Give me your opinion on my psych!

[sawtooth500 33]

So I joined BBT in March 2018 - I've traded alternating in live and sim since then. 

Feb 1 2020 I went live again, 30K account. I got up to about 32.5K then down to 29.5K mid march when I decided to send myself back into sim world. 

I was trading with a $10,000 portion, so 1% profit = $100 daily profit. 

I sent myself back to sim world after two disastrous days of like $800 losses each day. 

Two reasons that I went back to sim:

1. A key thing is to trade stocks in play. I felt that with coronavirus, there were no more stocks in play. Vaccine related stocks had wild swings (akin to small caps) so I wanted to stay away from those, and for everything else, well the overall market was so heavy that even if a company had some news it was trading closer to the market than news. I'm not good at trading with the market so I decided to go back to sim. 

2. I had some success and I was up $2.5K in my account. I got greedy. I stopped practicing good risk management. This is a familiar pattern with me. In the past, whenever I go live, I do good for 1-2 months, then I get cocky/greedy and my head goes up my ass. The first time I experienced this cycle I lost about $15K after being up about $3K. Second time I was up about $2K but then I was down $4K when I went back to sim. Now, this latest time, I was up $2.5K and I stopped myself when I'm down just $500. So I guess you could call that progress.

Since going back to sim, I've had more bad days than good days. I'm not sure if this is due to bad psychology, or my theory that I'm just trying to trade stuff that's moving with the market, and I'm not good at that. 

The last time I traded was last Friday. My trading laptop broke after that and it won't be fixed until mid next week. I could get another comp set up for trading in the meanwhile, but I've decided to take this time to take a little break. Honestly, I feel pretty guilty about that. I feel like I should be trading and practicing, like I'm some sort of lazy sloth for taking a break because I don't deserve a break, because I'm not successful at trading yet. It's better to play and fail rather than not play at all. 

What do you think?

 

[Alastair 114]

1. U seem to be a good trader, but ur too damn greedy. This a process, a marathon for the rest of ur life.

2. 1% or less is fine for a new trader. stick to it (I started at 0.5%) .......reward urself after 3 mths of consistence, increase by 0.25% or $25, report to ur partner for accountability.  Compound Interest is the most powerful force on earth....who said those words ?

3. Implement DAS risk controls to STOP u going over ur MAX loss.

[Justin 264]

1 hour ago, peterB said:

honestly after 2 years i do not believe SIM trading will help you.

Exactly this. After that long you really need to just start practicing better discipline with real money. And then work up your sizing slowly so your discipline is second nature by the time you are risking larger amounts.

[sawtooth500 33]

Well give me some advice on risk control. I've used DAS risk control in the past but then stopped using it. Normally I trade a $10,000 portion, so 1% = $100. I'm hesitant to make it so that DAS auto liquidates my position at an unrealized P&L of -$100 because what if I'm down $80 for the day, so I can still technically trade, but if DAS liquidates me automatically at -$100 for the day then I don't even have enough wiggle for some allowance for a stop loss in a new trade. So let's say I have DAS liquidate me at -$200 for the day, with no new positions being allowed if I'm under -$100 for the day. Furthermore, let's say that I do get auto-liquidated by DAS, because of spread and fills I'll never be right at -$200, it'll be more like -$225 for the day. Now, for positive days, 1% is  +$100. So for simple math, let's say I'll need 2 positive days for every negative day just to break even. On the upside, I need to institute a rule for myself that once my daily goal is met I need to stop trading so that I don't give it back. So at this point, I feel like long term to account for bad days I'd need to have a 2% daily goal, which is even harder as a new trader... how do you all deal with this?

Also, what about the market? I do feel that since mid march when the coronavirus crash happened, and up until now, there is still so much volatility with the market as a whole that even for stocks that do have news they still tend to trade more so with the market than independently. I know Andrew is good enough to trade stocks that move with the market, but I am certainly not. All the success that I had in the past was with stocks in play that were acting independent of the market. This makes me want to stay in sim until the market calms down and we have more certainty about the pandemic. Is this actually a valid concern, or is this something that I'm just saying to myself in my head?

[kodutola 1]

i have gone through the same cycle , but 2 things that helped me the most was Das risk control and No looking at my P & L while i trade, i actually stop checking my account balance till the end of the month , I am in the process of getting an accountability partner ,  because i dont trust myself lol 

[Alastair 114]

I think i am hearing some fear.  From my personal experience when I started i had this fear and was avoiding trading.  The market is going to do wht it wants. So i dropped my risk/dollar amt to something I do not care about,  I was willing to give tht amt away every day. I had many losing streaks, 60+ days. But I survived and learnt and neva blown an acct.

1. Drop ur risk amt

2. Define ur setups and Risk:Reward......minimum Risk (1): Reward(2)

3. Define max loss for the day.....2 x risk

4. As Justin said / suggested time for u to risk real money but very very very very low money.  

U seem to have the knowledge.

[sawtooth500 33]

Yeah I need to get an accountability partner. Kodutola - you still looking for one?

Taking down the dollar amount is a good idea too, although at a certain point you start getting eaten alive by commissions. IB charges $0.0035 per share with a $0.35 min per trade - so if you're trading a $10,000 portion that means that any stock priced below $100/share you'll be paying the per share price, vs above $100/share you pay the $0.35 min. If you take that down to a $1,000 portion the share price changes to $10/share, and we trade a lot of stuff above $10/share. I like to make my goal be 1% after commission but if you're paying the flat min of $0.35/share that's in effect increasing your commission amount, and it can add up. I love the idea of don't trade an amount that you can afford to lose each day, as I could afford to lose $10 on trading a $1000 portion each day, but commissions will kill you at that low level, especially if you are taking partial (remember each partial triggers the $0.35 min!). I should scale it down to $4000 or $6000 portions at least though. 

[Alastair 114]

 1. U really over thinking this thing.  We need to talk.  i will give 15 days of time if u wish and are serious

2. Look for ur best setups One Entry, One exit.  it will make u a better more disciplined trader

3. Max total included commissions.

[sawtooth500 33]

Thank you Alastair - I sent you a PM