Oh my god, I suck!

[FireWalker]

Quote from Cheese:

Firewalker, you are actually doing what you want to do .. proving your worthlessness and lack of success. Masochism. And it works. You are achieving your goal.

Masochism is so comforting and familiar .. it might so far be the only version of yourself you love and know.

Only you can decide when you want to be success story, if ever.. but that is going to be a gigantic change to make.

Cheese: I think you are exactly right. My question is exactly how to proceed in taking the first step towards that gigantic change. Most psychologists I've seen don't have the ability. Conscious effort doesn't work. I've tried that to the point where I was so mentally conflicted I could no longer tell if the trend was pointing up or down. "Mistyped" orders. Hands freezing and unable to type. A subconscious part of me feels I must continue doing what I am doing. Conscious control of it just makes that part fight even harder.

Racehorse: Thank you, and yes I'm 100% serious. I've been analyzing myself full time for 3 years now. Discarded girlfriends, homes, career, normal life, and everything else in the process. It's my #1 goal. Trading and poker get me closest to the issues.

You are the second person to suggest ADD. I ignored it the first time but will look into those sites you mentioned.

In the meantime, could you tell me a little more about what makes you think ADD? I'm not hyper. I can maintain concentrated thought for 10-12 hours with very little degradation in quality. To the point where I forget to eat or drink until delirium sets in. I force myself not to do that much anymore, but is that ADD?

 

[vikana]

Quote from FireWalker:

][], I promise myself "This time when I see an exit/reversal signal, I'll take it". I'll even enter a limit order to exit at a good price and cancel it when price gets within a tick of it ("It's going to break through this time."). I won't exit a trade for the life of me (long or short, profitable or unprofitable).

Any insights? This is ridiculous.

Make a public commitment and combine it with a little bit of a reward. I told my wife, friends and family that I was committed to making (I think) $2000 per month. It's amazing what you can do when the commitment is public and people will ask you about it.

I then created a "reward" system much like
* $500 day -> take wife to lunch
* $1000 day -> nice dinner out

That way I could celebrate whenever I had a good day, and with a bit of luck i would meet the objectives a few times per month.

In the end, it was the public commitment that made the difference, imo

 

[brokerboy]

how did guys here do today? i have found both days this week hard. i was up both days but worked way to hard for what i made. i feel like a dick bitching because its a normal days pay for a office guy but its hard to find a good trade. did anymore get the thc run up today?

 

[iceman1]

Quote from FireWalker:

Wondering if anyone else has this problem and what they did about it.

eg. Say I'm long with a small profit. I see a clear point to exit or even a clear reversal signal. But I ignore it and sit and hope. Sometimes I'll even say out loud "short signal here, resistance point here, if i was flat i would go short here." Even *physically* pointing out the clear downtrend on my screen. Yet my hands won't type the exit order. So I'll look for reasons to rationalize my hold even though I know I want to be short. Then I hold through some pain, and if price does go back up, I promise myself "This time when I see an exit/reversal signal, I'll take it". I'll even enter a limit order to exit at a good price and cancel it when price gets within a tick of it ("It's going to break through this time."). I won't exit a trade for the life of me (long or short, profitable or unprofitable).

Any insights? This is ridiculous.

when you suffer enough... you will finally get it! (that is if you have enough $$ left to trade)

IcE

 

[TriPack]

Quote from iceman1:

when you suffer enough... you will finally get it! (that is if you have enough $$ left to trade)

IcE

Good points! Yes, this is the disclaimer that sould be applied to all trading books, tapes, seminars, etc.

It's just that "enough" is different for each person. Some seem to have an innate gift and their level of necessary suffering seems miniscule compared to most others.

 

[iceman1]

Quote from FireWalker:

I've been analyzing myself full time for 3 years now. Discarded girlfriends, homes, career, normal life, and everything else in the process. It's my #1 goal. Trading and poker get me closest to the issues.

1. Trust me, u keep doing what you are doing & you will "discard" a lot more GFs etc.!!

2. There comes a time when one has to stop thinking, and just DO IT. Action is the foundational key to all success (Picasso)!

