I'm a masochist & it's hurting my trading :(
- Thread starter Masquerade
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Don't be so hard on yourself. I've seen people with over 7,000 posts that haven't said much. So, you are still potentially ahead of the curve.
I think I visited one forum for trading where this guy had something like 15,000 posts to his credit. I mean, dude. What? 15 grand! How on earth does one attain that level of shear boredom and utter lifelessness. I mean, dude - should they not go out and get a life or something? 15 big ones. That was nuts. I don't think this forum has such nut cases, does it?
Ooops - I hope I did not speak to soon!
-----------------------
A Truly,
Stupid Cow
I think I visited one forum for trading where this guy had something like 15,000 posts to his credit. I mean, dude. What? 15 grand! How on earth does one attain that level of shear boredom and utter lifelessness. I mean, dude - should they not go out and get a life or something? 15 big ones. That was nuts. I don't think this forum has such nut cases, does it?
Ooops - I hope I did not speak to soon!
-----------------------
A Truly,
Stupid Cow
megamuel
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Not 15k ers... We have a few 5k ers and a few w@nk ers. I think once you've made 15,000 posts you are beyond being able to get a life back!
LOL, indeed!
I have had some 121s with a trading coach and a pretty famous one at that. Can I recommend some constructive next steps to you and others that have posted here with this and similar issues as I myself have been down a similar path before:
1. One of the most common issues is following a plan and the necessary staking model but then also taking out of plan trades when either a) boredom strikes and there are no planned trades at that moment or b) when the plan is going through a drawdown or flat period.
What you are doing here is trying to fill the void/get a buzz etc etc. This needs to stop and the way to move towards stopping it (what works for me anyway) is that i fill the void/buzz by coding strategies and identifying new trading edges
Paramount and in addition to this and filling the void, i spend much more time with family and this is priceless
Basically do other things that give you a buzz to substitute the buzz from random trading
2. Stick to the plan otherwise every single tick in the market is a trading opportunity. You don't want to go down that route.
3. Keep strong and healthy up to date records. So in my records, I have a full trading log of each trade, a stake plan per instrument, a psychological and self awareness assessment, a ranking by strategy of performance, what I want to work on and test, what I have tested and the results. That kind of stuff
4. Read trading psychology books. Almost like a mental boost to keep yourself sharp in mental trading toughness. It only takes 1 point in a trading book/article that may just be the one that you remember going forward
5. Be most alert when things are going good. I have red lights on when things are going well moreso in fact than when things are going bad
6. Ignore the news/blogs etc. I follow my strategies and thats all. Nothing else matters. I don't even follow the technicals anymore in detail. The technicals are coded in my strategies but I only look at what my signals are saying and not what the indicator readings are. I am strangely less engaged in the market now than ever before, yet doing better than before
I am sure you know the rest!!!! I think given your opening statement on boredom etc, then I stress point 1 as a key action. Identify something else to fill the void and if you have the same experience as me after this point, then you are unlikely to look back. It really will help enormously
Finally, i am sure he wont mind me mentioning this and whilst he already has excellent reviews etc, the best trading psychology reading out there is by Steve Ward. Get his book , get a 121 with him, absorb what he is saying. He is excellent and by far and away in my opinion at the leading edge of his field.
1. One of the most common issues is following a plan and the necessary staking model but then also taking out of plan trades when either a) boredom strikes and there are no planned trades at that moment or b) when the plan is going through a drawdown or flat period.
What you are doing here is trying to fill the void/get a buzz etc etc. This needs to stop and the way to move towards stopping it (what works for me anyway) is that i fill the void/buzz by coding strategies and identifying new trading edges
Paramount and in addition to this and filling the void, i spend much more time with family and this is priceless
Basically do other things that give you a buzz to substitute the buzz from random trading
2. Stick to the plan otherwise every single tick in the market is a trading opportunity. You don't want to go down that route.
