because the path you took was egocentric in nature, you would have very serious regrets upon that realization.
I went through the same thing almost losing that. Luckily, it was pointed out to me. The code for now is God, family, strangers, self. Every since then I have had a complete reversal of fortune. Not everyone is true to a single God but it works for me and has always had a place. When I was first on my list, everyone around me suffered. The best part of having a GOD around is zero anxiety. Believing God's got your back, because you have his, means you have the most powerful entity in the universe behind you. I can go into the Roman Catholic confessional tight as rope and leave in ten minutes a changed, for the better, human.

I started engaging in school yard crap with these guys and became entwined in it. Meditating, asking Jesus for help and BINGO, Savant shows up with the block button, problem solved. The problem was my bruised EGO from the negativism. I was foolish to fall for the trap.

After I posted to you, I thought, another options exists. You said 150k and lots of responsibility and time. Maybe a side step or a step down to a more suitable anxiety level. Anxiety made me the king of bad decisions.

With Jesus on board, anxiety is gone(completely) and my responses to a situation can be thought out carefully. When that goes wrong, it's just beyond me.

I trade with a bracket. Preconceived ideas during calm times. I had to enter and leave the room not to cancel the stop loss for months. The bracket was my discipline and removing it was my ego. The discipline is a much better result for me. The choice to answer to God's law is a good discipline. Putting others ahead of me, with my family being first over strangers, is a discipline. Cannot trade and have high levels of anxiety. I retired an RN from a psychiatric hospital in NYC. I know about anxiety and what it does to people.

Nobody loves being selfish more than me. Just didn't work!
Best of luck-

Ex

@TraderEX
Thanks for your thoughtful and detailed response. I'm NOT selfish and I'm doing the sensible thing as I've said earlier. I got the offer and waiting for the paperwork and administrative stuff to clear then start.

I figure with my job total comp $150K-$200K (depending on bonuses and stock options) I can have peace of mind and provide the financial security my family needs.

I will save and build back to a bigger account. Given that I trade better now than I was when I started out, hopefully I can initially kick out another $50K-$100K from trading on the side. Then as time progress and I get better and bigger my side trading can match up to my job income and over time be multiples of that.

That's my plan. Hopefully that all works out. In 10 years, I will have enough to retire early and have a large trading account where I can easily generate $5K-10K a day on average. Then living the dream.

But it will take a lot of work to get from here to there. I'm all up for it.

Wish me luck!

 

[trader99]

Here's the update. All the paperwork is cleared. I'm starting work next week.

However, I will continue to trade. I have about 1.5hours a day in the morning to trade before work. Maybe more if I get up super early. I'm on PST time so in theory I could be up trading at 5am PST or whatever. Futures markets are open that time.

Since waiting for my paperwork to clear, I've made more progress in trading. Here are a few things I noticed:

1) My signals are getting good, but I'm little gun-shy. I missed the signal by putting to buy at the bid. Then it runs away from me. Vice versa for short.

2) When there are huge opportunities available, I should trade with size. I think this confidence will come with time. There are multiple occasions the last 2 weeks where I could have easily make $10K+. But all I ended up making make $1K or less.

3) too many opportunities and not enough mindshare. I track CL, NQ, GC, NQ. And now I've added a few stocks and options. I have missed a lot of good moves because I'm constantly scanning. I need to get better at jumping on a good opportunity and ride with it without distraction. I understand some of you advocate focus on one instrument. For me, I understand the point but sometimes the one instrument I focus is not moving that day. On other hand, when you see too many things moving it's hard to know which one to jump on.

Anyhow. Any thoughts and advice?

Thanks in advance!

 

[themickey]

....2) When there are huge opportunities available, I should trade with size. I think this confidence will come with time. There are multiple occasions the last 2 weeks where I could have easily make $10K+. But all I ended up making make $1K or less....

Be very careful.
The mind plays tricks, we are prone to bias, we see what we want to see.
Scale up slowly! Greed will kill you in this game!
Greed can be interpreted as too much enthusiasm and optimism.
Remember, trading is about protecting capital, not about reaping masterstroke windfalls.