I Look Back Now and Wonder

[Tams 20]

.......... E.S. is a drug

[MightyMouse 12]

Nicely said.

 

As for me I just joined this TL board 5 minutes ago. I've been trading equities and options on and off for 20 years. Last year I took 50k from my equity account and tried trading ES. Lost 40k in about 3 months (probably to a lot of guys on this board!). Anyway I did some reading, and made all my cash back and quite a bit more swing trading equities part time.

 

What sucks is that I really liked the fast paced ES action. I just think using a standard IB account with high speed internet puts me at too much of a disadvantage to the pros out there trading ticks.

 

I am back, and on the hunt for a less choppy symbol to trade.

 

Thanks for the thoughts.

 

Drew

 

Es is a slug these days. Sometimes it takes hours to move 2 points. It's probably one of the least volatile contracts now.

[jarhettc 10]

Awesome post. You have spoken some great truths in this post....this is not easy, it does require sacrifice, and you must remove emotion from your thought process.

[TimRacette 11]

Great insight Bootstrap, I think that ideology creates a quality foundation and leads to a fulfilling life. Thanks for sharing.

[jimrob1942 10]

I guess I really don't know what I'm doing here. I started trading stock options because of the leverage and small trading capital about 6 months ago. Before opening an account with Trade station I read and read everything I could get my hands on about the markets, technical analysis, trends, breakouts, fundamentals, support and resistance, etc, etc & etc.

I started with long calls and puts because they are simple. This latest market decline has kept me on the sidelines. This amount of volatility is too much for me. (I also know options traders like it.)

 

I have lost about half of my trading capital and thinking about "cut and run". I haven't fallen victim to all the 1000's of news letters and trading system on the street, if they are so great why aren't the developers walking the beaches of the South Pacific. I would really like to find a mentor but the choices are many and expensive.

 

I do not have a clue as to who will see this post. Open for suggestions.

 

Thanks, Jim

[bootstrap 47]

you are still trading and that is the most important if this is what you want to do.

 

i am back guys. and for good. lots of family stuff over the past year(s). we can go into that later.

 

trading success really takes only one thing. discipline.

 

but discipline does not mean going down the wrong road blindly.

[TimRacette 11]

10)And last but probably most important, don’t be afraid of failure. Just do like Edison and go, “Well that didn’t work”.

 

Great post Bootstrap. #10 was a big one for me. I was afraid of what others would think about me if I didn't make it in trading. Once I realized that it really doesn't matter what they think and I committed to doing whatever it takes to become consistently profitable I started to see big things happen.

 

Whether it's on a conscious or subconscious level I think your list of 10 can really help frame you with the right mindset.

 

Happy Holidays,

Tim

[anituchka 10]

Excellent post. Very inspirational!

[Vince50 10]

hI,

 

I enjoyed reading Bootstraps intro here. After 15+ yrs trading, I know of what he speak. I would like to slightly disagree on 2 points,though.

 

#2-Dont pay for a system. I dont agree. Buying systems have taught me things I would never have gotten on my own. Things NOT to do! And just as important, things that really dont mean squat if its in the stars to be your day, dont sweat the small stuff.(And sometimes I think it's ALL small stuff) I also assume you put paying for a trading room either and there I definitely think you need the comraderie of other traders, even if, as I said....they are horrible and teach you what NOT to do. Let me give you the most important thing I learned from systems. I always thought that if you never counter trend traded, always entered the trade just as price is crossing both the 8 and 20 SMA, you cannot help but break even right there because you are trading with the big money. After all. who is moving a heavily traded stock or currency with such momentum it could not only stay above the 20sma but also propel itself above the 8 as well. For day trading I thought this was the nuts and everything else was just minor things. WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! I wound up because of this system taught in a trade room by a very, very famous day trader whose initials start with on O.,learning that yes, it is the big money that swings a stock or commodity up to ride that "8 train" as he said. But what I was never taught was that there are many groups of big or smart(not always the same) money that could in 5 minutes have it marching completely back the other way. He never mentioned that part! I go on record as saying that playing stocks trading over 2m shares daily on a 2 or 5 minute chart that are trading over the 8and 20 sma on along trade, I have lost at least 75% of my trades!!! 5 years ago I would say its impossible. I also learned that while moving average "based" systems might have made the Turtles and other past commodity traders rich, I have never done anything but lose money when my primary rule is based on moving averages!!! NO book ,and maybe not even experience would have given me that in just 6 months. However.... don't pay a lot of money for any system. Thats always true! Anything more than $1000 out of pocket in one crack is a red flag IMHO.