3. Keep strong and healthy up to date records. So in my records, I have a full trading log of each trade, a stake plan per instrument, a psychological and self awareness assessment, a ranking by strategy of performance, what I want to work on and test, what I have tested and the results. That kind of stuff
4. Read trading psychology books. Almost like a mental boost to keep yourself sharp in mental trading toughness. It only takes 1 point in a trading book/article that may just be the one that you remember going forward
5. Be most alert when things are going good. I have red lights on when things are going well moreso in fact than when things are going bad
6. Ignore the news/blogs etc. I follow my strategies and thats all. Nothing else matters. I don't even follow the technicals anymore in detail. The technicals are coded in my strategies but I only look at what my signals are saying and not what the indicator readings are. I am strangely less engaged in the market now than ever before, yet doing better than before
I am sure you know the rest!!!! I think given your opening statement on boredom etc, then I stress point 1 as a key action. Identify something else to fill the void and if you have the same experience as me after this point, then you are unlikely to look back. It really will help enormously
Finally, i am sure he wont mind me mentioning this and whilst he already has excellent reviews etc, the best trading psychology reading out there is by Steve Ward. Get his book , get a 121 with him, absorb what he is saying. He is excellent and by far and away in my opinion at the leading edge of his field.
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Bint_Crusher
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To add to the above design a presentation around every time you followed your plan and analyse what went right and what went wrong. Review these every month, and give yerself a kick everytime you failed to follow your plan or your rules. If you are not successful after say 6 months then review your strategy, if necessary get your coach to go through it with you. Bear in mind a successful months trading is P=0 L=0.
Finally if you read 1 book it is this...............................
better not say really
Finally if you read 1 book it is this...............................
better not say really
TheBramble
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Some people may not get your sense of humour Dash.
Just to be clear, I do make money, a lot of it, from FX spreadbets, but not as a participant.
Shakone
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Not as a participant? Do you run a spreadbet firm then? That still seems like a participant...
TheBramble
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counter_violent
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Interesting. Do you mean their price skew v actual market ? Do you think the degree of skew has changed over the yrs ?
TheBramble
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Yes. And Yes.
The vast majority of their clients are increasingly less critical and devoid of any real savvy so the SB can afford to take more liberties. It could be said that their willingness to take more liberties actually causes them to accumulate that level of client base, but given their business model, that’s a genuinely positive development for them. The few that do trade successfully with SBs likely use precisely the same mechanism to generate their profits.
It’s a lot easier to spot their bias today than a few years back and while I’d like to take all the credit for that and suggest that increased clarity is all due to my burgeoning brilliance and towering intelligence, the probabilities are that isn’t the whole story, or even half, and in actual fact, most likely not at all. Far more likely their indifference to being called and setting the slope accordingly.
It’s not an initiator for me in that I won’t go into a position purely on what I see them doing, but I rarely find myself choosing to argue with them as they set up to fleece.
Masquerade
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I think it's time for an update. I suggest you get a cup of coffee, take a ****, pause the porn as this is going to be a bit lengthy. I'll first of all thank people who helped in this thread, but i'll admit now that I didn't buy the books as I was feeling poor. 
The Background to this thread
Prior to the conception of this thread I had a telephone call for some "exciting opportunity", I was briefed about some job which I didn't catch the gist of, feigned my enthusiasm and then was asked if I could take a telephone interview. I said yes because nothing ventured, nothing gained. Some how I managed to bluff this interview and conveyed myself in a confident, enthusiastic manner and was invited to an assessment centre.
A few days prior to the assessment centre I had bought eur/usd and it had been plummeting. I had been averaging down and the market wasn't bouncing. My assessment centre day came and I seriously considered not going, but I knew if I was so fortunate to get this role it'd be worth a lot more long run than my trade. So off I trudged on the underground to Stamford Brook to go for a Business Monitor International assessment day in Sales. One thing people who have met me can attest to and something I admit is that i'm really not a sales person. I don't have the bouncy energy, nor do I proclaim to be the greatest socialiser in the world. But I had done my preparation for it and I was going to try my best. As I stepped into the room I saw a room filled with fresh faced graduates, all very enthusiastic and arrogant looking and there was me and all I could think about was whether i'd come home to an account and what would be left of it.
