Looking for Accountability Buddy

[sawtooth500 33]

I'm a lifetime member, and have been with BBT since March. I went live in June, but unfortunately I am negative with my account... I know what my bad habits are but knowing and changing them are two different things. 

If any of you were in the chat lately, Robert talked about getting an accountability buddy - I'm making a post just for that. I can't trade every day, but I trade most days. I'm looking for someone to check me and I can check them - basically make sure that we aren't blowing up our accounts, sticking to our trading plan, etc... Traders at a firm are accountable to a boss, but we are accountable to only ourselves... I want to make it easier by having a buddy. 

I would prefer someone North America based simple so that we can talk via phone and text - what I really need is to define in the morning what my max loss will be, trading plan, etc, and then I need to report to someone if I held to my plan. You can be either live or sim, but please just someone who is absolutely committed to working to make this an income for themselves. 

I'll admit that it's hard to make this post here because I thought that I would be doing better than I am - most of my days are good days, but my bad days are BAD, like out of control. I'm down about 20% of my account value since I've went live, shame to say, but that's a hell of a gut check that is really humbling me and is making me realize that I need to do something differently. 

[Skye 28]

You in Idaho Sawtooth? You have a good idea to reign this in at this level. You can certainly build back up from 20% down but wouldn't want it to keep going like that. I was in the same situation for a while with mostly gains interspersed with bigger (sometimes very big) losses. All in the sim though.

Anyway my response was to back off of all but simple ABCD trades, and only one trade at a time. Then I made an ABCD trading worksheet. I mark it up when I'm getting ready to buy so I have a plan already in place - no decisions made on the fly other than maybe some small variations in response to what I'm seeing while I'm holding the position. It keeps me from "trading like jackass". I'd be glad to share it with you. 

[Aiman 86]

Out of topic :P, but I remember reading somewhere here in the forum that if you're down 6% of your account this month then go back to sim and trade next month, I believe setting some rules like these are really helpful, you said you know your bad habbits but they're out of control. If you watched Roberts psycology video when he was talking about someone who had problems not trading the first 5 minutes, and the advice was just to unplug his keyboard for 5 minutes, or the video where someone talked about texting das for additional improvement, you'll be able to control some of your problems. I'm not an expert again :P I've been trading in sim only for like 3 weeks, but let me try to give this piece of advice :D Text your das support, and ask them to close all your positions and stop you from trading once you're down 6% of your account for the month, and for the day if you're 3% down, although it's reasonable to make it 1/2%, but still sometimes you want to give yourself some space to trade. I believe you'll be able to make those 20% back, some traders are in much worse position. A lot of traders have problems with psycology, revenge trading, trying to make lost money back, but I believe that account management should be on the top of everything, one could have everything I listed trading one stock, but sometimes we should force ourselves to stop trading on that 6% and 3% maybe :DD And best of luck with trading! I hope you return back to green and build your account 

[sawtooth500 33]

Hey Full Moon - I sent you a PM. 

Yeah I'm going to contact Speedtrader to put a hard stop on my account. I had a good day today, +$1000, but fundamentally my problem is that I don't respect a max daily loss. I have a few good days, but then I have a string of bad days that wipes out all my gains, and then some. When I'm down I have a tendency to double down - I take some of the trades that Andrew takes, and if Andrew is in it I tend to get really ballsy with HUGE portion sizes. But I need to remember that I'm not Andrew and I can't do what he does - when he's behind, he just keeps trading until he goes green - he just stops looking at his P&L. I did that yesterday, and as a results I had a multi thousand loss...

[tedcds 5]

Hey Sawtooth500, I like your idea and would be interested to find out more about how it would work.  I started trading in Oct of last year and joined Andrew in March.  Still trading small sizes but doing ok so far but discipline is key to my success.  I put my goals in writing and I follow them on a daily basis.  If you can't trust yourself who can you trust, is what I tell myself.  I must be true to myself.  This is my business and I will be successful in it.  Its just a matter of time, discipline and patience.  Im in FL EST where are you?

[sawtooth500 33]

I'm in Chicago, I just sent you a PM Ted. 

[deejaypj 14]

+1 on the wanting to find a buddy in the community. This is pretty much why I joined the community in the first place and I need to follow up on it. The main thing for me is those "blow up" days. I really feel that I would avoid those with some sort of accountability system. Like you said, Ted, if you can't trust yourself...but somehow I can't. And Sawtooth, I agree, it's hard to post this kind of stuff in a group forum but we all struggle at times. 

[deejaypj 14]

On 6/27/2018 at 3:59 PM, tedcds said:

  Im in FL EST where are you?

Where in FL, Ted? I'm in Orlando area.