Why Am I Losing So Often Compared To Wins??! + Why I Always Choose Wrong Direction??!

Please oh! please, let's not descend into this kind of dialogue. It benefits no one. You are entitled to your opinions of others on this forum but why not keep them to yourself. As far as i can see, most people here have been very patient and helpful towards you; why not just be glad of that?

When you are as expert as some of the people here, you may understand better their reactions to your posts. Just remember that some of us were once like you - so we do know how you feel. :)



Aloha i am not meaning to just become rude or nasty to all the people who have been nice and helpful to me,
and i have achknowleged that the majority of people have been helpful and supportive of me, just as i have been of others who have even asked me for help and advice.


I just think that few people who are just making rude sarcastic comments should read and then re-read your last quote, and then remember back to when they were beggingers 1st starting out!!

And then imagine if they had no money, no experience, but were needing to learn and adapt to become sucessful at trading to be able to feed and support themself and their family,
and so don't have the luxury months or years of being able to just sit back and study and practise fulltime!!
 
Snag is, it can take months or years. It is down to the individual. Someone said it takes between 6 months and 2 years to become successful. It can't be rushed. You are ready when you are ready! If you need money now, get a job.
 
Snag is, it can take months or years. It is down to the individual. Someone said it takes between 6 months and 2 years to become successful. It can't be rushed. You are ready when you are ready! If you need money now, get a job.

Totally agree. If you need the money from trading to live, then I think you'll have problems. Once you can approach trading without being dependent on its results then it all seems to get much clearer.

So it seems, like the rich you only have spare money when you don't need it. Life's a bitch!

That's my experience anyway.
 
OK ... Calm down people.

Spanish, Your pace in this thing is so fast that it does invoke humour from those who know how hard it is and how long it takes. Seriously.

When I started someone said it would take 18 months if all went well. I'm a smart guy so I figured 6 months and it seemed to be heading towards 6 months. Sadly 2 years later it still wasn't all under control.

This is a difficult game. The worst of it is that your thoughts, impulses, and emotions have been trained in a world of near certainty and cause gives you effect. But trading is a world of probabilistic uncertainty and cause gives you ... oh god, what was that (and the talking heads search for yet another cause).

It will take you a long time from now.

I am a guy who has three degrees. And a successful career in engineering. And in sales. And as a manager of a 100 Million plus business. And then came the easy thing --- trading. How hard could that be? :cry:

I remember project management courses I did in a previous incarnation. The instructors all talked about how long different phases took and how more planning = less time executing. You need to go back to the start a bit and maybe answer my 5 questions in the second post.

And put the answers here ... and I will try to give you guidance about where to go next ... but only if you are serious because getting people on the right track is hard and frustrating ... and often fails ... so - only if you're serious.
 
When I first started out full time in indices over 4 years ago I wasn't playing with big money I couldn't afford to lose.

I certainly wasn't running up debt doing it and although seems contrary to ones belief I didn't NEED to make it a success due to having other investments to fall back upon.

As you say "imagine if they had no money, no experience, but were needing to learn and adapt to become sucessful at trading to be able to feed and support themself and their family", Dont trade and get a job from an employer who will pay you a regular wage and learn as you are part time.

Trading has many ups and downs and this cannot be more true than when you first start out.
If you have no back up money other than credit cards then trading is obviously not for your bank balance. You can go many weeks without drawing on cash and coupled with bad runs and drawdowns can leave you feeling sick in the bank let alone on credit card.

Hope this helps you understand where the pitfalls can come from. Please see this as genuine advice and not having a go.
 
I am a guy who has three degrees. And a successful career in engineering. And in sales. And as a manager of a 100 Million plus business. And then came the easy thing --- trading. How hard could that be? :cry:

I can't remember which book I read in, many successful people - lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs, scientists, CEOs - go into trading thinking it will be easy and are sorely proven wrong.
 
Aloha everyone and thanx for your continual help..,
i honestly am listening to what you are saying and am acting (rather not acting) because of it.


Im honestly not some aggressive bad tempered sort of guy! Lol
(Even though i may look rather evil in my profile photo!) LOL

I only got stressed because all i meant when i said that ''its worked'', was that what you have all said to me to try assisting and helping me has worked because i am now listening to you and am only demoing now, not risking more money.

But a few people then started to get cocky and sarcastic and try to mock me still though, and that was what annoyed me!

LOL


But back to the present page.. :)


[B[Questions from Nine:[B[

1. Do you enjoy what you're doing? How much? How fast does your heart beat?

I enjoy it in some ways, such as i enjoy it when im in profit, i enjoy the actual work that goes with it of reseraching the news of the markets and drawing trend lines and support resistance levels.
And i enjoy the ambition and unlimited aspect that goes with it, as i currently am earning about £250 per week from my own online businesses, but i have alot of ambition and see the potential earnings in the stock markets.

