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Strategies & Market Trends : Trading For A Living -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: R Stevens who wrote (781)	7/7/1998 10:26:00 PM
From: surfinSteve	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1729

Hey RS, Sorry to hear about your drawdown...hope your luck changes for the better. So what have you learned? Care to comment on the value of Point and Figure charting? I see that you post there alot. Help the rest of us to avoid losing money. I'm wondering if there are many folks who daytrade large cap NYSE issues as opposed to NASDAQ high fliers with their evil market makers? Thanks in advance. surfinSteve

To: R Stevens who wrote (781)	7/7/1998 11:25:00 PM
From: Shaquapa	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1729

I'm fairly new to the the day trading scene and have also paid a high tuition. I had a very difficult time admitting when I was wrong (big ego got in the way!) I was EXTREMELY demoralized myself - I hate to lose!!!! I started to second guess myself, doulbe up on bad trades, etc. All the stupid things that the books say not to do. Anyway, took a few days off, analyzed what I did wrong - I too, didn't follow my own rules. When I came back I just resolved to follow my own rules. Sometimes I will miss, but most of the time I profit. Another thing that helped me is to have another friend/trader to talk with. I'm fortunate to have a large office and had a couple friends come over from time to time. As I was explaining what I was doing, it forced me to follow my rules. End result is that every day that I followed my rules I have profited. All but one day when I varied my actions I get force fed my lunch! Take a day or two off. Reexamine your rules. Then come back and kick some behind. Good trading.

To: R Stevens who wrote (781)	7/8/1998 10:23:00 AM
From: Darren	Respond to of 1729

Just thought I would see if anyone can relate and would like to comment on how to handle the discouragement of a drawdown. Get back on the horse, but only trade when your head is clear on the direction of what you are trading. Confidence breeds confidence. Sit around and think about it, and it will eat you alive...

To: R Stevens who wrote (781)	7/8/1998 1:11:00 PM
From: jawd	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 1729

You know the answer already. As you said, "I am not following my own rules". I did the same thing yesterday, I was $2,600 up within minutes of the opening. I took my profit. Good. My own rules says to stop for the day. I saw the market looked awful. I should have quit. Instead, I started to break every rule in the book. I lost a packet of money. The reason is simple. I was feeling overconfident since I had had about 25 straight winning days each over $1000+ Like you - you were up 62% - you got over confident and forgot to keep the rules that got you that profit. So, this morning, I typed up a poster sheet with all the rules in bold print and pinned it in front of my desk. But I ran into another problem, the desire to make back the lost money made me break them again and YEP! I lost again. So, my friend, its back to basics. Its a learning process. I'm inclined to take a couple of days off. Relax. Come back fresh with the losses behind me and start the slow but sure crawl back to profitability at my quota of $1000 / day. Definately, we are the only ones who can make ourselves lose. I would say don't recommence trading until you are totally relaxed and feel good with yourself. Otherwise, you'll blow half your money again. Repeat, you must feel relaxed and happy with yourself before trading again. That's how you felt when you we're winning, right? All of this IMHO of course.

To: R Stevens who wrote (781)	7/8/1998 8:18:00 PM
From: Dave Twibell	Respond to of 1729

RS -- boy can I relate! You're not alone, though, the last few weeks have been tough for most of the traders I know (including myself). I finally took a few days off to focus on what I was doing wrong, and it helped tons. I don't know about you, but when I started trading (not so long ago), I was very conservative, only jumping into the real high percentage trades. After a fair amount of initial success, I got cocky and started making more trades and ignoring my rules. In particular, I started trading stocks that either were beyond my skill level or were thinly traded with big spreads. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't keep my stops on these because the price fluctuated so quickly. When I thought about it, I realized that not every trade is right for every trader. Just because some of the more experienced traders could repeatedly scalp SEEK doesn't mean that I could or needed to try. Once I recognized my limits, and stopped trading out of greed and ego, my losses stopped. I'm now back to making more conservative trades and am again doing fairly well. I'm not getting rich, but I've stemmed the losses and am essentially getting paid to learn -- not a bad deal. Anyway, my advice (to the extent I'm qualified to give any) is to take some time off, rexamine why you were successful in the first place, and then stick to that formula. There are thousands of trades out there every day, and you only need to pick one or two good ones to be successful. Good luck. Dave