EOD JULY 28
My attempt to earn a funded account with Earn2Trade
- Thread starter SelfMadeDude
- Start date
Pressure can be a good motivator to work your ass off, but trying to "trade for a living" or to "pay rent" from a very limited account base is still not the right course of action and one that is only more likely to make you fail, IMO. "Wanting it more" is not going to help.
Quitting the day job would only make sense if you have a ton of research to do or building a trading system where having a day job would make progress impossible or too slow. I've been in that situation and I can honestly say that I would not have have the market knowledge or system I currently have if I were to do it part-time.
Assuming you have a good system/trading skills you could do very well in these markets just trading 1-3 hours per day where you're fully focused.
So, if I were you, I would use your motivation or pressure to reach your goals and still work your ass off, but in a way where your success is more likely.
Start by asking yourself a few questions:
What are you currently lacking? Why aren't you successful yet?
What if the right course of action would be to work your ass off holding two jobs or some other way where you would build up enough trading capital to at least have a chance?
How long would it take you to save up $15K?
Or maybe you still continue to trade with these get-funded programs, but hold at least a part-time job such that your living expenses are covered?
Right now you're in a position where you need to be the world's best trader just to get by. And I'm afraid that will not work out for you...
If you choose the other path which might be slower you have a much better chance at getting there. A wise man once said it's better to get rich slowly than to get poor quickly.
Good luck either way.
I don't disagree with your comments. It is exactly what I would tell a friend/family member.
I know myself. I have such bad sporadic discipline that I need this "back to the wall...fight like hell to survive" situation...it's been good to me this round. And obviously, there are more dynamics at play but too personal to open up on a public forum.
As long as I am able to get funded by the end of next week, I should be okay.
Thanks for the advice and encouragement.
By the end of this week?
Your profit target is 9K, right? So you are 2K away?
Why give yourself this extra pressure?
EOD JULY 29
i agree, sortino is a better indicator.
EOD AUG 1
Blew my small personal account. Moved into a studio this weekend way beyond my budget but had to because the landlord had someone else moving in this weekend.
If I do not get funded by this Friday, I do not have enough for another month of evaluation so.....lmao.....hardly have enough money to eat at this point.
My conquest continues.....unless I kill myself. Not sure which one will come first, success as a trader or hara-kiri -- for me, it is one or the other.
Blew my small personal account. Moved into a studio this weekend way beyond my budget but had to because the landlord had someone else moving in this weekend.
If I do not get funded by this Friday, I do not have enough for another month of evaluation so.....lmao.....hardly have enough money to eat at this point.
My conquest continues.....unless I kill myself. Not sure which one will come first, success as a trader or hara-kiri -- for me, it is one or the other.
What specifically went wrong today? Trading wise?
My conquest continues.....unless I kill myself. Not sure which one will come first ... this statement of yours .. is worrisome. if you ae in such a bad situation why dont you get some job first at least a part time one.. please talk to your friends get some reality check !
I agree this is all very concerning, but it's not the first time the OP made similar comments. Let's hope it's not meant seriously.
SelfMadeDude,
I can only repeat what I already said and I'm sad to see this is going like I predicted.
Trading is very much a mental game. You're not in a spot right now where that part is handled and this pressure is only working against you. Wanting it more, needing it more, deserving it more, etc., is not going to help you. It's a hindrance.
You need to set yourself up for success and make sure these things are handled.
Personally, I blew a smaller account ($7K) at the start of this year. A big explanation of why I blew it is that volatility was spiking and I wasn't sizing properly. Ironically, I determined that this time around I wouldn't over-leverage, but the volatility was so extreme that even if I was smaller than my last time around I was still trading too big.
So, that was the end of my dreams and aspirations to make it big this year. I was tempted to give up and maybe it would have been the rational thing to do, but I do believe I have very good trading skills, but typically put myself in a spot where I'm trading too large and where the outcome of any single trade means too much. Because of this I was also tempted to move my stops and only making them bigger as a result when they was actually hit.
Since I didn't have any capital to trade and my day job was quite busy, I decided to simply work a lot and save up as much as I could. I worked about 350 hours extra hours (basically every night/weekend) so far this year and have now managed to save up about $12K. I'll be funding a $15K account and going live again by September or so.
