I'm gonna recap of what I learnt from trading after all these 4 years.
I started like 99% of other traders out there when begin this work. Cut profit early, let the losses run, averaging down, no stop losses. I did this almost 3 years of my trading. I went to workshop with no good results. IMO, it's because there's very little aspect touching the psychology of trading if not nothing at all.
Then until I invest on good education and gradually improved my trading result. Now, I'm willing to cut loss early, very rarely let the losers run, and started to letting the profit run further. Things were getting better. But somehow I become complacent and things get bad again. I still cut losses early, but going against the trend. Sometimes, two seconds after cutting losses, I got back to the trades hoping I reached the top/bottom of the day. The results were the same if not worse than letting the losses run at the first place.
I did the same mistakes over and over again, usually after I did some succeed doing that, repeat it and failed worse. Until I was no longer willing to fight against the trend at all. But problems not stopped here. Yes, the losses get smaller than doing the old mistakes, but I also not getting profit at all. It's because one and one only reason. Chopped out severely and not willing to accept it. I trade my signal aggresively even ten losses in the row won't stopped me. Sometimes I did worse thing like doubling the size of my trade. It often worked, but if it didn't, the cost will much much greater than when it worked. I knew something still wrong.
Hundreth of hour, I did research and developed a system to get out from this mess. A system not to get rich quickly. A system that limiting myself to become an overtrading jerk. System that even when it didn't work, I don't lose too much. It's a system that reduced my trades to only quarter than the past. I proudly said that I have found the system. Not perfect, but I believed it good enough at least for surviving. Now, I am not a crazy flipper short and long just to win back what I lost in a matter of second. Not down -$1000 while the clock still pointing 10.00EST. The system just not allowed me to do it. And I always improved the system, not for profiting every day, but aiming how to minimized the losses in a bad time and optimized the profit at the good time.
I still had emotional and pressure baggage to perform good every single day. Though I must accept the harsh truth that I must stopped trading if I reached the certain limit of losses, while also accepting the fact that signal after stopped trading will give massive profit. That's the time when I felt faith playing at me. But it's trading. I observed,analysed the system on every minutes and dropped in my blood. I improved. Like on Wednesday when I decided to use longer ticks chart or when I learnt how to read volume momentum in better way. Non-Stop Improvement while at the other hand, I will let my system to do what it should do. Over-improvement is not good and hard to tracked the consistency. I also now including the Profit Target into my trading agenda.
No 100% perfect system in the world of trading. No matter how hard you did, there's always be losses, daily losses, even weekly and monthly losses. That's why the emergency-safety button is needed. No more trade for the day after 5 losses in a row.
" Feeling Good When Followed the System and Losses, Feeling Bad When Not Followed the System and Profits"
If I can follow the above word, Not just me, all of us can be the best trader in the world.
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