Unsuccessful trading with full-time job

Quote from austinp:

The essence of successful trading is to ride longs when price goes up and shorts when price goes down. The 100% sure way to fail is thinking you can fade moves to time reversals at highs & lows. But... that is what 90+% of all unsuccessful traders do INCLUDING most of the revolving door frequent trade-post crowd here.


Give yourself however much time it takes to learn directional trading, be patient with yourself, and your monthly goals will eventually become daily objectives :)
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Good advice, and examples. Thanks. Definitely need to do more homework...
 
Quote from th3moneytrain:

This is exactly my style. But I'm lacking confidence in it because of my failures and becaus all I hear is buy low/sell high. My experience has been the same as you have seen. Some days the buying of highs goes even higher beyond belief and that's where I have made most of the money. However I lose it eventually b/c I try doing that with similar plays to have those plays reverse on me. I haven't been able to quantify this buy when high move because I don't know how to discern which one will run and which one will turn.

Do you have link to his posts?
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I haven't finished reading all the posts yet but this caught my attention. If this is the essence of your strategy why are you using options and not just buying the stock? If you are simply making a directional trade why are you muddying the water by using options especially if you are talking about breakouts and especially if you are just scalping? If you are just doing it for leverage you would be better served trading fx.

Good luck in whatever you try!
 
Quote from austinp:

The essence of successful trading is to ride longs when price goes up and shorts when price goes down. The 100% sure way to fail is thinking you can fade moves to time reversals at highs & lows. But... that is what 90+% of all unsuccessful traders do INCLUDING most of the revolving door frequent trade-post crowd here.

ES or CL going up? Short, short, short, short and make excuses why it should turn down. ES or CL going down? Long, long, long, add-add-add and rationalize why it should soon turn up.

Why do 90% of all traders fade price? They never learn how to read price action and catch directional moves as said moves unfold. Hence they never learn to trust directional trading... because they never learn to understand in the first place.
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LOL Only took me 2 years and about 20k to figure this out. Why time a reversal when you can watch it happen? Lack of patients and ego.
 
Quote from th3moneytrain:

What were you trading at that time?Options/futures/stocks? What were you strategies?

How much, in terms of percent, do you think is a realistic profit goal with small capital?

Since you were successful swing trading, do you still do it? What would you recommend I learn to swing trade?
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Single stocks and 2/3/4:1 leverage. I wrote briefly about it here. Not sure if it's worth anything though, but here it is:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=278064

Regarding returns: What is your current return? Negative?

Don't you agree that if you could return 5-15% on your capital this year and not be a fuck-up, you should be happy?

I currently don't trade. In fact, I'm not trading at the moment and haven't been in a year, but I am planning my return sooner or later. I may get back to day trading, we'll see.

I'm pretty confident that if I have a long-term perspective and don't put myself in a position where I have to make a KILLING in a very short time period, I would be profitable. The last time I was trading, I was in a situation with a lot of pressure and basically had to perform 100% every single day in order to "succeed". That's usually a recipe for disaster that causes you to take too much risk. You end up trading for the wrong reasons.

If I now had a stake and no pressure with regards to time or expectations, I would trade very differently and focus on protecting my profits, being defensive and quitting while ahead.

Still, I may consider just sticking with swing trading this time.

Quote from th3moneytrain:
I like the "Have something else in your life.", however, considering the circumstances I just don't have the time. I either stay at a average/complacent life with my full time job, or I master trading to have a better/fuller life. I chose the latter. And until I succeed at trading, I don't see myself having something else in my life, no matter how badly I want it. Until I give up on trading, I am willing to and have sacrificed my relationships, money, relaxation, etc. in order to master this.
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Well, I can totally relate. I was like that. Still am in some ways.

Those sacrifices MAY be worth it if you actually succeed, but what if you three years from now have sacrificed everything for nothing?

Again, think long-term. If you currently want to make it in ONE year, would it be possible to change that to FIVE years? Can you get a better job in the mean time?

Five years is not a lot of time if you actually make it by then?

On the other hand, you may continue fighting for one or two years with unrealistic expectations living a shitty life and in the end not get anywhere.

There's the saying, "If you try to catch ten hares at once, you end up catching none."

It's the same with everything. It takes time to build a great physique as well. If you try to do it in 3 months and rush it, you will end up burned out and weak instead of strong.

Regardless of what advice you follow in this thread, I don't think anyone can disagree with the fact that you should stop what you're doing, stop live trading and focus all your efforts on making a plan for how you can reach your goals and how you want to trade.

A plan that you actually can live with.

Live trading/simulator trading is a bad way to learn how to trade. So what if you spend the next year researching if you start raking in money next year? You'll learn a LOT more than if you continue live trading and do some hobby research while dead tired. Spend your time working on your plan and market research. Then simulator trading. Then get PAID.

Simulator trading is great for testing your system after you've built one. Simulator trading and just sitting there like a dumbass pushing buttons without having a clue is a bad way to learn about trading.

