I have been day trading for approximitely 14 years, I trade the e mini Dow exclusively.
English is my second language so for the grammer professors out there, get over it. Its a trading forum not a Grammer forum .
I am writing this because I do owe something to this forum, and day traders worldwide just for the simple fact I have picked up nuggets of information here and there many time through the years.
This journey has been the highest and lowest points of my life.
In the begining I was confident I would become a millionare, my concept of the market was and is literally 75-90% right. I would look at charts and guess where the market would end the day, and 75-90% of the time it happend.
My first year paper trading ( $20,000 account) I was down about $2,000 us dollars. I was up $17,000 at one point and down $$18,000, at one point as well. Year end it was down 2k. From all I read, if I am only down 2k my first year paper trading, I'm really talented in this, and I should pursue it as a career, a few tweaks here and there and more experience, I will make easy money.
I funded my account with 10k, I blew through it in literally 3 weeks. Long story short. $63,000 and 6 accounts blown my journey was 10 days misery, one hour happiness and false confidence.
I went back to paper trading for a few months, (worse thing that happend to me) I would take positions looking at the 4 hour,1 hour ,15 min,5 min and finally 1 min chart to determine my entry. I would place 5 contracts on average. I averaged down, waited for price to come back to my direction when I was wrong and it always seemed as if it did except for a few days I lost $5,000 or so, worse day I remember was $9,400. on the other side I was averaging $2,000 a day. After 3 months I was up $52,625. Awesome, I tweaked it where I wanted, it was time to fund my account again. confidence soaring. I had $11,000 to my name. I funded $9,000 and expecting it to become $20,000 in a few weeks to pay my bills etc... well after 26 trading days my account was $412.00 they locked me out. another blown account.
I started driving for uber 90 hours a week and made $1,700-$2,2300 a week just to catch up on my bills, car payment,rent etc... I was always broke, "day trading sucks, Im just stupid, my days are miserable, my life is miserable, Im dumb, I waisted my time, I need to find a career, trading was always my false dream, I should of istened to everyone online that day trading is for suckers"
I didnt look at markets for a whole 14 months, I remember being at a bar in Boston and they had a chart come up on cnbc, I guessed the outcome for the next day and of course it came out correct. How is it possible that I can guess the correct way 75%-95% yet I can't make a dime on this trading crap ???
My friends, I reached the point of true desperation and misery. Not neccesarily about how broke I was and working like a dog, but it was that I didnt succeed in trading, and it killed me like a huge cloud over me.
I decided to fund my account with $4,000 and give it another shot. I was desperate and literally broke. I now respected money. I respected how hard I work for $20.00 . yet I use to trade and be up $400.00 in 1 minute yet wanted more. Until I blew my account again and again.
My first trading day after being out of the game for over a year I made a quick $162.50 in less than a minute. I quickly sold and was done for the day !! I was surprised how excited I was, formerly that would never cause me to sell. $162.50?? big deal! I would say before. Next day I took $200 plus. My aha moment went off !!! I do know how to trade !! I just never respected money !! never ! I was stubborn and never can accept a loss until it hurt my account so much where I had no choice. I now found myself getting out of trades for a $300.00 loss, I never ever would do that before ever ! My win ratio was the same at about %65-75 yet my losses were cut short. No ego stubborn crap, I was finally respecting money. Long story short, aftter doing this for the past 9 years, I am trading full time, I average 623k annually. I am not milillionare, but I am very comfortable and happy. I was always a good trader. I was a horrible trader not accepting a simple stupid loss. Most of the losses I cut short now , end up turning around and would have gaven me a profit. But the %9 that never turn around use to destroy my account, and more importantly my confidence and trading psychology.
I always read about money management, and risk reward ratio etc... It never hit home until I was in the dumps. I hope my experience can help new traders, sometimes we need to hear from real life story's instead of ratios. My trading is the same. The only difference now is I dont have the huge days I use to, but I dont have days that would of wiped out my account. In the end, its all about PL. my pl now is 1000x better, and I trade stress free. Losing days are expected and accepted now. They never ever were before.
Don't ever ever get over confident. But dont ever think your horrible. Please concentrate more on money management and discipline, it trumps skill . I would of saved 9 years of anxiety and pure misery If I truly realised that from the begining. Good luck.
