Second account blown and conditioned to lose

lindq said:
You need to move on. At your age, your greatest risk is opportunity loss. What further time you waste on trading can be much better spent in developing other, more marketable skills, that will serve you and your family into the future.

The issues you've experienced are not at all uncommon. But you need to know that the path from where you are now, to one of consistent profitability, can take years. Or more likely, never.
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Truly this may be the best advice for the OP and other aspiring traders. At 2.5 years in it's still not too late to let it go.

Money lost is one thing, but the opportunity cost is what's been bothering myself the most. If I pursued a career or a business with the same amount of hours and grit I've put into trading. Wow. Who knows where I would be in life.

On the other hand, there are people who waste their evenings on other trivial stuff, so for the opportunity cost to be considered one have to really think hard about what else one would do with their time.

I've been at this for over 10 years and in some ways already gave up, but it's only recently that I'm starting to think that maybe I have a shot at making it. And that's with tons of hours and building a statistical model (hired a professional firm to build it) and investing a lot of money in the process.
 
Anothertrader1 said:
... I have manually backtested a strategy in a vehicle which provided positive results (1 year of data/ 1 or 2 trades daily) ....might not have been enough or spent my time in the wrong stuff.....
I am 34 years old.[/QUOTE
%%
Good idea on test ,A-Trader;
but need 3-10 years usually to get a bear + bull cycle.
2] Here' s a big help= dont call them'' losses' '= call them business expenses or education.
I prefer calling them business expense= no such thing as a business with out expenses.:caution::caution:
I cut a loss[business expense really] on a leveraged ETF today about 7%; even though i have made more than that, on one before.
I have a SH[inverse SPY] position not making money\ but good thing for me i never added to it, because it never did profit much. May cut it FRI or cut it early + get back in??
IF i had added to a loser\SH or any loser or SH position= its a waste, waste + tie up capital. See that??
YOU may want to do like Paul tudor Jones + have a yellow post it note=Losers average losers.:caution::caution: Of COURSE THOSE that AVERAGED LOSERS like DAL, GM, LEH...... WENT BANRUPT like they did= word to wise.
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Yes, like lindq said, best advice might be to just move on into something else. Real estate, business, etc. If you want to be in the market a nearly 100% successful method is to put a decent % of your income into the SP500 every month, for at least 10 years and just freakin leave it there. 20 years would be even better. If you lose doing that, I'll eat a bug.

If you just have to trade a little, do the above and also trade in a very small way (stocks only) but do it very systematically. Try this: Learn Amibroker (easy) and come up with some simple and NON CURVE FIT trading models. https://www.amibroker.com/

Books by Howard Bandy could help:
17290938._UX160_.jpg
 
Option_Attack said:
Yes, like lindq said, best advice might be to just move on into something else. Real estate, business, etc. If you want to be in the market a nearly 100% successful method is to put a decent % of your income into the SP500 every month, for at least 10 years and just freakin leave it there. 20 years would be even better. If you lose doing that, I'll eat a bug.

If you just have to trade a little, do the above and also trade in a very small way (stocks only) but do it very systematically. Try this: Learn Amibroker (easy) and come up with some simple and NON CURVE FIT trading models. https://www.amibroker.com/

Books by Howard Bandy could help:
17290938._UX160_.jpg
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I always feel like mean reversion is not a good approach for noobs. Maybe that's just me...
 
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Laissez Faire said:
I've been at this for over 10 years and in some ways already gave up, but it's only recently that I'm starting to think that maybe I have a shot at making it. And that's with tons of hours and building a statistical model (hired a professional firm to build it) and investing a lot of money in the process.
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Hello Laissez Faire,

I am with you buddy. I am at about 6 years strong at it, and still trying to get consistent.
But I keep on pushing.

So for the OP, PLEASE get a full time job career and do this trading hustle on the side.

Do not dedicated your entire life this trading business. Because it will take years and years to get profitable, maybe.
 
hilmy83 said:
I always feel like mean reversion is not a good approach for noobs. Maybe that's just me...
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Could be, but it's one of the few approaches for swing trading that has a decent chance to work. The Gvmnt and Fed really backstop the market when things look grim. Much market risk has been removed, at least trading the indexes without much leverage. Just my (worthless) 2cents.
 
Anothertrader1 said:
...As soon as I enter a trade, if the trade goes in my favor I will exit my position for merely a few points and so many times see the trades I were in developing into huge winners without me in them ofcourse.
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Trading has a way of bringing out the worst in us initially as noobs.
It's like a threshing machine which exposes our weaknesses.

"....so many times see the trades I were in developing into huge winners without me...."
This is a mental bias, its not fact.
We are acutely aware in our heads of all the opportunities we've missed, but block out the losers we could have been entangled in.

In trading, you take your hits, whether good or bad, then move onto the next trade/opportunity.
Bad traders look back, good traders look ahead.
 
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