Get drunk. Go on a few dates. Get your dick sucked. Do something fun. Take a break. Pause and think for a while.

You'll learn much more than you will by being stressed 24/7 and consistently living in reaction to your circumstances, instead of taking conscious control over your situation and your choices.

Regards.
 
Quote from riskaddict:

I haven't finished reading all the posts yet but this caught my attention. If this is the essence of your strategy why are you using options and not just buying the stock? If you are simply making a directional trade why are you muddying the water by using options especially if you are talking about breakouts and especially if you are just scalping? If you are just doing it for leverage you would be better served trading fx.

Good luck in whatever you try!
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You may not realize this, but you just said something very very important that I never realized until now. You asked regarding why I trade options. Mostly for the leverage, but more importantly, I do it because I feel more comfortable trading companies than coins. When I trade companies I feel like I actually know the company and it gives me a sense of comfort. HOWEVER, I just now realized that that is just an illusion and it creates a false sense of confidence in my trades. Ex: "oh apple is a good company, it's going to go up for sure" Of course, I know that is BS, but I just now realized that mistake I was making...

So thank you for that realization. I will look into FX and futures as well...esp. since they offer off hour trading.

PS - to answer your question, I scalp b/c I don't trust myself or the market enough to keep my money in for too long. Since I have to go to work, I'd rather not have a unwatched open position.
 
Quote from Laissez Faire:



Get drunk. Go on a few dates. Get your dick sucked. Do something fun. Take a break. Pause and think for a while.

You'll learn much more than you will by being stressed 24/7 and consistently living in reaction to your circumstances, instead of taking conscious control over your situation and your choices.

Regards.
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hahaha....oh how I miss all that....I've been out of all that for so long that I'm actually kind of scared to go back to that life. It almost seems like a pointless way to live i.e. without any purpose. But it needs to be done before I dig myself in a deeper hole.

You are absolutely right, and based on all the discussions. I am now leaning towards no real trading. Here is the plan so far:

1) I need a break. A complete break with no trading or trading thoughts for about 3 months at least.

2) I need to start coming up with a plan

3) I need to find strategies/plays/education for that plan

4) I need to simulate the plan to see how effective it is

5) IF, and ONLY IF, successful, trade the plan.

This may take me 6 months to 1-2 year. 2 years is my cap. If I haven't figured it out by then...I will give up on trading. All of this won't be easy since I know myself, and my motivation to do the above will be very low, since I won't even have potential to make money until Step 5. Though, I will give it my best shot. I will first have to find ways to motivate myself through the above and then see what happens from there.

Thank you for the input.
 
Quote from th3moneytrain:

Though, I will give it my best shot. I will first have to find ways to motivate myself through the above and then see what happens from there.

Thank you for the input.
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Sounds like a good plan!

Taking 6 months off just for relaxation, pausing, reflection and thinking, is much better than continuing to lose money, live in reaction and not really get anywhere, except dig yourself deeper in that hole you spoke of.

Remember the trading maxime, "Ride your winners and cut your losses."

That goes with everything in life. If you're not meant to be a trader, it's much better to quit and see if you have talents you can put to use elsewhere. Maybe you're not meant to be a full-time trader, but can supplement your income along with a job.

"Quitting" trading was VERY hard for me, but at the point, I believe it was the right thing to do. I'm a carpenter by trade and when I wanted to move on to new things, I chose trading over school, since that is what I wanted at the time. I had already earned quite a bit from the market at the time, so I reasoned that with full-time immersion and studies, I should do very well.

When I still was not "successful" after 4-5 years, I decided that it was still not too late to go to school and pursue other things, so I put trading on hold for a while. It was not EASY since I have never given up on anything in life and being stubborn and really wanting it, I continued for longer than I probably should have, but I believe it was the right choice.

I can still return to trading and I probably will, but at the same time I'm improving a lot in other areas of my life and opening myself up to new opportunities every day. In fact, I'm a straight-A student in business school at the moment, which quite frankly is a walk in the park so far, compared to trading.

The way I see it, I now have a lot more opportunities than when I was backed into a corner and trading was my only "solution".

The discipline and work ethic I got from trading has definitely been helpful.

Bottom line: You can still pursue trading while pursuing other things, as long as you have a long enough time horizon. If I were to to open a day trading account now, I would not expect to withdraw money for years.

Regards.
 
Quote from nursebee:

I dont understand how someone can trade options in and out over an hours time without getting shewed up
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If you are good at identifying trends, esp. intraday trends in the initial stages, this strategy is golden and very rewarding. My flaw has always been that I could not identify "solid" trends. When the reversal happens, it happens fast, and pretty much kills 50% of your investment. With options, esp. weeklies, forget about tight stops. You will never do more than pay commission all day long with tight stops.

Also, maybe my style of trading is better suited for last hour of trading rather than first hour. It would definitely provide more intraday data to filter out bad reads.
 
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