 

#8-I put in 18 hours a day and 12 on weekends. I too thought that quitting my regular job and living on savings and just paper trading and studying books and systems and Internet articles day and night would allow me to get in SKILL in18 months where most traders take 7 or 8 years to get. Wrong! I found that getting up at 8:30am to watch the market trade until 4, then studying my trades until 5, and then if I couldnt fall asleep would start following Spot Forex at 1am or earlier was preventing my body fromk ever naturally winding down. I would up on high doses of sleep medication that only now, years later can I even go to a normal dose to fall asleep by an "earlybird" 1am!!!! Sometimes I would trade Forex right thru till Market open at 9:30.

 

I dont think that is healthy physically or psychologically for 98% of people. I lost all my interest in working out and walking and now at age 51, I lost all the muscle I spent 20 years accumulating and I cannot get it back. My new motto concerning trading: GIVE TIME....TIME."

 

Yet bootstraps you might be in that 2%, Im just saying we must learn to respect our bodys needs. I'd like to have a dollar for every tradere counted in the 95% who lose, quit not because of going broke, but because they lost something far more valuable...their energy and their health!

 

That said, I think Bootstraps makes a lot of sense,but as even he says...take everything with a grain of salt. Oh, about systems...if you are attracted to a system, dont pay anything more than $1000 to "taste it. And never believe a money back guarantee. Its so easy to stall you and 5000 others off and just go out of business and walk away with millions. Funny but I learned the most in rooms I paid $125 a month to be in. No fees or anything else. And if you are attracted to a system...ask yourself what it is about it that tickles you, and can you get the strategy cheaper by just buying a book. For example if you want to make a living being a candlestick expert, why give someone thousands of dollars when there are many ways to learn candlesticks for the price of a couple of books. And speaking of BOOKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...............

 

No I do not think Nissans work, and Oliver Velez and Gann and Robert Prechter can ever make you a winning trader no matter how much they charge for their rediculously overpriced books.(FInd me one guy who ever even said they make a living at any market just from learning from any one of those guys. Just one. You wont! And I learned thru trade rooms that my fascination with Elliot Waves better stay that....a fascination because not one room moderator in 10 years of room hopping could ever hold a room together based on Elliot Waves. Sorry guys, but my humble opinion is that as a main strategy, used as a stand alone, its crap. But as an aide,a scan, or a tactic to help you....sure, why not. Ok, I did my rambling. I am happy to be here with a bunch of people that seem a cut above the average room in class and manners. Anyone who would like to chat, just PM me. I hope to learn from and meet many more like Bootstrap here in the future. This is my first day here!!!! Cold beers in a frosted mug on me, all around! Cheers!

[Vince50 10]

:o worth framing that one

 

 

