What happens without discipline!

[SuperDriveGuy]

Again; in this guys case; discpline is used as an excuse for a lack of knowledge, education, talent and skill ....

You acted NATURALLY INDISCPLINED because you were UNCERTAIN;

The reason you were uncertain ofcourse being a lack of knowledge, education, skill and talent...

You think 95% is lost because you were undiscplined ? Or would you have lost anyway; the only indiscpline was that you were trading without having made sure you were ready. Everything else is an expected response.

Does your mind IGNORE LOGIC & UNDERSTANDING; when your figuring out 2 +2 ? Do you become undiscplined and write down 5 ... No.

You lack the understanding and logic of the markets.

If you were not sure what the answer was .... Maybe you'd write 5. And YES you'd be WRONG; not undiscplined.

When driving a car do you randomly forget to steer ? 'God damn it; that indiscpline is back again' - Noooo because you KNOW that steering is a neccesity.

Indiscpline is so often an excuse for a lack of something else...

Hi GladiatorX,
Appreciate your comments.

I have strategy and it works, it has a positive expectancy, R:R on the right etc. The issue(I think) is that when I am in a losing trade, instead of taking that as inevitable(I can't have all winners), I try to turn the loser into a winner, How, by averaging down, increasing my positions beyond comfort, so where a 10 tick(or pip) move against me should really mean nothing, starts causing great discomfort. I then forget my strategy and then trade against that move, saying to myself that this move is outdone, its taken my stoploss, how much more higher-lower can it go? if I increase my position even more I recoup all the losses .... and on and on...

I have an edge I am just not applying it. The reason for the initial post was to sympathize with the OP, I think it helps when you know someone lost more than you. Also I know there are many experienced traders on here like yourself who may have gone through similar situations or may know someone who has and could take some help on how they overcame these obstacles. There will also be other wannabee traders who will be reading these posts(I know I did), may get pointers to the pitfalls and hopefully solutions!

I know I will be up and running again and If I just follow my trade plan, I will start becoming positive again, I day at a time

Thanks All.

Regards,

SDG

 

[leonarda]

Yeah; sorry i didn't mean to be so hard on ye' ...

no probs, what you say is true, and I think I do have an "egde", i'm just using small positions until I "confirm" it.

I think the market "V" dip since xmas has been fairly difficult to trade, so i'm glad i've done it with a profit!

 

[Dinos]

Well, i'm still a fair novice at this trading game, but I am learning the "disipline" rule the hard way. I keep on falling into the "gambling" rather than "trading" trap, recently because I thought the "FTSE" must be going to go down big time i'll just add a bit more of a short there... and here's my last 2 months performance showing the result...!

Hi there, think what you see is what happens, don't know if this will help, its just my objective opinion . Discipline and patience are paramount, my strategy enables me to control my emotions,and take my entry into a trade with confidence, based on a well defined clear strategy, and subsequently I also have exit strategy before I enter any trade, this is not just profit limits, but exits from bad trades as a means of capital protection, I never add to losing trades. try to be precise and consistant in your approach to trading, I have learnt to accept that losing trades are part and parcel of trading, and the sooner you can master cutting losses short and letting winning position run, you will be on the road to success.

Be objective rather than subjective in your analysis, based on your back testing and forward testing strategy you may then be able to get the confidence and discipline to trade the plan per say, avoiding early entry's to try gain a few extra pips, or chasing missed trades, don't chase it, another one will come at some stage.

One word I picked up in you comment "THOUGHT", and look where thought got you, if your confident your plan is workable, then trade 100% per then plan and don't think, let the charts tell you what they are doing, its not easy, we have all being there in various guises, I lost my first 2 trading pots before re-grouping and then learning how to trade, and I remember, I often "Thought" as well, didn't do me any good.

Hope thats of use, and good luck.

 

[leonarda]

Yeah....find another account elsewhere - good chance you'll blow up unless you're really skilled. You're using too much leverage on trades I imagine and there's no flexibility.

I know i'm using leverage spread betting, and on purpose. I would be quite happy to put £3000 in a non-leveraged trading account and open 6 positions with it (£500 each). However, since min-commission is typically £10 per transaction (ie.£20 buy and sell), that's a huge percentage of £500, a 4% loss before the trade's gone anywhere...
With CityIndex the commission, ie.full spread, is typically 0.5%, so it works.
To use a non-leveraged account I would need more like £30000.

So what i'm saying is that I want to trade with an effective £3000, but with minimum commission. Hence a £500 spread betting account!I could put £3000 in it, but I want to make sure I keep to the min-bet size and well within margin.

 

[Masquerade]

I think you misunderstand what i'm getting at. I'm just saying find an account you can trade smaller with ie. <50p if £500 is your trading account. If you have more to trade with then adjust the amount of leverage you lean on. Leverage will kill an account very quickly, something I re-learnt over the last few days.

