You may NEVER have big winners. Nice if you get them, but not necessary.
Need to eliminate the big losses
- Thread starter SteveM
- Start date
You may NEVER have big winners. Nice if you get them, but not necessary.
I've only taken one really big loss on this scale, which was when I had shares in a biotech that was expected to announce good news. I bought more shares as price fell. And it never did make that announcement. That was trading what I thought rather than what I saw (hope winning over evidence).
Now I regard any trade as a burning building. Its only going to stand up for so long now its on fire. You might have a really good reason to rush in. But you'd better be sure there is another way out before you do so. This is the TA-based price where I put my stop and I never ever open a trade until I can see where the stop would be. The two go hand in hand. There's no such thing as an entry signal without an exit route.
Now I regard any trade as a burning building. Its only going to stand up for so long now its on fire. You might have a really good reason to rush in. But you'd better be sure there is another way out before you do so. This is the TA-based price where I put my stop and I never ever open a trade until I can see where the stop would be. The two go hand in hand. There's no such thing as an entry signal without an exit route.
If you do it wrong enough, big enough... you could lose 20 YEARS profit on one bad patch of decisions.
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SteveM, I don't know your current situation but I'll just share with you what I do.
At present, I set my profit target and stop-loss level at the time of trade entry. It's a GTC limit order, so I am out. As planned. Being wrong and getting out is an important part of trading. ALWAYS take your losses.
When I traded in the pit or on a proprietary desk, I had a personal rule where I would give away a few days - possibly a week under horrendous conditions, but never a month.
Hope that helps.
I know it sounds corny and cliche but the biggest independent traders I have met over the years kept personal trading journals. Remember that not repeating mistakes is equivalent to positive account equity.
At present, I set my profit target and stop-loss level at the time of trade entry. It's a GTC limit order, so I am out. As planned. Being wrong and getting out is an important part of trading. ALWAYS take your losses.
When I traded in the pit or on a proprietary desk, I had a personal rule where I would give away a few days - possibly a week under horrendous conditions, but never a month.
Hope that helps.
I know it sounds corny and cliche but the biggest independent traders I have met over the years kept personal trading journals. Remember that not repeating mistakes is equivalent to positive account equity.
Make a new rule, every time you want to not do the rules, hedge the position. If you had hedged Friday, you not had this Huge loss today, you can continue to do dumb till you either get hypnosis or have wife/gf use electric devise on your Rocky Mountain oysters, one time of that might do the trick. I tried the signs on the computer, after awhile you don't even see them. Years worth of hypnosis did the trick for me. There are two of me, smart me designs systems, 2nd me is dumb as a rock pushing buttons. You letting them get tangled up and you lose, no changing the rules when market is live.
Happy Thanksgiving...and count your blessings.
You didn't go broke while you learned a very valuable lesson. Which is that you aren't a discretionary trader.
What you do with that valuable learning going forward will make all the difference in your failure or success.
Nobody is born a discretionary trader anymore than they are born a violin player or a pole vaulter.
You need to do a reset and start trading small sizes and learn to take losses on those. Small Size. Small Losses. Until you learn by instinct to take losses. I had a problem (and still do to an extent) where when I started increasing my contract sizes and almost immediately I started taking huge losses. The reason was with bigger sizes meant there was the potential to lose more money. So I started loosing up on my stops like what you are doing. Doesn't really make any sense as my system hasn't changed.
Losing money is hard. It triggers all the bad behavior in trading.
Wait..I was born a pole vaulter.