I Look Back Now and Wonder

[OAC 10]

Well, this is the real wonder here. Unlike medical or law school, you know when you will graduate in certain amount of years. The real wonder in trading is that you don't know when you will graduate. My question to all of you is how do you keep the faith and keep on running when you don't know how far you are from the finish line ?

 

I feel what may be most important, besides the belief that you were borned to do this, is to be inspired by a higher power. Men through out history have accomplished extroadinary feat of achievement because they had believed that this was their calling.

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 even though you have just blown your live account . If you don't enjoy the process ? Then perhaps trading is not for you.

If you truly enjoy the process and you know in your heart that this is your true calling, then you shouldn't have to ask yourself if you would do it all over again. Right ?

Edited July 20, 2008 by OAC

[maildigger 10]

What's your plan when those thins happens ?

 

Great post.

 

I think it's important new traders (and old traders) realise how much there is to do for point #4.

 

Do you have an plan for when your trading software goes down?

What about when the exchange goes down?

Do you know how to hedge your trading instrument/size and do you have the excess capital available to?

Do you have another brokerage account if you can't access your current one?

PC Crash?

Internet Crash?

Your local phone exchange crash? (Yes, I actually have had that happen, and yes I was in a position.)

Power outage?

Godzilla?

 

You get the drift.

[smwinc 20]

What's your plan when those thins happens ?

 

Do you have a plan for when your trading software goes down?

I have subscriptions to CQG, Esignal & Ensign Software.

What about when the exchange goes down?

I have accounts with different brokers & clearing firms to be able to hedge any open positions in a correlated market on a different exchange. I.e. CME, EUREX, SGX, etc.

Do you know how to hedge your trading instrument/size and do you have the excess capital available to?

I know the equity / ratio requirement to hedge positions in the markets I trade.

Do you have another brokerage account if you can't access your current one?

I hold accounts with Infinity Futures, Interactive Brokers, MFGlobal.

PC Crash?

I have two desktops & a laptop.

Internet Crash?

I know how to access my brokers via telephone and what to say.

Your local phone exchange crash? (Yes, I actually have had that happen, and yes I was in a position.)

Again, I know how to access my brokers via telephone (Mobile) and what to say.

Power outage?

Same again, Mobile phone access.

Godzilla?

This one.. I'm still working on.

[bsl113 10]

Bootstrap,

 

you mention that you turned profitable during 1999. Not to challange your methods but wasn't everything in 1999 going up. Did you same insights and techniques work during late 2000 through 2002? I've been trading or over 10 years and have had great years and bad years. This last month caught me by surprise and turned all my profits into losses. I'm finding it hard to walk the line between trading and investing. Fortunately I started moving more towards cash a couple months ago which protected me a lot from the recent sell off. Best or luck and thank for sharing.

 

-bsll113

[bootstrap 47]

Yes pretty much everything was going up.

 

In 1999, I was and still am trading currency futures exclusively. I have not had a losing month since. Yes, I still have down days and even weeks on occasion.

 

It is not the method. It's the trader that makes the difference.

 

As for long term investments, yes this portion will show a loss. But the strategt is designed to take advantage of falling markets.

 

The hardest investment rule is:

 

If 95% of traders/investors lose money, then do exactly the opposite of what they are doing when they are losing.

[nullpointer 10]

great post - quite helpful thanks

[bsl113 10]

Thanks Null,

 

I've actually started buying up some speculative stuff lately. It's Probably a little premature to start buying already but I like the odds. It's likely that we are far from seeing the worst yet though. The market is going to a roller coaster for for quite awhile.

 

-bsl113

[trader_08 10]

gr8 thread.. so inspirable...

[AHAF 10]

Thank you very much

 

We have benefited a lot from your post

[Yacob Hassan 10]

:applaud:

 

the best post !

[rbt 10]

I too am a futures trader in Singapore...this is a mental game for sure.

[Pocoyo 10]

I'm futures trader from Brunei. Very great post! :applaud:

What he said is all true.

[darthtrader3.0beta 10]

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

 

I guess I would like to go off on this point, because I really don't understand why "conventional wisdom" is so against paper trading.

 

I thought it was cool to see around the blog/message board trading world in the past few weeks the idea that you need 10,000 hours and or 10 years to become a master trader(something that was posted here well over a year ago) is making its way around.

 

Yet "conventional wisdom" tells the fool who comes to this game expecting to make millions overnight that they HAVE to risk their hard earned cash or they are wasting their time. A fool losing hard earned cash does not make them less of a fool, the only way a fool becomes less of a fool is from time and trades to get a feel of how the market breathes.

 

You need rule #11...go on the 10 year plan.

I have 4 years market experience, 3.5 trading real money but I mark my real march towards becoming a master trader as starting last january, so I don't even consider myself to "actually" have a year of experience yet. Last january was when I started trading futures with real money, had read every book, digested ever idea I could think about the past 3 years.

So far this week I've taken 3 real money trades and 94 paper trades. My avg hold time on my real money trades are 2.3 minutes...if you trade real money with patience you have to do something with your time, what better to do than experiment with paper trading?

Basically, I don't think the problem has anything to do with paper trading...Its simply 99.9999% of people do not take this business as serious as they HAVE to. The only difference to me between a paper and a real money trade is the confidence I have in the setup.

If I wanted to be a boxer or MMA guy, I want to have thousands of reps in practice before I have to throw a strike in a REAL fight.

[eminisafari 10]

Darth,

I agree with your reasoning. I've been trading 12 yrs and still paper trade before I risk the real stuff. There are definitely different emotions when the green is on the line, but there's plenty of other things to learn without risking the money first.

