Profitable on paper, losing money live! Fear plays a big role.

[Overnight]

...

Then you get issues with those that have too much money. They have no fear, never exit when they should and do not follow the rules they set for trading...

That is a key point there OMM, exactly. People underfunded panic and exit because a $1K loss is too much for their risk tolerance.

People overfunded may let it ride because they can survive a much larger drawdown.

But the best balanced types, in my mind, will be funded enough to accept the losses that put only a ding in their account and continue from there, rather than try to ride the horse on a smaller account fund that keeps bucking because the current loss would be too great were they to close.

 

[Robert Morse]

That is a key point there OMM, exactly. People underfunded panic and exit because a $1K loss is too much for their risk tolerance.

People overfunded may let it ride because they can survive a much larger drawdown.

But the best balanced types, in my mind, will be funded enough to accept the losses that put only a ding in their account and continue from there, rather than try to ride the horse on a smaller account fund that keeps bucking because the current loss would be too great were they to close.

It is best to write down a set of rules to trade by. Read them out loud before you enter your first trade every day and have them right in front of you all day.

 

[qlai]

Every time I go back to the paper account I make big profits.

Hm ... Big profits? Are the big profits come from sitting through big open/unrealized losses? Have you tried getting consistently small profits? Consistency is the key to your problem, imho.

 

[ftrexx1]

Hm ... Big profits? Are the big profits come from sitting through big open/unrealized losses? Have you tried getting consistently small profits? Consistency is the key to your problem, imho.

Today I was up( paper trade) $2600 trading 60 round trips as you can see in the attached screenshot. I think those are many small profits.

 

[wlnd]

emotions is an area im all too familiar with

your issues may be similar. start by getting to know your self, with 1 of those personality tests. from there, recognise your strengths & work on your weaknesses. eg. emotional types need ALOT of work, to grow as a trader

if you really want to dig sh*t deep & understand what drives your emotions, suggest going to the graveyard past midnight. lay down on the grass beside the tombstones & find out who you really are. this will get you to a point where you can see emotions as they arise in your mind. & eventually catch & let go of these emotions with time

re: trading technicals, for most pple, if one is averaging down when his stop is near, to attempt to breakeven, he should not be trading. it is a destructive habit that will not have longevity. if one is only making 150usd trading 1 contract on a volatile contract like NQ, it is highly suspect the r:r / profit factor will not survive longevity. when testing strategies on sim, they must be repeatable & survive with a profit factor of 1.5upwards over at least half a yr

 

[wrbtrader]

Hi,
I would like to share my frustration with my recent day trading experience.
I have been day trading the NQ for about six months and my account is definitely shrinking. Every time I go back to the paper account I make big profits. Nothing changes, same number of R/T between 50 and 100/day, same price actions rules but
when i go back to the paper account I average 2K every day consistently. With the live account it is a great day if I'm up $150. I was aware that the fear plays a big role but WTF!
Do you guys have some suggestions how to overcome the fear? Some tricks?

Your mind is playing tricks on you which is why you only show that profitable sim account for an unusual trading day of the FOMC announcement but you don't show that real money trading day results (most likely today) that has a completely different price action/market conditions for the NQ futures in comparison to Wednesday.

Simply, what was the most recent real money trading day results to that Wednesday (was it Tuesday or today (Thursday) ?

Therefore, do you have the logs (screenshots) too for your real money trading ?

More importantly, have you done quantitative statistics on those simulator trades and then compare it to the statistics on your real money trades. There could be clues in those stats that may tell you exactly what you're doing differently (could be many things) when you traverse back n forth between simulator and real money.

Thus, don't make the mistake to only look at the profit/loss column. Do some real stats and then compare your results (simulator versus real money).

wrbtrader

 

[qlai]

I think those are many small profits.

Yes looks good. So I don't understand what the fear is ... You make more than you lose, so the losses are your business expenses. Are you cherry picking your trades when you are live?

I can see how someone may not be able to change the behavior, but most are able to at least identify it. What are you doing different live? Are you hesitating? Are you going for bigger wins? Maybe you should talk to yourself out loud when trading and listen to the recording to see what's happening in your head?

 

[ftrexx1]

Your mind is playing tricks on you which is why you only show that profitable sim account for an unusual trading day of the FOMC announcement but you don't show that real money trading day results (most likely today) that has a completely different price action/market conditions for the NQ futures in comparison to Wednesday.

Simply, what was the most recent real money trading day results to that Wednesday (was it Tuesday or today (Thursday) ?

Therefore, do you have the logs (screenshots) too for your real money trading ?

More importantly, have you done quantitative statistics on those simulator trades and then compare it to the statistics on your real money trades. There could be clues in those stats that may tell you exactly what you're doing differently (could be many things) when you traverse back n forth between simulator and real money.