Firewalker, I love that quote!!! Priceless as you say. I dont think everyone gets how deep that can really go. You see, we always hear stories about a trader who "unveils" his story to us about how he succeeded. What I want is to hear the stories of guys who blew up 5 trading accounts, lost their house, lost their regular job cause they couldnt stay off the Internet(me!),lost their wife and even lost their perspective OF life. We dont hear from THOSE people....and those people are far, far in the majority. I think if we have a book called Market Wizards, we should have its opposite called Market failures. In fact, I should start a thread here to do just that. Trading is a merciless business. You can put in 40 years and still wind up like Edward Levebre from the "Stock Operator" book and die alone and broke in a hotel room after making millions trading. Those are far more common. We need to hear rthose stories...not just to pay homage to the "fallen soldiers" who may have been smarter than a Market Wizard" but not luckier. Or destined to be in thew wrong place at the wrong time. Myself: I have never gotten over buying 300 shares of APPL at 33, watched it go to 35 but set my stop at 33 and said I would get back in as soon as it picked up momentum. I got so involved with daytrading in a prop room, I forgot about it until 3 months later when it was way to high. I will wait for a pullback I said. It then went on to skyrocket past $700 and I wanted to have a position of at least 1000 shares when it went past 50. I can likely never get an opportunity like thsat again. Hell, Warren Buffett prbably never had that happen to him. So what Im saying is, brains or not, persistance or not, it is soooo much easier to fail at trading than to succeed. And the real kick in the rump is we never have control. We can only "hope" that what we do continues to hold its edge or else we might have to start all over again. How many suicides have taken place because of this addicting,exciting profession? Look at Gann, Elliot, Charles Dow and all the forefathers of stock trading. They all were/ became very physically sick. Was it from trading...or just coincidence?

[Savant 10]

you are still trading and that is the most important if this is what you want to do.

 

i am back guys. and for good. lots of family stuff over the past year(s). we can go into that later.

 

trading success really takes only one thing. discipline.

 

but discipline does not mean going down the wrong road blindly.

 

 

That really sounds very well. Like some old pirate who goes on the sea after some time. I am rookie but like people with writing style like yours

[obradovicmilica 10]

I wasn't sure where to put this, so the powers that be can move it if they see fit. I put it here for anyone who is just starting out and wondering what it really takes to become part of that elite club of profitable traders.

 

I lurk on several trading forums. I join a few and make a few posts. One thing that I rarely see is the painful path one took to becoming successful. So for all you beginners here is what becoming successful took. For my fellow brethren that are already in the club have a good laugh.

 

The markets had always lured me as a kid. I would read the paper and make predictions. Sometimes they were right; sometimes not. Then one day I got that famous commodity-trading flyer, sent my money off and took the plunge.

 

My first stab at trading was commodities and I started with $5k in 1991. I was using the strategy as outlined by the guru. The account was gone within a few months. Well that didn’t work. I thought, people do this everyday and make money why not me.

 

So off to the library. I read every book the Memphis library had on trading and investing. I paper traded the strategies I found while I built my bankroll back up. I learned exits, set-ups, position, expectancy, market psychology, and portfolio management. I soon realized that I was reading the same thing over and over no matter which book I checked out.

 

Time to build my strategy. I am ready to do this. I bought a new computer, Metastock Pro 6.0, and opened an account with $30k. Its 1995, and this is my shot. By 1997 I was toast again. The family life went to hell in a hand basket, and I thought I could trade through the difficult times. The result was an account with a balance of $2500.

 

Back to the drawing board. Took care of the personal stuff. Lived like a monk raising capital. Worked nights and watched the market during the day. Took a second job on the weekends to raise more money.

 

Then one day out of the blue, the little red and green candles started to make sense. I saw patterns develop over and over in the same spots. I placed a trade and made a profit. But I had done this before. I removed the MACD from my charts. Placed another trade and made a profit. Maybe I am on to something. Removed the channel indicator that I stumbled across. I could still see the action and new what the MACD was doing and where the action was in the channel without them even being on the chart. I even stopped drawing trend lines.

 

It was just me and the screen. I planned every trade. I knew exactly when, where, and why I entered and exited. I was patient. I became a predator. Lurking and waiting. I took every shot the market gave me. If it started to go wrong, I got out quick and waited. If the market did not give me an opening, oh well. There is always tomorrow.

 

By the fall of 1999, I was consistently profitable and have been ever since. For those that are waiting for the sales pitch, there isn’t one. For those that are waiting for me to expose some great secret, well there isn’t one of those either.

 

What I will give you are a few simple pointers that I learned the hard way. And the sad part is, most will stilll learn these the hardway.

 

1)Take everything you read with a grain of salt. That includes this post.

 

2)Never pay for a system. It is just not that easy.

 

3)If something comes up in your life that is distracting, stop trading.