And my heart beats very fast after i have done my research and made my trade but then once i go into loss of more than 5pips i start to get very scared and i just feel upset and sad and scared.
(Ive worked as a qualified bodyguard for 9months now though, gave up going into a career in the police with a starting pay of 27k per year to go for this fulltime though, so can handle the pressure.) lol ;)



2. What did you learn from your last thread?

Um from my last few trades i learnt quite a few things;

I learnt that no matter how much you research and how skilled you are, scalping noise trends is ultimately based on luck at the end of the day! Lol

I learnt that you need to have a capital balance of atleast £500 minimum before you can become consistent and start to make regular profits,
as when ive been battling with between £30 - £100 it simply wont work!!

Ive also learnt that you simply need ALOT of luck to be sucessful, no matter what anyone says about how its skill and stratergy not luck, its simply not true! LOL
As unless you have luck on your side, you will plot all the correct suport and resistnce levels, get the current trend direction right, even enter with buying at a 5point support level, only to end up having the trend decide to finally break then and crash down through the support level!!

(You need to anaylse the graph correctly 1st, but unless luck is on your side you will simply fail!!)



3. Does it make sense to keep risking money when you are not showing any positive consistency?

No, it would make alot more sense to just demo till you get consistent, even if it means you are missing out on potenial earnings you are atleast not losing more cash too! :)

But still no matter how hard you try to really pretend demo cash is real, you simply wont react in the same way and will be prepared to take more risks than you would with real.



4. What's the difference between gambling and making money in a statistical game (poker, trading)?

Lol.. I read this lastnight and was thinking about it in te shower this morning for some reason that i dont know why.. LOL

At the end of the day spread betting isnt trading though!! ITS BETTING.

It may be a more analyisable and more 'professional' form of gambling, but it is still gambling/betting not trading.


Trading is what i do on ebay, when i buy designer jeans and shoes from China at a very cheap wholesale price, and then sell them to buyers at a higher price, and so just physically keep the profit.


However on spread betting you are not really 'buying' the stock at that cost, and then taking it and selling it on and making money.
You are simply looking at a market's value, looking at a few graphs to see in which direction its been heading over the last few mins to few hours, checking for any news to give you hints about its future, and then simply predicting if you think it will go up some more or if it will start to go down, and then simply bet on the future direction you predict.


Just like in football, you look at the real madrid team and how they have played in their last match to last few matches, you look to see if any key players are injured, you compare them and their recent perfomances to the oppositions, and then you bet in the direction of if you prdict they will go up and win, or go down and lose based on that data analysis.
(You can draw just as many trend lines and do even more research for football as you can do the stock market).

Th only real difference is that stock market betting has been portrayed as being alot more glamourous and professional than football! LOL ;)



5. How much do you want to succeed - how much work are you willing to do and how long are you willing to stop trading for while you get yourself sorted out?

And i am determined to suceed at this!!
I gave up a career in the spanish police for this to become my future living, and so i am going to keep working and working till i can trade like a pro!! ;)


I admit that im used to taking a different route for my previous careers than what is needed for trading.
For example since i was about 8years old i always had a very toned and muscley body without ever having to go the gym, at 14 i started working as a partime body-model simply due to goodluck in my genes, even though i was eating macdonalds 2x per day everyday for breakfast n lunch 5years.
And then at 16 when i wanted to move from amateur to semi-professional i just started going to the gym once per week for 30mins, still eating my 100% junk food diet, and became very sucessful still as all i needed to do was physical work once per week, that required no stratergy just well 'doing it', and could just relax and do what ever i wanted the rest of the time.

But so now when i started trading ive found that no amount of physcially begging and pleading with the stock market through my laptop screen will actually make it change and go back to trending in my favour!! LOL
Even when i then start to swear and threaten the market it still just doesn't work!! LOL ;)


But i am extremely ambitious and enthusiastic to practise and practise on my demo account every day from morning till late night until i get to my 80% sucess rate goal!! :)


(SORRY FOR SUCH LONG REPLIES WITH ME JUST BABBLING ON AND DRIFTING IN AND OUT OF MY LIFE STORY!!) LOL
But i feel that from now on the stockmarket world needs some new enthusiasm and enegery!!! ;)
 
I had hoped you wouldn't reply to my questions -- much easier that way. I will put some replies in here and some suggestions for work that might help you along the way.

First thing. Trading success has NOTHING to do with luck. Individual trade wins are luck (statistics) but DONT MATTER because only the result of a series of trades matters.

I think you need to start by buying or getting from a library Mark Douglas's "The Disciplined Trader." You need to read it and then report back on what you think you learned from it --- perhaps you could start a thread and comment on your way through the book.

Aloha everyone and thanx for your continual help..,
i honestly am listening to what you are saying and am acting (rather not acting) because of it.


Im honestly not some aggressive bad tempered sort of guy! Lol
(Even though i may look rather evil in my profile photo!) LOL

I only got stressed because all i meant when i said that ''its worked'', was that what you have all said to me to try assisting and helping me has worked because i am now listening to you and am only demoing now, not risking more money.

