Well, I did it. And it happened exactly as people say it does.

Opened a micro account with $200 last Tuesday.
By Friday morning had $950 in that account.

This is really easy. I'll be a millionaire in a couple of months!

Decided to take a nap and then do a couple more trades on Friday evening at the end of the trading day. Set an alarm clock to wake up two hours before the end of trading.

"Just to make another couple hundred dollars before the end of the trading week."

Why not. I made some money, can trade bigger lots now.

Opened two trades, and they went really badly.

Waited till the last minute hoping for a reversal on both of them.

The trading was closed. My positions were still open. Equity was now down to $490.

On Sunday, as the trading started, thought maybe I can rebound.

Decided not to close the trades but wait if they get to breakeven.

At one point, I was up $150 from the beginning of the trading day. Still at a loss on both trades, but decided not to close. Hey, maybe it will get even better.

Closed two hours later at a loss of $130 (that's $280 worse than the high point that day).

Account balance is now $378 (or something close to that).

Well, it sucks, but it's not the end of the world. After all, I deposited $200 so I'm really up. I'll get it all back up to $900 or so in a bit. It's easy. Just a couple of good trades.

I'll start trading right away. Even though it's early Monday morning and the market's aren't active yet, I'm sure I can manage a few good trades.

A bunch of profitable trades later (with tiny profits of just a few pips $0.50-$6.00 of actual profit per trade -- I'll get my balance up. Even in such tiny steps. It would take some work and a couple of days, but even at $3-$5 of profit per trade, I can do 50 trades per day across many pairs, so I'll be fine.

During one of such trades to make $5 or so, lost another $150. Again, the market went the other way.

And then another one went bad. And one more.

Logged out of my trading station with a balance of $76.

Not pissed. Not upset. Just really frustrated. I can't even describe this feeling.

I just became another text book example of what newbs do.

Good thing it was a micro account. But it's a really strange feeling to think that everything people write about trading somehow doesn't apply to me. And then, in an instant be proved wrong and feel so tiny. Unbelievable.

As I said above, I'm not really pissed or upset. I'm genuinely frustrated.

"How could this have happened?" -- This is what I'm thinking.

I made every mistake I've read about before trading. Why? Still can't understand. I knew that I shouldn't do what I've been doing. Yet, I still did it because it seemed to work.

A really weird feeling.

fear and greed me ol' China, fear and greed.

When you do motorbike training, fairly early on they get you to ride quite fast (which for new riders generally feels frighteningly fast) in a straight line and then turn to the right. Problem is, they tell you beforehand that to turn to the right you must turn the handlebars to the left. Quite hard. Imagine how difficult that is to do for the first time. Some people simply can't do it - they know they should, they know why it works, and they see other trainees and instructors doing it, yet when the moment comes their lizard brain takes over and they do the wrong thing, somehow believing it to be the right thing. Their frustration grows to immense proportions, until they force themselves to do it, or they give up. Once you 'get' counter-steering however, it becomes second nature and adds a whole new dimension and power to your riding, so that it would feel silly to ride any other way.

Like wasp said - fear and greed.

Like wasp said - fear and greed.

Click to expand...

Yep. That's it.

Logically, I guess the problem as I see it now lies in the fact that you can't do effective risk-management with scalping/day trading. But at the same time, you can't turn in great profit (using small capital) on longer time frames.

I guess the realization of this is the most frustrating thing.

There is so, so much more than just buying at X and selling at Y that most don't realise when they first enter into trading. When to buy and sell in fact is p1ss easy, its the self control, money and risk management and having a cunning plan to stick it all together correctly that makes all the difference.

here is so, so much more than just buying at X and selling at Y that most don't realise when they first enter into trading. When to buy and sell in fact is p1ss easy, its the self control, money and risk management and having a cunning plan to stick it all together correctly that makes all the difference.

=== Thanks cushdy, for your valuable comment, since am a beginer in the stock trading, ill consider all this things.Thanks once again

regds
Vivek

trust me buddy, the people who can survive in the market is every time they enter. they clearly understands why they're taking this trade/entry criteria or whatever the system is.

if position go against them, they also understand what need to do. based on your post, youre more like trying to hit a jackpot or something, and when the things going wrong, you trying to dig the hole deeper. its very clear you have not line out the rules or whatever system properly yet.

trading is not a hope, trading itself is very limited in emotional aspect, its either you do 1 or its 2. thats it. most of the new people are trying to make what they can do with the market, in fact its the opposite. never put any hope/wishes in this trading industry/market because it could be another disappointment, usually thats what happen to loser and make people's life miserable. the most important thing you need to do is 'get out' from this 'judgmental personality' of yours and 'your market'. once you're out from it, your view about the market is completely different.

yes.... thats how it is...

Hi bcc9274,

A couple of things that no one's yet mentioned.

The mere fact that you have been able to increase a $200 to $950 and then decrease it to $76 could suggest that you are risking much more than the usual 1% of the account on any one trade. I think you're wildly overtrading.

"During one of such trades to make $5 or so, lost another $150. Again, the market went the other way".
This suggests that you may have not placed a stop, or there was a gap through your stop. The other possibility, which is really worrying, is that your risk/reward ratio on your trades is totally out of kilter.

HTH

F

For me at least, a major "step" in my understanding was to realise that while a market is like a big gravy-train, trading is *not* running around positioning yourself to try and eat the whole lot.

Consistent trading is simply taking a solid stance within clear-cut boundries and taking scoops out when the train rushes past.

Not a perfect analogy of course.

bcc9274 said:

I made every mistake I've read about before trading. Why? Still can't understand. I knew that I shouldn't do what I've been doing. Yet, I still did it because it seemed to work.

A really weird feeling.

Click to expand...

That's called lack of focus. If you've read in books that you're not meant to do this, not meant to do that, but you went ahead and did it anyway, it's because you hadn't really taken on board all the info you've read.

If you know 10 rules which help your trading, but you only stick to them one or two of them at a time, it's never going to work!

Most people lack the focus to pull it all together, but it's really just a question of practice, and that means not losing everything before you've had enough practice. So you've got to put a plan together and stick to it. Trade small, keep it going, and don't lose focus.

I know it's easy for me to say that, but you asked.