3. Action is the seed of Wisdom! In trading as in life, we learn and know by experiencing! There are very few shortcuts on said journey.

4. Any fear faced is a fear erased. So, next time just do it and be prepared to live with the consequences of being "wrong'!!! And then, the next time and the next.... and so on. If you must be right, quit trading and find another vocation.

5. IMHO there is no actual wrong or right... only doing one's best to the best of our ability..... right NOW..... and tweaking oneself as we progress!


IcE

 

[FireWalker]

Quote from iceman1:

when you suffer enough... you will finally get it! (that is if you have enough $$ left to trade)

IcE

Care to expound on "suffer"? And "enough"?

I must have an innate gift/curse to suffer more than most. Five years of trading and I'm down $4000 including commissions ($1500 of that last week). That includes 2 years daytrading full time with an average of 15-20 trades/day.

 

[Gringinho]

Quote from PuffyGums:

I would have guessed mostly losers.

Well, then they're doing something right trying to learn and correct their bad fortune - talking to other traders, trying to get some tips that will help them, or some evaluation from people with the right kind of experience to actually help them. The rest is up to them, I guess. ;-)

Quote from brokerboy:
how did guys here do today? i have found both days this week hard. i was up both days but worked way to hard for what i made. i feel like a dick bitching because its a normal days pay for a office guy but its hard to find a good trade. did anymore get the thc run up today?

I had some doubts during the start of trading, and some bad trades during the day. Some luck too, and an ISP which was very unreliable in the minutes before the rate-decision 14:15 ET and well into after-hours. A real nightmare at times, but still the result was :
[PRE]
-1.25 s 1110.50 - 1111.75
+0.75 l 1111.75 - 1112.50
+1.25 s 1112.25 - 1111.00
+1.00 s 1110.50 - 1109.50
+4.75 s 1111.50 - 1106.75
+2.50 s 1106.50 - 1104.00 *
-2.25 s 1107.50 - 1109.75
+1.75 s 1111.50 - 1109.75
------------------------
=8.50
========================
* the ES reached 1113 during this short, I know it was crazy, but you gotta have some luck too.
[/PRE]

The ISP problems freaked me out a bit, and I restarted the trading application at least 20 times during the last 2 1/2 hours of trading. Most of the time I wasn't able to connect, and only got glimpses of the market, except for watching Bloomberg. I didn't bother to get any of my other systems up, and using alternate connections, but I used to do that earlier.
And monday I had 19 pts on the ES, but it was quite easy to trade for me on the news etc.

In 2002 I lost more than 50% in pre-trading when the CFO of the company I used to work for announced they had deceived investors to be fair and disseminate equal information to the market. Then I decided that I'll never have stocks again, but rather trade the ES, which is a little riskier if you are not in complete control, but gives nice retunrs - and you have better protection to some degree.

Some days I used to have more than a 100 roundtrips on ES trading, but the broker fees were rather hard on the bottom line.

 

[iceman1]

Quote from FireWalker:

Care to expound on "suffer"? And "enough"?

I must have an innate gift/curse to suffer more than most. Five years of trading and I'm down $4000 including commissions ($1500 of that last week). That includes 2 years daytrading full time with an average of 15-20 trades/day.

one man's floor is another one's ceiling. So "suffer" is defined differently by each.

There is a well known quote that at first I thought was a platitude, i.e. insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results! When one answers what it is that they keep doing over and over with untoward results, they will get it! If one can't answer that (by a certain time), then maybe they ought to stop trading.

Also remember that not all expectations can or will be met in trading, or maybe not in the time one expects. Unless one abridges said expectations they will be set up for constant regret. Things often come in cycles; and there are good and lean years/months/ days.

Final thought... there is an inverse relationship between one's humility and their equity curve!

Not preaching; just sharing things all who have traded for any length of time had to deal with.

:eek:

IcE

 

[iceman1]

Quote from TriPack:

Good points! Yes, this is the disclaimer that sould be applied to all trading books, tapes, seminars, etc.

It's just that "enough" is different for each person. Some seem to have an innate gift and their level of necessary suffering seems miniscule compared to most others.

true...