Obsession with trading and the markets. Does it get better or only worse?
- Thread starter Laissez Faire
- Start date
Agree! Once you found it, the world becomes a boring place. You lose all the obsession. Naturally your attention will turn into other things to kill time like traveling, hiking, gaming..... Basically you can live anywhere you want. Trading is the last thing on your mind.
Probably you will lose all interest in going to casinos and gambling as swell.
Appreciate your comment. And it may very well be that this does apply to me.
But I do believe there's plenty of successful traders who's 'there' who would disagree with this statement.
Blunt question if I may: Are you rich from your trading operations?
Thanks for your comment!
Seems like a crazy period. Mind me asking specifically how your physical and mental health were destroyed?
I get that the stress can be harmful. Especially if you're constantly stressed and it messes with your sleep, too.
But how did it destroy your mental health? I can only imagine that happening if you lost a lot of money.
Sounds like a good routine, Mickey.
The problem with me is that if I have a position on, be it a swing trade or a day trade, I just can't seem to relax or unwind doing those things.
I had an open position on earlier this week. Profits locked in, but it would either be a small profit if stopped out or a large profit if my limit was hit. Decided to just let it play out and go out to unwind with a coffee and a book at a nearby coffee-shop. But as I got there (and on the way there) - all I could think of was the market and my trade.
I have not tested it on other instruments or exchanges, so I wouldn't know. But the general principles should apply, I suppose.
If it were completely mechanical - I could quickly back-test that, but since it's not, I can't.
Why do you ask?
Hhhmmmmmmm, don't know what to say here.....but let me try....
I have currently over 40 positions on I'm holding, it's been like that for months now (+40 positions), some have been on for a year or so, others days, weeks and months and I'm still not fully loaded up.
Forget about the individual positions per se, think of positions as like buttons on a trumpet, going up and down, if you take your time and pick the best of a bunch, just do it and just forget about them because collectively they will make headway.
Then mentally trade the wider market. If the index keeps rising, just stay in the positions, if the index goes into a nose dive, bail out collectively.
The point being, with numerous positions on, you only need to concern yourself with the index which by and large is less volatile. That's roughly the idea.
Now some would say, why not buy an ETF. Well buying individual stocks which you choose, should, if you are good, outperform an ETF.
However buying an ETF like QQQ is prolly not a bad idea, just more boring, but less brokerage.
If you are running your system using real money, maybe you should reconsider to not running it. Because you have not measured its robustness. It is a time-bomb.I have not tested it on other instruments or exchanges, so I wouldn't know. But the general principles should apply, I suppose.
If it were completely mechanical - I could quickly back-test that, but since it's not, I can't.
Why do you ask?
Real money. 80 % winning days. Well ahead since inception.
I still get the occasional big losing day, though. However, the key for me right now is to not compound aggressively. That way I can handle a bad day without getting back to square one. I want to double my account before adding another contract. And I want to eliminate those bad days.
Real life example:
I was up over 200 ES points over a 4 week period earlier this year, but scaled up too fast and gave back a large portion of those 1-2 contract profits trading 5-6 contracts.
200 ES points on 1 contract = 33 points on 6 contracts.
Lesson learned.