The morning started off with an ice breaker and the presenter told us we'd have to introduce ourselves and tell our greatest life achievement. At this point something saddening dawned upon me: I couldn't think of a greatest life achievement, so I made something up and anticipated every conceivable question that could be asked. My turn came around and I stood up, introduced myself and then pulled a bluff in front of about 40 people. I looked them right in the eye and controlled my body language and answered in such a way I believed it myself. When the day was nearly finished all that was left was finding out whether we were successful. We sat in this hot room in Stamford Brook for about 2 hours, I had no contact via internet, no idea what was happening with euro and I just wanted to get home and see what the damage was. I find out I wasn't successful and not really caring, left ASAP to get on the train and spent the next 90 mins to get home and find out my fate.
It shouldn't take a genius to tell, but euro had not bounced back and it was still being bogged down by all the woes of the euro-zone. I took the decision to save my account and took the hit. I hit a trading rock bottom and just didn't know where to turn and felt like admitting it all and this thread was conceived. I had lost all my profit + my account was now down 25% since i'd deposited. I knew something needed to change.
After this thread
So i'd hit my trading rock bottom and sought the knowledge and wisdom of T2W to try help fix my trading and get things improving. I lowered my leverage and started to use stop losses in places where I thought my entries were no longer valid. I found this style of trading didn't go well with me, I often closed trades which looked bad only to see them go back into what would have been a profit. I struggled to run positions and my profits were not big. After a few weeks of constant losing I was feeling hopeless and my account was making new lows. I had dropped another 10% and was down 35% overall on my deposit. I thought i'd hit my trading rock bottom when I made my thread but now this really felt like it. I'd tried to change everything and become better and what was supposed to protect me turned out to hurt me.
My birthday
Towards the end of June I had my birthday. I reflected on my life, the things i'd achieved (more importantly what I hadn't) the dire situation of my life balance and what I could do. I really just felt disappointed that I didn't have more to show for my life. I'd hit my trading rock bottom, my account had some big red numbers looking back at me to show my trading efforts and I felt like it was the time to hit the "withdraw" button and try to do something more "normal" with my life. I didn't trade for about a week. I thought about how i'd doubled my account before within a few months, what I could do differently, what sort of time span would I give myself to see if i could make it work. I wasn't ready to quit on a low and wanted to give it one more try.
Now I realise this part breaks conventional trading wisdom, but I looked at my account with disgust. Although there was still a fair amount of money in there, I saw it as useless and I felt that if I lost it at least i'd be forced into doing something else with my life. So I took the view that I was prepared to take some risks with it. One important thing I had to do was keep my leverage low and not put myself in bad positions where small moves represented a substantial chunk of my account. I gave myself 2 months (till the end of August/beginning of Sept) to see what I could do with my account and then re-evaluate my next move.
Next week will be the end of that period and I shall put the next part up then.
The Background to this thread
Prior to the conception of this thread I had a telephone call for some "exciting opportunity", I was briefed about some job which I didn't catch the gist of, feigned my enthusiasm and then was asked if I could take a telephone interview. I said yes because nothing ventured, nothing gained. Some how I managed to bluff this interview and conveyed myself in a confident, enthusiastic manner and was invited to an assessment centre.
A few days prior to the assessment centre I had bought eur/usd and it had been plummeting. I had been averaging down and the market wasn't bouncing. My assessment centre day came and I seriously considered not going, but I knew if I was so fortunate to get this role it'd be worth a lot more long run than my trade. So off I trudged on the underground to Stamford Brook to go for a Business Monitor International assessment day in Sales. One thing people who have met me can attest to and something I admit is that i'm really not a sales person. I don't have the bouncy energy, nor do I proclaim to be the greatest socialiser in the world. But I had done my preparation for it and I was going to try my best. As I stepped into the room I saw a room filled with fresh faced graduates, all very enthusiastic and arrogant looking and there was me and all I could think about was whether i'd come home to an account and what would be left of it.