 

4)Plan every aspect of your trade down to the smallest detail, and plan for every possible outcome.

 

5)Develop your own strategy. Don’t let someone tell you that you can’t trade a simple moving average if you truly believe you can.

 

6)Test the strategy in the market that you will be trading. If you like the results, trade it in another totally unrelated market and see if it still holds up.

 

7)Paper trading is ok, but there is nothing that truly tests the strategy like hard earned cash.

 

8)You will have to make sacrifices in order to make it. I still do. In the middle of my learning period I was working 18 hours a day during the week and 12 on the weekend.

 

9)You are responsible for everything when it comes to trading. That includes stop running, bad fills, limit moves, your PC crashing. I mean everything. See #4

 

10)And last but probably most important, don’t be afraid of failure. Just do like Edison and go, “Well that didn’t work”.

 

Good trading to you all.

i like your post, good trading to you too

[obradovicmilica 10]

How do you keep the faith when you don't know how far the finish line is ? Well you must enjoy the process, which means continual of study and research and practice on your demo account in your spare time

[Vince50 10]

Milica,

 

I really like your outline. But....some of us cant work and also trade. So when #10 in your guidelines comes up where you fail and say to yourself "Oh well, its just another one. I will try again." What do you do when you calculate in your head as I am doing right now, that you have gone thru over 1/2 of your lifesavings, not in trading, but for the last 3 years of paper trading, honing your skills as you traded live many times before and want to be sure this time. What happens when you wake up one day and go...I have 1 year to figure this out or I will not be able to eat "and" have a trading account at the same time. What can you possibly do to not let that pressure get to you. If you choose to take a break or take off and just work when you dont want to at all, it could ruin you as a trader. It almost ruined me,one time.

 

I remember seeing a documentary on people in prison and how after a certain amount of years, these people cant they absolutely can "never" come out and live a normal crime free life again because they wouldnt know how to adjust to it. As some prisoners confessed..."At least here we know what to expect every day. I never had that feeling of belonging outside as I do in here. So..I will probably do something stupid to get myself right back in here."

 

I think of myself. How I spent the last 4 years sitting in front of moving charts till 5 or 6am trading spot Forex and being able to sleep as late as I want to recover my sanity, I could never trade properly on just a few hours sleep a night as some lucky people can. So I know I have to come up with something soon ,because if I have to go back to work atmy middle age, I may lose the feeling for trading and get "too used to doing things another way" as a convict might say.. Then what?

[MightyMouse 12]

The most important things in my life are the commitments I have made. Family is a commitment. I would never do anything to compromise that commitment. If you lose your family because of trading, you do not know how to focus on the important things in life and likely lack the ability to focus period. Without the ability to focus, I doubt someone will be able to trade at all.

 

Gamblers have a similar mindset. They will risk the grocery money on a sports bet or a blackjack table. I do not have much respect for those people. If you are not making enough money trading and causing issues in your home, then you should seek help. Save your family and drop the trading. Too many other things in life are far more important than watching a screen or trying to get a better hand at Blackjack than a dealer.

 

No doubt trading is fun. It would be great to be able to do it full time all the time. If you are not profitable, then you have an issue. If you are profitable and you do not have enough trading capital, you also have an issue. Either way, you cannot spend your time trading if you have obligations that you have committed to and either do not make any money or cannot make enough money trading.

 

Would I risk my family like the OP? Fuck no!

[Vince50 10]

The most important things in my life are the commitments I have made. Family is a commitment. I would never do anything to compromise that commitment. If you lose your family because of trading, you do not know how to focus on the important things in life and likely lack the ability to focus period. Without the ability to focus, I doubt someone will be able to trade at all.

 

Gamblers have a similar mindset. They will risk the grocery money on a sports bet or a blackjack table. I do not have much respect for those people. If you are not making enough money trading and causing issues in your home, then you should seek help. Save your family and drop the trading. Too many other things in life are far more important than watching a screen or trying to get a better hand at Blackjack than a dealer.

