Watch a Newbie Blow his account

Quote from flipflopper:

Trade Summary:

Again not sure why IB didn't capture all my trades. Probably because I restarted TWS during the day. I'm posting Ninja Trader results again. Really traded badly today and still came out positive so I can't complain. Success and failure on any given day seems to be razor thin. Hit a good 20 point trade to start off the day. Cut my position size in half and tried different risk reward strategies that all ended in failure. I started becoming frustrated and I almost ruined another 20 point gainer when the trade went 19 ticks in my favor (with my cover limit order 1 tick away) and started turning around I lowered my stop to break even then recognized that this was a common mistake I have made in the past so I replaced the original stop. I would have been stopped out for break even. Since I reverted to the original plan I ended up with a 20 point gainer which then left my mind clear and not pissed at a bad turn of events and allowed me to reverse and catch another 20 points on the upside. I hope that I will always remain calm but sometimes its not easy. HAve a good weekend all.

Net for the Day: + 959
Account total: 18,678
More...

This is close.

The truth of the matter is, success or failure on any given day is subject to probability. This means that you can take the exact same setup every day, and it can succeed 7 days out of 10, but fail miserably those other 3 days.

There is one way to overcome this problem of the randomness of markets on the intra-day timeframe.

That is, to focus on the higher timeframe, while trading the lower. In other words, take your setup(s), and let the trade play out, but think of counting your profits at the end of the week, and don't be overly concerned about what happens on any given day.

Provided you are trading your edge, and it is a good one, you will succeed.

Good trading,

JJ
 
interesting question--if you are interested in trading futures, why only trade one financial market. I've been away from ET for awhile doing other things. Your posts brought to mind some of my early trading experience.

My questions for you:
1) why daytrade. It lends to overtrading with losses that are disproportionate to profits unless you have a system.

2) Do you have a system? Business plan? Idea of what you want to do?

3) In reading your posts, it reads like you are planning on making yourself a market martyr.

4) Why do you have the victim mentality?

I'm not providing answers. Those are for you to provide. I have decided that I don't like sitting in front of the screen watching the prices tick by. It doesn't fit my personaltity and what I want to do with my life.

Take some time away and look at some of the psychology of what you are doing.

Good luck.
 
Quote from flipflopper:

No worries!! I just wanted more downtime, time to spend with my girl. She works close to our place so we have lunch together at 1 everyday. I have time for myself between 2-5:30 hit the gym at around 6 watch tivo or movie at night. We have a nice pad on the beach with a view of downtown SF from the bedroom and livingroom. Got a 50 inch pioneer plamsa that I'm finally getting to know a little better!! HD DVD, player series 3 tivo, Xbox 360. Have a nice home office with 3 24 inch lcds, humanscale freedom chair. Why would I want to leave this?!?!

It's a dream. I get to live it for a little while longer!!
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It looks like quality of life is way more important than the money you were making with your old job.

I respect that as I identify myself in your post.

Instead of living the dream a little longer and eventually fail, why don't you make a pledge to yourself that you'll succeed no matter what?

As NihabaAshi pointed out a few posts above, you need to adopt a more professional approach to trading if you want to increase your chances of being successful.

It sounds like you're going to a casino everyday instead. The fact that you've read many books doesn't necessarily imply that you've acquired enough knowledge and experience about the markets.

If I were you, I'd suspend trading right now and sit down and get professional about it. If you want trading to be your primary source of income, you need to make it as boring as any other job.
 
I think alot of posters have given some good advice.

I would add this. Think about what you want to do with your life. Only 5% of traders can make money full time trading.

If you are not one of these, then choose what type of career or business that you want to be in.

I also had a career in IT and traded stocks in the past, and then forex now. However, I decided to run a buiness instead of full time trading, and now no longer put on size on my trades.

While this means that I will not make alot of money trading, my goal is to increase cash flow from the business.

I am taking a brief vacation, but one of the ways I plan to do this is to tell one of the employees that I cutting his bonus by 50% and if he does not like it, he can quit. Also, we very rarely give any refunds to customers instead we fix the problem. In trading or buiness, you need to toughen up.

I don't see that in your trading yet, and like some here have mentioned you need to treat trading like a buisness where you should not have any emotions about your trades good or bad. Instead, you should always be learning, and see if you can improve your trading while keeping your size down so that you don't blow out your account.
 
Quote from JimmyJam:

This is close.

The truth of the matter is, success or failure on any given day is subject to probability. This means that you can take the exact same setup every day, and it can succeed 7 days out of 10, but fail miserably those other 3 days.

There is one way to overcome this problem of the randomness of markets on the intra-day timeframe.