English is my second language so for the grammer professors out there, get over it. Its a trading forum not a Grammer forum .
I am writing this because I do owe something to this forum, and day traders worldwide just for the simple fact I have picked up nuggets of information here and there many time through the years.
This journey has been the highest and lowest points of my life.
In the begining I was confident I would become a millionare, my concept of the market was and is literally 75-90% right. I would look at charts and guess where the market would end the day, and 75-90% of the time it happend.
My first year paper trading ( $20,000 account) I was down about $2,000 us dollars. I was up $17,000 at one point and down $$18,000, at one point as well. Year end it was down 2k. From all I read, if I am only down 2k my first year paper trading, I'm really talented in this, and I should pursue it as a career, a few tweaks here and there and more experience, I will make easy money.
I funded my account with 10k, I blew through it in literally 3 weeks. Long story short. $63,000 and 6 accounts blown my journey was 10 days misery, one hour happiness and false confidence.
I went back to paper trading for a few months, (worse thing that happend to me) I would take positions looking at the 4 hour,1 hour ,15 min,5 min and finally 1 min chart to determine my entry. I would place 5 contracts on average. I averaged down, waited for price to come back to my direction when I was wrong and it always seemed as if it did except for a few days I lost $5,000 or so, worse day I remember was $9,400. on the other side I was averaging $2,000 a day. After 3 months I was up $52,625. Awesome, I tweaked it where I wanted, it was time to fund my account again. confidence soaring. I had $11,000 to my name. I funded $9,000 and expecting it to become $20,000 in a few weeks to pay my bills etc... well after 26 trading days my account was $412.00 they locked me out. another blown account.
I started driving for uber 90 hours a week and made $1,700-$2,2300 a week just to catch up on my bills, car payment,rent etc... I was always broke, "day trading sucks, Im just stupid, my days are miserable, my life is miserable, Im dumb, I waisted my time, I need to find a career, trading was always my false dream, I should of istened to everyone online that day trading is for suckers"
I didnt look at markets for a whole 14 months, I remember being at a bar in Boston and they had a chart come up on cnbc, I guessed the outcome for the next day and of course it came out correct. How is it possible that I can guess the correct way 75%-95% yet I can't make a dime on this trading crap ???
My friends, I reached the point of true desperation and misery. Not neccesarily about how broke I was and working like a dog, but it was that I didnt succeed in trading, and it killed me like a huge cloud over me.
I decided to fund my account with $4,000 and give it another shot. I was desperate and literally broke. I now respected money. I respected how hard I work for $20.00 . yet I use to trade and be up $400.00 in 1 minute yet wanted more. Until I blew my account again and again.
My first trading day after being out of the game for over a year I made a quick $162.50 in less than a minute. I quickly sold and was done for the day !! I was surprised how excited I was, formerly that would never cause me to sell. $162.50?? big deal! I would say before. Next day I took $200 plus. My aha moment went off !!! I do know how to trade !! I just never respected money !! never ! I was stubborn and never can accept a loss until it hurt my account so much where I had no choice. I now found myself getting out of trades for a $300.00 loss, I never ever would do that before ever ! My win ratio was the same at about %65-75 yet my losses were cut short. No ego stubborn crap, I was finally respecting money. Long story short, aftter doing this for the past 9 years, I am trading full time, I average 623k annually. I am not milillionare, but I am very comfortable and happy. I was always a good trader. I was a horrible trader not accepting a simple stupid loss. Most of the losses I cut short now , end up turning around and would have gaven me a profit. But the %9 that never turn around use to destroy my account, and more importantly my confidence and trading psychology.
I always read about money management, and risk reward ratio etc... It never hit home until I was in the dumps. I hope my experience can help new traders, sometimes we need to hear from real life story's instead of ratios. My trading is the same. The only difference now is I dont have the huge days I use to, but I dont have days that would of wiped out my account. In the end, its all about PL. my pl now is 1000x better, and I trade stress free. Losing days are expected and accepted now. They never ever were before.
Don't ever ever get over confident. But dont ever think your horrible. Please concentrate more on money management and discipline, it trumps skill . I would of saved 9 years of anxiety and pure misery If I truly realised that from the begining. Good luck.