 

[leonarda]

Hi there, think what you see is what happens, don't know if this will help, its just my objective opinion . Discipline and patience are paramount, my strategy enables me to control my emotions,and take my entry into a trade with confidence, based on a well defined clear strategy, and subsequently I also have exit strategy before I enter any trade, this is not just profit limits, but exits from bad trades as a means of capital protection, I never add to losing trades. try to be precise and consistant in your approach to trading, I have learnt to accept that losing trades are part and parcel of trading, and the sooner you can master cutting losses short and letting winning position run, you will be on the road to success.

Be objective rather than subjective in your analysis, based on your back testing and forward testing strategy you may then be able to get the confidence and discipline to trade the plan per say, avoiding early entry's to try gain a few extra pips, or chasing missed trades, don't chase it, another one will come at some stage.

One word I picked up in you comment "THOUGHT", and look where thought got you, if your confident your plan is workable, then trade 100% per then plan and don't think, let the charts tell you what they are doing, its not easy, we have all being there in various guises, I lost my first 2 trading pots before re-grouping and then learning how to trade, and I remember, I often "Thought" as well, didn't do me any good.

Hope thats of use, and good luck.

Thanks, that helps. I can describe most of the big drops in the graph and i won't do these type again, and I have just taken these as "losses":
- 9 Jan, went "long" Game group based on my evaluation of "undervalued" and also an Analyst report stating the same evaluation. Next day fell "6%"!, but I DID cut my loss straight away.
- between 14-24 Jan during FTSE "correction" my "shorts" gains didn't quite keep up with my "long" losses. That's just trading...
- 19 Feb- 2Mar went "short" FTSE, then "fatally" as every "analyst" and "bad news" report indicated a "fall", I added to it on 22Feb...

As someone else remarked this graph is quite up and down because of the use of leverage, and its a current "profit" graph, not account size. So if I was to draw this as a non-leveraged account size graph of say £3000 equivalent it effectively makes these swings look smaller. ie.my biggest £37 loss is only a 1.2% of account loss. It does however mean in 2 months of trading my equivalent account is in profit by only 1% !

I think my main reason for this "thread" is to help force me to be more disciplined!!

Thanks

 

[leonarda]

I think you misunderstand what i'm getting at. I'm just saying find an account you can trade smaller with ie. <50p if £500 is your trading account. If you have more to trade with then adjust the amount of leverage you lean on. Leverage will kill an account very quickly, something I re-learnt over the last few days.

ah got ye. Although not sure you can get lower than 50p per point?

 

[Masquerade]

Yes, you can. But not on cityindex. Depends on what market you're trading, but you can do FX for <50p.

 

[leonarda]

Yes, you can. But not on cityindex. Depends on what market you're trading, but you can do FX for <50p.

ah I see. I like Stock trading, I like the challenge of finding a good Stock to trade and managing it.
Cheers

 

[Mr Flibble]

Just remember that Adolfs mum never smacked his legs after any misdemeanour and the outcome was....he invaded Poland. There's a lesson in that. Today no discipline and shoddy trades..tomorrow? A possible invasion of a minor European country. Now you've been warned I expect to see profits for the next whole month.

 

[elitejets]

Hi GladiatorX,
Appreciate your comments.

I have strategy and it works, it has a positive expectancy, R:R on the right etc. The issue(I think) is that when I am in a losing trade, instead of taking that as inevitable(I can't have all winners), I try to turn the loser into a winner, How, by averaging down, increasing my positions beyond comfort, so where a 10 tick(or pip) move against me should really mean nothing, starts causing great discomfort. I then forget my strategy and then trade against that move, saying to myself that this move is outdone, its taken my stoploss, how much more higher-lower can it go? if I increase my position even more I recoup all the losses .... and on and on...

I have an edge I am just not applying it. The reason for the initial post was to sympathize with the OP, I think it helps when you know someone lost more than you. Also I know there are many experienced traders on here like yourself who may have gone through similar situations or may know someone who has and could take some help on how they overcame these obstacles. There will also be other wannabee traders who will be reading these posts(I know I did), may get pointers to the pitfalls and hopefully solutions!

I know I will be up and running again and If I just follow my trade plan, I will start becoming positive again, I day at a time

Thanks All.

Regards,

SDG

If you have a spare hour watch this video. It really helped me:
[url]http://www.4shared.com/file/96740657/227e2748/Mark_Douglas_-_Mind_Over_Market.html[/URL]

 

[leonarda]

Just remember that Adolfs mum never smacked his legs after any misdemeanour and the outcome was....he invaded Poland. There's a lesson in that. Today no discipline and shoddy trades..tomorrow? A possible invasion of a minor European country. Now you've been warned I expect to see profits for the next whole month.

Yes "mam"!

 

[SuperDriveGuy]

If you have a spare hour watch this video. It really helped me:
[url]http://www.4shared.com/file/96740657/227e2748/Mark_Douglas_-_Mind_Over_Market.html[/URL]

Thanks!

Sorry Leonarda, I will stop hijacking your thread