Quote from JangoFolly:
This is the toughest post I have ever sat down to write.
I am an absolute %*#$@~ idiot when it comes to managing risk. It's not that I take risky trades -- I simply don't deal with the relatively few trades that go wrong. Sometimes I watch them eviscerate my account instead of closing them and moving on. It's a cycle of many steps forward and one giant step back. I have tried and tried to work through this problem, with no lasting success. I know what to do, but I simply can't (or won't) do it. I've concluded my brain is simply not wired correctly for this particular aspect of trading (arguably, the one that matters most). Greed is the source of my pain and frustration. When I'm in a trade I let greed influence my decisions to a detrimental degree.
Basically, I'm very good at making money, but I'm terrible at keeping it. I know trades are bad when the loss is still small, but I can't bring myself to take that small loss. I can't tolerate the cycle anymore, but I can't seem to break it. My proposed solution is to find a partner who has at least a basic understanding of the markets and order execution, and who might be struggling to find their own edge, but who has excellent self discipline and a healthy respect for risk.
The basic idea of this relationship would be my calling trades (picking entry and exit levels), and the other person physically executing the trades and making sure the risk is managed appropriately (be that hard stop that I desperately need). Also, not managing order execution will improve my focus on the market. This person would be remote with communication by telephone. Obviously the personal chemistry would need to be right. I've looked at doing this same set up with my wife, but we don't work well together (despite a happy marriage). I have a regular day job, and I get up early -- 4:00a EST (GMT -5 hours) -- to trade futures on the DAX, bund, Euro, crude oil, and FTSE 100 until 7:00a or 7:30a. My trades generally last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. On the rare days I am around during regular US trading hours, I trade crude oil, DAX, ES, NQ, and occasionally the ZN or ZB.
I'm an economist by training and a computer programmer by trade. I've been trading for five years, and I only trade futures. I have my own toolkit of custom indicators that I use to support my read on price action. My method of discretionary analysis is driven by looking at the market through a framework of supply and demand. How does volatility describe supply/demand? How do range and volume reflect supply/demand? I also rely heavily on my read of the energy in the market (keeping in mind that energy and direction are not always consistent). Despite the fact that I use some indicators, I essentially trade price action. The indicators I built are just shorthand helpers and record keepers for my method of analysis.
I'm not looking for a total newbie to mentor. I'm looking for a mature, responsible person who can be a stable and reliable partner into the future. I'm a normal, middle-class guy with a wife, kids, a home, no criminal record and excellent credit -- I'm basically looking for someone similar (i.e, no teenagers, no ex-cons, no future-cons, no skid row types). To avoid complicated legal issues I would like this person to be a US citizen living in the US (I'm in Pennsylvania). I envision a partnership with mutual capital contributions and an equal sharing of profits/losses, but obviously there would be many specifics to work through to ensure we're both protected and treated fairly. I'm very confident that with the right person there will be plenty of profits to go around, and perhaps we can build a solid track record of low-risk profitability with which we could move into managing OPM at some future point.
I'm very frustrated and somewhat ashamed to have reached the point where I feel an arrangement such as this is necessary for me to continue in the trading world. On the other hand, I know I have too much talent to walk away from trading. I'm cautiously optimistic that this is a viable solution. Please reply by PM if you're potentially interested, and we can set up a time to talk by telephone. If any of you have ever tried an arrangement such as this, or if you have any general, helpful suggestions, I would appreciate hearing from you in the thread or by PM. No trolls please -- I've already berated myself sufficiently about my shortcomings to cover all of the ET membership.
Thank you.
Regards,