It kind of makes me wonder who "conventional wisdom" is... probably a self imposed moniker???

[gomesjps 10]

Brilliant! :thumbs up:

Made think!

[Minis Trader 10]

GREAT post, a huge amount of information in one place, thanks for doing the legwork.

[tomar2515 10]

Great post for the beginning trader. Real world education is always the best lesson learned.

[ChicagoTrader 10]

About dedication to this business, I actually predate many of you doing this, I guess. The post was well put and applies to any form of trading, actually.

 

Back when the PC was considered an expensive toy, dedication in trading meant standing still in a sweaty, crowded pit and getting poked by sharp pencils. It meant dealing with "pit politics", losing your place on a step, constant flu and getting colds from being with a few hundred of your "best friends" and spending the wee hours updating charts with pencils and rulers.

 

Markets have good and bad times. I got started in the 1970s and today's "problems" and market swings are no different than back then. The trader divorce rate was no different and moment of silence on the floor for colleagues who had committed suicide happened then, just like now.

 

Markets trend, sometimes they don't. Big fish sometimes become bigger, sometimes they fry. What markets pay attention to changes over time, and sometimes it all goes full cycle. Governments over-regulate, under-regulate, and then go through the same cycle all over again.

 

If you've ever read "Reminices of a Stock Operator", you'll know what I am writing about. Trading becomes all the rage, then it becomes the "cause" of all things evil.

 

Good thing I kept learning about IT during this whole process. Pushing a mouse may be less difficult than standing on a step for seven hours, but controlling emotions is just as challenging.

 

Finally, schlocks selling trading systems have been around for a long time. Learn your own way and planning what you'll do and how is the best advice of the post.

 

Enjoy the ride.

[jess82 10]

well, for me this seems like a open source for many people to start on this business. I started with my account and many friends and relatives have been asking about how this works, even if they don’t have idea about currencies and stuff. There are many things involved on this market

[Stormy 10]

I've been reading posts of this site and have been able to gleen from others words and experiences. Just not enough to allow me to open my own account and risk my own money. Even paper trading is scary for me as I don't know where the heck to begin!

Surely, there is a humanatarian somewhere across the USA that is willing to aid those who want to learn. A classroom setting would be great! I'm NOT purchasing another "I'll teach you to trade" course. :doh:

[imgunn 10]

Some great advice here

[kingtodd 10]

Hi Bootstrap

Very honorable of you to reveal your struggles. I am at the starting gate in trading. Sold my property, moved away from everybody (NY to Las Vegas) and sit and study solid. It has been 2 months now and have tremendous amount of info and still feel like I know nothing. I have been practice trading the Q's (qqqq) with options. This is what I learned at first. Getting ok with understanding candlesticks, being able to get out of a trade moving against me (paper trading). Just funded an optionhouse.com account, but use another program to watch the charts and the option movement. At the same time I have been looking at the Forex. I have been drawn to added programs that claim to make you money. A lot of them seem to be Meta trader Add ons. One that is very different is Wave59.com, adding intraday predetermined patterns using astrology. Pricey, though. Being a visual person, I like dynamic charts that I could trade on in Forex. I invested in Visualtrader and got an IQfeed for it. I like it, not sure how much it will really help me in the end. I tend to overdo it in the charts and programs right now, but I like to see everything before I decide. Out of that kind of research, free useful info came as well. The best economic calendar I found so far is http://www.forexfactory.com/calendar.php?do=geteventinfo&day=2009-3-10&c=2

Out of researching Forex, got help for equities as well. On trying to decide which broker to use, Still at a loss. ECN's MM, and the rest. These are the two most exstensive sites so far: http://www.goforex.net/forex-broker-ratings.htm and http://www.forexfactory.com/brokers.php The rest I saw in various Blogs.

 

QUESTION..... ANY RECOMENDATIONS ON A WHERE TO TRADE FOREX AND WHAT PLATFORM TO USE?

 

I know you said the add ons are a waste of money. Nothing useful?

 

Thanks again Bootstrap and anybody who will reply.

If you are trading the Q's (qqqq) options, and want to interact on this, let me know.

 

 

Success to all

Todd

[edabreu 10]

Great post. Thanks. I still need to hear this. It's damned worth it.

 

"Endeavor to persevere" keeps popping in my head every day.

[agd108 10]

Regarding how to succeed. I can't agree with the not paying for a system. I think if someone who is succesfull wants to teach their success it will be cheaper to pay for their mentoring rather than learning the hard way. I think a mentor would be the best way to learn.

[edabreu 10]

Regarding how to succeed. I can't agree with the not paying for a system. I think if someone who is succesfull wants to teach their success it will be cheaper to pay for their mentoring rather than learning the hard way. I think a mentor would be the best way to learn.

 

My 2 cents - try to find a trader who is willing to let you look over their shoulder, and even if there is a small fee, that would be worth its weight in gold. Don't buy into a system or method until you have had a chance to look it over and see if it fits your mindset.

Unfortunetly, beginners have the hardest time with this, so I suggest that beginners SLOW DOWN and take your time and do a lot of sim test work before you plunk heavy duty money down on any system or method. The best method is still keen, slow, documented, careful observation of the market with just a few tools that give you the primaries - price, volume, momentum. Add some basic S&R and in IN TIME you can formulate your approach using careful documented conclusions. The key words are SLOW DOWN IN TIME. IF you do not have the time, then buying a method or system is just one option.

The other option is to join a trade room and learn from the lead trader - again - it is a watch over his shoulder approach, but much less costly. A good trade room should not require you to purchase their indicators. Eventually, if you see the value in it, then you may decide to purchase them only after seeing them in action by someone well versed in their use in the live market.