Motivation ??

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ukdaytrader

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Had a really good run up until this month........3 bad days and I've lost a lot of cash....

Last month earned 140% of my initial capital......... So assuming a notional £80 turned it into £200 last month(April). Up until last week it was at £260. Today I lost about £70 of that. So now I have a notional £190. Still up but it means a net loss for the month to date which is bad news !!!

Worse thing is that I was correct on the direction but it went against me to start with and I closed the position, only to find that today my notional £260 would have been £360 had I have kept the position open !

Secondly I closed another position way to early.........which could have mitigated by £70 loss.

Just asking on bad days like that how do you find the motivation to continue...... ???

Is anyone on here a full time trader ? or do you all have jobs ?
 
Sounds like you're risking too much. Anyway, you have to realise it is a game of probabilities, so assuming you have something, you just have to keep pulling the trigger.
 
I think all of us all have days like that, no matter what you do it will go against you. The key thing is how to deal with it without letting down. one of my rule is if I'm wrong 3 times in a day, I'll stop trading that day or will take a long break, 2-3 hours, then come back start afresh. Good luck.
 
My main problem is I'm watching the screen all the time and get phased by the volatility. When I was doing this part time, I was doing a lot better as I could not see the screen all the time so was oblivious to the volatility. I would place a 1 or 2 positions, check them once during the day and get back to them at the end of the day......and this was working wonders. My trades are not short term trades, they are for a duration of between 1 - 5 days.
 
shadow I think you are right.......I need to tone down my risks. I've become over confident as a result of the good run.
 
ukdaytrader said:
Just asking on bad days like that how do you find the motivation to continue...... ???

Is anyone on here a full time trader ? or do you all have jobs ?
Click to expand...

How hungry are you for success?
You just keep going, never give up, doesnt matter how long it takes or how much money you lose or how much it hurts (and trading can make you experience levels of mental pain you could never of imagined). You just keep at it. Lose all the money in your account? no problem, get a job and recharge it. Failing several times is a good way to learn in this business. But dont underestimate the difficulty, it could take you years to learn how to make a decent living.
 
Last edited:
ukdaytrader said:
My main problem is I'm watching the screen all the time and get phased by the volatility. When I was doing this part time, I was doing a lot better as I could not see the screen all the time so was oblivious to the volatility. I would place a 1 or 2 positions, check them once during the day and get back to them at the end of the day......and this was working wonders. My trades are not short term trades, they are for a duration of between 1 - 5 days.
Click to expand...

There are more than one ways to cope with this. Either you just look at the hourly charts, or go to different room to watch movies, go to do yard works or go out for fun, just try to do exactly as you did (successfully) before.

Unless you try to explore shorter trading interval then it's a different thing.
 
Shadow is right, you're severely undercapitalised. Talking about % returns is all well and good, but you have to look at that against what % of your capital you are risking with each trade; wasn't it you who was talking about VaR the other day? The poster above makes a good point also; if your trades are between 1 and 5 days, you shouldn't really be paying attention to what's happening on a 1min chart, it will only give you reasons to get out of your trade.
 
Skill Leverage said:
Shadow is right, you're severely undercapitalised. Talking about % returns is all well and good, but you have to look at that against what % of your capital you are risking with each trade; wasn't it you who was talking about VaR the other day? The poster above makes a good point also; if your trades are between 1 and 5 days, you shouldn't really be paying attention to what's happening on a 1min chart, it will only give you reasons to get out of your trade.
Click to expand...

yeah I'm confused too, didn't he say he was writing options :LOL:

anyone want to make a market on when he blows up :D
 
Just to be clear I trade equities in the main (fully hedged against either sector or index) , occasional indices's (when I want to lose some cash) and covered out of the money index options (for smaller income enhancements). The options generally earn the time value component only. I was writing uncovered options....but have since covered them with a reverse position further out,

On the var - the equities seems to work ok..........but for the index this was unfortunately a bet on direction not a very controlled.......hence the loss.

The bet was even on the right direction............but got chickend out due to the volatility.
 
ukdaytrader said:
If you read the post it said a notional £200, it was purely to demonstrate the example......you can add a few zeros onto the end of it for actual values.
Click to expand...

Zimbabwe dollars?

Anyway you're clearly doing something stupid for that kind of drawdown, so stop now and take your profits :)
 
ukdaytrader said:
My main problem is I'm watching the screen all the time and get phased by the volatility. When I was doing this part time, I was doing a lot better as I could not see the screen all the time so was oblivious to the volatility. I would place a 1 or 2 positions, check them once during the day and get back to them at the end of the day......and this was working wonders. My trades are not short term trades, they are for a duration of between 1 - 5 days.
Click to expand...

I donot think the problem is watching the screen. Although you can do better sometimes without watching the monitor, the problem is that we cannot identify some fake movements sometimes. Except that you are a day trader, you should not value the 1min fluctuation, the long-term movement is more reliable and genuine than short-tem one.
 
donaldduke said:
How hungry are you for success?
You just keep going, never give up, doesnt matter how long it takes or how much money you lose or how much it hurts (and trading can make you experience levels of mental pain you could never of imagined). You just keep at it. Lose all the money in your account? no problem, get a job and recharge it. Failing several times is a good way to learn in this business. But dont underestimate the difficulty, it could take you years to learn how to make a decent living.
Click to expand...

As long as you remember that failure is the chance to start again more intelligently!
 
I'm out again for the moment mate. I have to get this holiday sorted and paid because my GF is being made redundant next month. She said I'm still not allowed to trade.
 
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