 

No doubt trading is fun. It would be great to be able to do it full time all the time. If you are not profitable, then you have an issue. If you are profitable and you do not have enough trading capital, you also have an issue. Either way, you cannot spend your time trading if you have obligations that you have committed to and either do not make any money or cannot make enough money trading.

 

Would I risk my family like the OP? Fuck no!

 

Point well made! Had I just played around with trading for 2-3 yrs it would be easierr to do what you say. But, I havent got a lot to lose at this point, and all my experience I wont let go for naught. I may not have learned exactly what TO do, byut I have leaned exactly what NOT to do. Sort of Like Edison making his 10,000 mistakes and knowing 10,000 things not to do. Life has a way of sorting itself out. Thank you,though. Youve been a big help. I've got just a few things left to try and then there is nothing to do but......???????? When its no longer enjoyable, thats definitely the time to quit.

 

peace

[Ammeo 10]

The most important things in my life are the commitments I have made. Family is a commitment. I would never do anything to compromise that commitment. If you lose your family because of trading, you do not know how to focus on the important things in life and likely lack the ability to focus period. Without the ability to focus, I doubt someone will be able to trade at all.

 

Would I risk my family like the OP? Fuck no!

 

Well said..family should be above everything...

[teachdesign 10]

I'm new to this site as of today and this post is hilarious. Brings back a lot of bad memories but also that "aha moment". I could never figure out how ever time I started a position the stock would go down the next day. Those of you new to trading...read this post carefully. There is NO easy money in the world and trading the markets is no exceptions...HOWEVER...as with any thing you do you get better at it. Those of you new to trading, GOOD LUCK! It can be the most rewarding, yet most painful experience you will ever have.

[Albnd 10]

1)Take everything you read with a grain of salt. That includes this post.

 

2)Never pay for a system. It is just not that easy.

 

3)If something comes up in your life that is distracting, stop trading.

 

4)Plan every aspect of your trade down to the smallest detail, and plan for every possible outcome.

 

5)Develop your own strategy. Don’t let someone tell you that you can’t trade a simple moving average if you truly believe you can.

 

6)Test the strategy in the market that you will be trading. If you like the results, trade it in another totally unrelated market and see if it still holds up.

 

7)Paper trading is ok, but there is nothing that truly tests the strategy like hard earned cash.

 

8)You will have to make sacrifices in order to make it. I still do. In the middle of my learning period I was working 18 hours a day during the week and 12 on the weekend.

 

9)You are responsible for everything when it comes to trading. That includes stop running, bad fills, limit moves, your PC crashing. I mean everything. See #4

 

10)And last but probably most important, don’t be afraid of failure. Just do like Edison and go, “Well that didn’t work”.

 

Good trading to you all.

 

Very nice post. An inspiration, really.

I would just add a #11 (or probably as a part of #3): trade if (and only if) you can do it. If the moment comes that you're supposed to stop, stop it immediately. There's some more in your life that requires your attention.

[Beachmaster 10]

What your not flogging a product? Everyone's a salesman ! Thanks I've been trading with EAs for 6 mths. Live accounts are the real deal and its hard to take the losses $5000. I've lost $600 Draw down in one night, got that gut feeling. Thanks.

Still EAs for me. They do what there programed to do, humans cannot. No emotion consistent trades, with less maintenance than my wife . Thanks bootstrap.:beer::beer::beer:

[ratrader 10]

Well put.... I did a post in another forum titled 'why I will never teach a trading course' ... the basics are out their the rest .. well you have covered it ... accept perhaps that becoming a successful trading is a personal journey (without trying to sound Zen like) and you have to find your way.

 

as for the courses... the best one I heard was the guy teaching it saying.... 'Most people blow their account out in 3 month.... my goal is to make it last 6 month'. Just what most people aspire too (lol please let me pay for that right!).

[com37 10]

That is so inspiring for a newbie like me..thank you for this post..

[ankita 10]

Great post mate. I hope others will consider this post and take some knowledge from this. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

[spareappeal 10]

great !!!! thanks for sharing it !!!!

[friendlyturtle 10]

Thank you for the advice. Being a new trader, its really helpful and will look forward to study the market even more.