Try asking yourself this...
"Just who am I taking revenge on?" Try and remember the market is a lot of things but one thing it truly isn't is personal.
Hope that helps.
GJ
Good point. I often wonder if revenge trading is less about making the money back and more about punishing yourself, subconsciously.
Obviously, the conscious mind tells you that you must find a good setup in order to make your money back but I do think on some level many traders are thinking to themselves, "I made some sh*t trades, so I don't care, I'll just take any old setup now - I deserve to lose money for trading so bad in the first place".
Some people will think this is a crazy argument although I always have Ed Seykota's "everyone gets what they want out of the markets" rolling around in the back of my mind.
I know this to be the case with me. Recently I had a ten or eleven winning trades in a row. They were sizable trades too in the sense that each one was netting a big gain for me so I felt on top of the world.
Then, on, lets call it the twelfth trade, I got a bit complacent and when the trade got to the first problem area I didn't get any out like I usually do but held it for the ultimate target. Suffice to say it didn't reach the target and started coming back. Since I was annoyed at having got nothing out, I just left the trade rather than securing anything and took my first loser.
Since I knew I had made a mistake and that mistake had not only broken a great winning streak when it shouldn't have but also cost me a good deal of money after being nicely up, I lost the plot somewhat.
The next trade was a complete mess. This is because I had lost my patience. The very next day I decided the market owed me what I had lost and in I jumped on the kind of downward movement that I try to repeatedly tell everyone is for suckers. I sell the low and it climbs up only to stop me out. What made this trade worse is that after it takes me out, it collapses.
So now the problems are
compounding. I've had two losers back to back and the second one has topped and tailed me which makes me feel like I'm not only wrong but I'm also sh*t.
The negative emotions are not only increasing because the losses are increasing but because of the way I am losing.
So I take a break, I calm down and a day later I take the third trade. Now this trade is a good trade according to my rules but the problem here is that I don't get out where I should for a great profit because the money I would make isn't enough to compensate for the last two losses I have taken. The market comes back once again and this is the third loser.
At this point,
I withdraw all funds from the account and leave a zero balance. I know this sounds extreme but it is easy to pay money into and out of an account with a debit card (it takes seconds) and the way I see it - no money, no trading. So temptation is gone and when I have had time to assess, in I can go again.
This is far, far better for me for just taking a break and going fishing etc and I will tell you why.
The good thing about doing this is that the next trade I take, I will have to PUT MONEY INTO THE ACCOUNT.
You get your card out, you fill in the amount you want to transfer - it feels like you are paying a bill online or something. This makes you realise you are trading with real money and not an electronic number that means nothing. As a result it means that you make damn sure the setup you are taking is a good one. Or at least that is the way it works for me.
This is one of my personal strategies for stopping the bleeding and making sure that when I come back, I come back
strong.
