It did for me. When I first started I used a mental stop and found that I could not mechanically pull the trigger when it got to my stop. My first 3 YM trades went like this.
I went long 1 contract and sold it for a 10 point profit in just a few minutes. Wow that was an easy $45. So the very next trade I buy 4 and then the market starts selling off and I had told myself I would sell after a 10 point loss, then a sell program kicked in and before I knew it I was down 59 points on the trade.
I could not take anymore and I sold it and received a nice ($1200) loss on one trade. The market then fell another 20 points and I went long 4 contracts and made 22 points on the trade for $420 profit. I ended the day down $735 and I remember it like yesterday. So why am I telling this story you ask ? Before I started trading YM I paper traded it and had good results, but when real money was on the line I could not exit the trade for a loss on my on. This I why I stress physical stops when trading futures because if you enter the stop as soon as entering the trade, the trade either makes money or you get stopped out but there is no emotionally trading going on when you are wrong to keep you from getting out. Automation is a great thing because as humans, our emotions are our greatest nemisis while trading.
I went long 1 contract and sold it for a 10 point profit in just a few minutes. Wow that was an easy $45. So the very next trade I buy 4 and then the market starts selling off and I had told myself I would sell after a 10 point loss, then a sell program kicked in and before I knew it I was down 59 points on the trade.
I could not take anymore and I sold it and received a nice ($1200) loss on one trade. The market then fell another 20 points and I went long 4 contracts and made 22 points on the trade for $420 profit. I ended the day down $735 and I remember it like yesterday. So why am I telling this story you ask ? Before I started trading YM I paper traded it and had good results, but when real money was on the line I could not exit the trade for a loss on my on. This I why I stress physical stops when trading futures because if you enter the stop as soon as entering the trade, the trade either makes money or you get stopped out but there is no emotionally trading going on when you are wrong to keep you from getting out. Automation is a great thing because as humans, our emotions are our greatest nemisis while trading.