I have a full-time job with remote work opportunities, so all my expenses, food, sheltering and so on are taken care of. I don't need to make money right now. Sure, I'd love to strike big and quit my day job, but it's not an option just yet. Effectively working two jobs and the entire weekends will be tough, but who said it's easy to become rich or leave the 9/5?
I figure if I trade conservatively and patiently, maybe, I can trade a bit larger by next year risking my profits and not initial capital. If I start rushing it and trade too large, I will only be putting myself further away from my goals. If I do this correctly, maybe I'll be somewhere interesting by next summer.
This is what I mean by working your ass off in the proper way.
I also put in 10 + years on this. I lost a lot of money. I didn't pursue a career, so there's that opportunity cost paid as well. Lost relationships with new friends from school since I didn't have time to meet them. Invested probably close to $50K in building my proprietary trading model (programming services). There's been many dark moments contemplating this especially after a string of losses...
I also feel that I deserve to make it now, but the market doesn't really give a f''k. That's just how it is.
At the end of the day I'm still me. I have a good life. I have friends. Family. A job. I'm in great shape and I have many other skills to lean on. If I don't make it in trading it's not the end of the world. I love the markets and really hope I can turn this around, but it's not the end of the world if I don't. At the end of day it's just a game we're playing. Silly prices moving up and down on a computer.
I hope you see that the path you're pursuing is one that won't give you happiness and change course to one that will. It certainly is possible.
Send me a PM if you want to talk more in private or we can continue here.
SelfMadeDude,
I can only repeat what I already said and I'm sad to see this is going like I predicted.
Trading is very much a mental game. You're not in a spot right now where that part is handled and this pressure is only working against you. Wanting it more, needing it more, deserving it more, etc., is not going to help you. It's a hindrance.
You need to set yourself up for success and make sure these things are handled.
Personally, I blew a smaller account ($7K) at the start of this year. A big explanation of why I blew it is that volatility was spiking and I wasn't sizing properly. Ironically, I determined that this time around I wouldn't over-leverage, but the volatility was so extreme that even if I was smaller than my last time around I was still trading too big.
So, that was the end of my dreams and aspirations to make it big this year. I was tempted to give up and maybe it would have been the rational thing to do, but I do believe I have very good trading skills, but typically put myself in a spot where I'm trading too large and where the outcome of any single trade means too much. Because of this I was also tempted to move my stops and only making them bigger as a result when they was actually hit.
Since I didn't have any capital to trade and my day job was quite busy, I decided to simply work a lot and save up as much as I could. I worked about 350 hours extra hours (basically every night/weekend) so far this year and have now managed to save up about $12K. I'll be funding a $15K account and going live again by September or so.
I have a full-time job with remote work opportunities, so all my expenses, food, sheltering and so on are taken care of. I don't need to make money right now. Sure, I'd love to strike big and quit my day job, but it's not an option just yet. Effectively working two jobs and the entire weekends will be tough, but who said it's easy to become rich or leave the 9/5?
I figure if I trade conservatively and patiently, maybe, I can trade a bit larger by next year risking my profits and not initial capital. If I start rushing it and trade too large, I will only be putting myself further away from my goals. If I do this correctly, maybe I'll be somewhere interesting by next summer.
This is what I mean by working your ass off in the proper way.
I also put in 10 + years on this. I lost a lot of money. I didn't pursue a career, so there's that opportunity cost paid as well. Lost relationships with new friends from school since I didn't have time to meet them. Invested probably close to $50K in building my proprietary trading model (programming services). There's been many dark moments contemplating this especially after a string of losses...
I also feel that I deserve to make it now, but the market doesn't really give a f''k. That's just how it is.
At the end of the day I'm still me. I have a good life. I have friends. Family. A job. I'm in great shape and I have many other skills to lean on. If I don't make it in trading it's not the end of the world. I love the markets and really hope I can turn this around, but it's not the end of the world if I don't. At the end of day it's just a game we're playing. Silly prices moving up and down on a computer.
I hope you see that the path you're pursuing is one that won't give you happiness and change course to one that will. It certainly is possible.
Send me a PM if you want to talk more in private or we can continue here.
Another session were my charts told me to sit still but I could not be patient.
Total mental collapse....