The morning started off with an ice breaker and the presenter told us we'd have to introduce ourselves and tell our greatest life achievement. At this point something saddening dawned upon me: I couldn't think of a greatest life achievement, so I made something up and anticipated every conceivable question that could be asked. My turn came around and I stood up, introduced myself and then pulled a bluff in front of about 40 people. I looked them right in the eye and controlled my body language and answered in such a way I believed it myself. When the day was nearly finished all that was left was finding out whether we were successful. We sat in this hot room in Stamford Brook for about 2 hours, I had no contact via internet, no idea what was happening with euro and I just wanted to get home and see what the damage was. I find out I wasn't successful and not really caring, left ASAP to get on the train and spent the next 90 mins to get home and find out my fate.
It shouldn't take a genius to tell, but euro had not bounced back and it was still being bogged down by all the woes of the euro-zone. I took the decision to save my account and took the hit. I hit a trading rock bottom and just didn't know where to turn and felt like admitting it all and this thread was conceived. I had lost all my profit + my account was now down 25% since i'd deposited. I knew something needed to change.
After this thread
So i'd hit my trading rock bottom and sought the knowledge and wisdom of T2W to try help fix my trading and get things improving. I lowered my leverage and started to use stop losses in places where I thought my entries were no longer valid. I found this style of trading didn't go well with me, I often closed trades which looked bad only to see them go back into what would have been a profit. I struggled to run positions and my profits were not big. After a few weeks of constant losing I was feeling hopeless and my account was making new lows. I had dropped another 10% and was down 35% overall on my deposit. I thought i'd hit my trading rock bottom when I made my thread but now this really felt like it. I'd tried to change everything and become better and what was supposed to protect me turned out to hurt me.
My birthday
Towards the end of June I had my birthday. I reflected on my life, the things i'd achieved (more importantly what I hadn't) the dire situation of my life balance and what I could do. I really just felt disappointed that I didn't have more to show for my life. I'd hit my trading rock bottom, my account had some big red numbers looking back at me to show my trading efforts and I felt like it was the time to hit the "withdraw" button and try to do something more "normal" with my life. I didn't trade for about a week. I thought about how i'd doubled my account before within a few months, what I could do differently, what sort of time span would I give myself to see if i could make it work. I wasn't ready to quit on a low and wanted to give it one more try.
Now I realise this part breaks conventional trading wisdom, but I looked at my account with disgust. Although there was still a fair amount of money in there, I saw it as useless and I felt that if I lost it at least i'd be forced into doing something else with my life. So I took the view that I was prepared to take some risks with it. One important thing I had to do was keep my leverage low and not put myself in bad positions where small moves represented a substantial chunk of my account. I gave myself 2 months (till the end of August/beginning of Sept) to see what I could do with my account and then re-evaluate my next move.
Next week will be the end of that period and I shall put the next part up then.
new_trader
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I would doubt anyone who says they are a successful trader if they said they had never felt this way, and not only once or twice...
G
G.O.A.T
.....each month!
B
Black Swan
You have to go there to come back...
If you decided to lose it my only suggestion is do it quickly.
Masquerade
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I used to trade on Alpari with a smaller account. I had some pretty big swings as I was trading a small account with fairly high leverage. 20% swings in the account on a day were not uncommon to me. I can think of at least 3 occasions I filled out a withdrawal form, faxed it to Alpari only to put the money back there the next day. In 1 case I did it later in the afternoon on the same day. :whistling I call it the "tilt withdrawal" when you just feel fed up with it all and hit the withdraw button, then cool down a bit and think more rationally.
Masquerade
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I didn't decide that my plan was to lose it. I decided that I didn't care if I lost it. There's a difference. I could have just leveraged it all up on a trade, blown an account or doubled up. But that's much higher risk than the alternative methods. Being torn between moving on and trading, the only thing that kept me trading was the fact I had money. With no money in my account i'd be liberated and forced into something else. But in a way, losing it faster would be more advantageous than losing over a long period due to opportunity cost.