Thus, don't make the mistake to only look at the profit/loss column. Do some real stats and then compare your results (simulator versus real money).

wrbtrader

The screenshot was taken today and wasn’t an easy day to trade. Unfortunately I don’t know how to make quantitative statistic since i don’t have a specific set of rules to backtest. I’m just disappointed that I consistently make good profit on paper and on live market I probably can’t manage the fear and tight stops to much and take out profit earlier. Classic mistakes. Do you have any suggestions on how to have quantitative statistic on my trading?

 

[Specterx]

Hi,
I would like to share my frustration with my recent day trading experience.
I have been day trading the NQ for about six months and my account is definitely shrinking. Every time I go back to the paper account I make big profits. Nothing changes, same number of R/T between 50 and 100/day, same price actions rules but
when i go back to the paper account I average 2K every day consistently. With the live account it is a great day if I'm up $150. I was aware that the fear plays a big role but WTF!
Do you guys have some suggestions how to overcome the fear? Some tricks?

Most likely you are not taking commissions and slippage/spread into account.

2k per day is 400 ticks, or a little over 5 ticks per RT on 75 RTs. Comms and slippage on NQ can easily consume 3-4 of those ticks, even with small size.

 

[wrbtrader]

The screenshot was taken today and wasn’t an easy day to trade. Unfortunately I don’t know how to make quantitative statistic since i don’t have a specific set of rules to backtest. I’m just disappointed that I consistently make good profit on paper and on live market I probably can’t manage the fear and tight stops to much and take out profit earlier. Classic mistakes. Do you have any suggestions on how to have quantitative statistic on my trading?

You should start taking daily screenshots of both...simulator and real money. If you only do one (as in simulator)...you're conditioning yourself to put more emphasis or metrics into your simulator trading along with making it difficult to get any feedback from your real money trading.

Also, just use google or reveiw the following at tradebench.com, edgewonk.com, tradervue.com, tradingdiarypro.com, stocktickr.com, journalsqrd.com, tradingdiary.pro, mxprofit.com, trademetria.com or search the web for an excel program if you have access to excel.

Thus, you do not need rules to do quantitative stats of your trading results. In fact, you immediately assumed I said "doing stats of your trade method"...you're conditioning yourself not to do the stats work on your trade results. Its a mind game.

Therefore, huge difference between stats on your trade results versus stats (backtests) on your trade method. Your assumption also reveals a completely different problem in your trading...you're trading via intuition which is why you can't backtest your trade method...you'll NEVER know what you're doing wrong because there's no stats on your trading performance and no backtests on your trade method.

You're at a great disadvantage because you do not construct two of the most important things in your trading...stats on your trading performance and backtests on your trade method...forcing you to only look at the profit/loss column along with making guesses at what went wrong. You have no other info to look at besides that profit/loss column....conditioning yourself to be fearful of real money because you do not know how/where to make changes.

In addition, most brokers have their own stats window embedded into the trade execution platform that will spit out traditional stats such as number of winners/losers, average time in trades, average profit/loss and such.

Just start somewhere with real facts instead of saying "2k every day" versus $150 in real money. Actually, that metrics seems more emotional and not factual. It doesn't make sense because how you trading the simulator every trading day while making only $150 in real money. You bouncing back n forth from simulator to real money trades in the exact same trading day...if so...why didn't you take a screenshot of your real money trades ???

Thus, I suspect you're not on the simulator "every trading day". My point, you want to make use of factual stats instead of comparing profit/loss columns to prevent giving your simulator trading the edge over your real money trading so that one day you can start saying you're making 2k every day and only $150 on simulator.

Also, spend more time learning about Behavior Finances. We traders are already conditioned to lose in the markets in our cognitive decision making process when real money is on the line. You can learn to trick your brain to trade your real money account as if its a simulator trading account

Here's a simple stats I saw someone here at ET do. Simulator trades average was 32 per simulator trading day. In contrast, real money trading was 7 per real money trading day.

Its obvious just looking at only one stats...he's trading differently. Another simple stats you can do on your own that I saw someone else do from his broker stats...average hold time in his simulator trades was 3min 16secs. In contrast, average hold time in his real money trades were 1min 4secs. His simulator trades were making 15x more money than his real money trading and he didn't even realized he was trading "differently" when comparing the simulator trades to the real money trades until he saw the stats.

He didn't realize it because his mind tricked him so much...the only stats he notice was the profit/loss column.

Last of all, the fact that you mention that you "probably" doing something differently like tighter stops and not letting your profits trades run to their profit targets in those real money trades...you already know what your doing wrong and should write it down on paper (sticky note)...then stick it to your monitor instead of just mentioning it in a message post here at ET.

The psychology of trading real money is crazy in comparison to the psychology of trading on simulator. Its very simulator to athletes...practice games versus real games in front of any audience.

P.S. I wouldn't make another trade (simulator or real money) until I have something in place to force myself to take screenshots of both, software/program to do the stats on the trade performance and rules in place to be able to do backtests on the trade method. You need those tools to make changes in your cognitive decision making process (behavior finance).

wrbtrader