That is, to focus on the higher timeframe, while trading the lower. In other words, take your setup(s), and let the trade play out, but think of counting your profits at the end of the week, and don't be overly concerned about what happens on any given day.

Provided you are trading your edge, and it is a good one, you will succeed.

Good trading,

JJ
More...

Not worrying about the outcome of individual trades has helped a lot. I kept looking back on my trading days and figuring that if I left many the trades alone I would have made instead of lost or broken even. Not caring lets me be more patient and profitable.
 
Quote from agtrader777:

interesting question--if you are interested in trading futures, why only trade one financial market. I've been away from ET for awhile doing other things. Your posts brought to mind some of my early trading experience.

My questions for you:
1) why daytrade. It lends to overtrading with losses that are disproportionate to profits unless you have a system.

2) Do you have a system? Business plan? Idea of what you want to do? .
3) In reading your posts, it reads like you are planning on making yourself a market martyr.

4) Why do you have the victim mentality?

I'm not providing answers. Those are for you to provide. I have decided that I don't like sitting in front of the screen watching the prices tick by. It doesn't fit my personaltity and what I want to do with my life.

Take some time away and look at some of the psychology of what you are doing.

Good luck.
More...

1. I need to learn to trade and to be more disciplined... no better way then day trading. Plus I don't have a job... what else am I gonna do all day?

2. Work in process. I try to polish and refine my strategy after each day.

3. and 4. I was having a joke of a day when I started this journal and titled it out of spite. Of course I want to succeed but I know the odds and know that most traders will blow out their account.
 
Trade Summary:

Good day today. Stayed disciplined but did over trade a bit with smaller size again. First trade of the day shorted some bearish divergence in the TRIN. Then of course tried to scalp a long and got stopped out quickly with half size. Then just got into the zone and started trying to catch the market flows. This reminds me of my old stock trading days. Also made about $1000 on some June 7.50 calls for SONS that hit today. I bought those 2 weeks ago and am still holding on for new highs. Right now hit a double top on its 6 year high. The naz is hot though so hopefully it runs through it in the next couple days. This journal has really helped keep me in control and more critical on my trading decisions. Hopefully it will continue to benefit me in my self analysis.

Net Today: $1402 (in YM trading)
Account Total: $21,035
 
Trade Summary:

Calling it a day. No discipline, no patience. I deserved to lose every penny and then some. Started a little off balance today. Tried different strategy then changed plans during trade to my detriment each time. Took a few revenge trades and viola. Rookie ass day. I am happy to have lost a good amount so as to remind myself to stick to my plan and how dangerous it is to second guess yourself. I bought the gap in the morning thinking it would fill. Trailed stops too close got stopped out revenge traded a short. Lost my ass. I thought the fed news was good so I went long and got stopped revenge traded a short... lost my ass. This shows how you can be right, execute poorly, revenge trade and lose your ass. I am pretty sure I would have made good money today if I didn't throw myself off in early trading. If I learned from my mistakes today then this is a very small price to pay. Again winning and losing is razor thin on any trade and any day.

Net for the day: - 2101
Account total: 18,688
 

Attachments

Trade Summary:

Well started the day with nice easy 20 point gainer... uhhhh.... oh wait.... yeah wait a minute... ok that's right... scratch that. It woulda coulda shoulda been a nice 20 point gainer. But I noticed my 20 point auto target was 2 points below the low of the day. Fair enough... but me being such a clever technician I figured that if the low was taken out an extra 10 points minimum should easily follow. I'm not greedy so I only went for 7 extra points and put my target at 13641... Well 13648 my original target hit easily. The extra 7 points might as well been 100 cause it wasn't gonna get there. Nope, no way. Why? Because of market Karma. Since I changed my plan and tried to get too clever the market had to do the only thing it could... reverse and make my original 15 point stop the high tick of the day!!!

Gotta love it!! I didn't revenge trade and go long though.... I swear to god I almost did!!!! That would have been comedy and I truly wanted to do it. But that would have made me a real loser yesterday. I later got a sell signal I have programmed that got me 20 points and covered my first mistake. Then we got back to my orginal magical 13648... it looked like it wasn't going to hit this time!!! After it looked like support I went long with half size at 50 and got stopped out in seconds. Another one of my problems... trying to grab tops and bottoms... good for chasing girls on the beach... bad for trading. :D

Stayed focused, stayed calm, stayed patient. overcame the adversity of my orignal mistake. Proud of myself today. Shoulda made 1000 more easily... but as long as I keep my improvements I'm proud nonetheless.

Net Change: +404
Account Total: 18,887
 

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