Hey everyone, I’m Brian and joined BBT back in early October 2021. Happy to learn and knowledge share with other like minded traders!
My trading story began back around 2005 when I started investing in mutual funds and later select stocks with mixed success. After educating myself a bit and joining an options guru group, I began trading in options around 2010. Had early success which got into my head almost immediately and eventually suffered huge losses. That lead to several years of buy and hold with a basket of index funds resulting from a fear of trying anything different or new.
Around 2018 I started to dip my toes in the trading waters and read several books, YouTube, following gurus on Twitter etc. Eventually I joined a patreon group/discord in late 2019 which had mixed results (Jerry Romine). This group was based on more fundamentals and swing trading which didn't excite me much. I've always been drawn to technical trading and don’t love to hold positions overnight (makes me anxious).
After about a year of that I joined another Discord (Lade Back Trading) and had awesome early success. Then a slow bleed over several months since I hadn't addressed a number of psychological and trade management issues that I had developed. I still use the technical pattern experience that I learned in Lade Back's group, but it was abruptly shut down in 2021.
So left to my own devices with lingering trade psychology issues I suffered catastrophic losses over the ensuing months. In June 2021 I liquidated all my open positions with a 65% loss in my retirement account on the year. And a 90% loss in my other trading account on the year.
I took a few months off to focus on anything but trading. Then in September 2021 I picked up Andrew’s books and gave them another read. This lead me to joining BBT in early October.
Currently I’m 100% sim trading until I get my confidence back, resolve my psychological hangups, and validate my favorite 1 or 2 strategies. Plan is to trade live again by the end of Q1 2022 but all depends on progress of my trade plan.
Anyways sorry for the book here haha. I have a lot of experience with different trading strategies, instruments, and cycles, but where I need work is psychology and trade management. Until this is fixed and I learn how to trade properly, I’m gonna be in the sim or die trying! Happy to offer any help I can to the group.