But a few people then started to get cocky and sarcastic and try to mock me still though, and that was what annoyed me!

LOL


But back to the present page.. :)


[B[Questions from Nine:[B[

1. Do you enjoy what you're doing? How much? How fast does your heart beat?

I enjoy it in some ways, such as i enjoy it when im in profit, i enjoy the actual work that goes with it of reseraching the news of the markets and drawing trend lines and support resistance levels.
And i enjoy the ambition and unlimited aspect that goes with it, as i currently am earning about £250 per week from my own online businesses, but i have alot of ambition and see the potential earnings in the stock markets.

And my heart beats very fast after i have done my research and made my trade but then once i go into loss of more than 5pips i start to get very scared and i just feel upset and sad and scared.
(Ive worked as a qualified bodyguard for 9months now though, gave up going into a career in the police with a starting pay of 27k per year to go for this fulltime though, so can handle the pressure.) lol ;)

Its a different kind of pressure. The heart beating means you are having intense experiences which will be forming links in your brain and will reinforce any bad behaviours ... YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS!

2. What did you learn from your last thread?

Um from my last few trades i learnt quite a few things;

I learnt that no matter how much you research and how skilled you are, scalping noise trends is ultimately based on luck at the end of the day! Lol

I learnt that you need to have a capital balance of atleast £500 minimum before you can become consistent and start to make regular profits,
as when ive been battling with between £30 - £100 it simply wont work!!

Ive also learnt that you simply need ALOT of luck to be sucessful, no matter what anyone says about how its skill and stratergy not luck, its simply not true! LOL
As unless you have luck on your side, you will plot all the correct suport and resistnce levels, get the current trend direction right, even enter with buying at a 5point support level, only to end up having the trend decide to finally break then and crash down through the support level!!

This is representative of where you are in learning. You MUST NOT TRADE while at this stage or you will just build bad habit and bad thinking on top of whatever habitual errors you have already built.

(You need to anaylse the graph correctly 1st, but unless luck is on your side you will simply fail!!)



3. Does it make sense to keep risking money when you are not showing any positive consistency?

No, it would make alot more sense to just demo till you get consistent, even if it means you are missing out on potenial earnings you are atleast not losing more cash too! :)

But still no matter how hard you try to really pretend demo cash is real, you simply wont react in the same way and will be prepared to take more risks than you would with real.

Thats good because you don't want to have the intensity induced habit building ... those habits are extremely hard to break. But even paper trading with no strategy will only build bad habits. Strategy first. Then testing. Then better strategy. Then forward testing (paper trading).



4. What's the difference between gambling and making money in a statistical game (poker, trading)?

Lol.. I read this lastnight and was thinking about it in te shower this morning for some reason that i dont know why.. LOL

At the end of the day spread betting isnt trading though!! ITS BETTING.

It may be a more analyisable and more 'professional' form of gambling, but it is still gambling/betting not trading.


Trading is what i do on ebay, when i buy designer jeans and shoes from China at a very cheap wholesale price, and then sell them to buyers at a higher price, and so just physically keep the profit.


However on spread betting you are not really 'buying' the stock at that cost, and then taking it and selling it on and making money.
You are simply looking at a market's value, looking at a few graphs to see in which direction its been heading over the last few mins to few hours, checking for any news to give you hints about its future, and then simply predicting if you think it will go up some more or if it will start to go down, and then simply bet on the future direction you predict.


Just like in football, you look at the real madrid team and how they have played in their last match to last few matches, you look to see if any key players are injured, you compare them and their recent perfomances to the oppositions, and then you bet in the direction of if you prdict they will go up and win, or go down and lose based on that data analysis.
(You can draw just as many trend lines and do even more research for football as you can do the stock market).

Th only real difference is that stock market betting has been portrayed as being alot more glamourous and professional than football! LOL ;)


You can carry on with that view ... because it is 100% representative of what you are doing.

Or.

You can learn that trading is about making money and gambling is about making thrills. You might do a search on trade2win for gambling. You must figure out how to make trading about business in your mind not about thrills. A steady business. Or else you wil just be a donor to the businessmen out there.



5. How much do you want to succeed - how much work are you willing to do and how long are you willing to stop trading for while you get yourself sorted out?

And i am determined to suceed at this!!
I gave up a career in the spanish police for this to become my future living, and so i am going to keep working and working till i can trade like a pro!! ;)


I admit that im used to taking a different route for my previous careers than what is needed for trading.
For example since i was about 8years old i always had a very toned and muscley body without ever having to go the gym, at 14 i started working as a partime body-model simply due to goodluck in my genes, even though i was eating macdonalds 2x per day everyday for breakfast n lunch 5years.
And then at 16 when i wanted to move from amateur to semi-professional i just started going to the gym once per week for 30mins, still eating my 100% junk food diet, and became very sucessful still as all i needed to do was physical work once per week, that required no stratergy just well 'doing it', and could just relax and do what ever i wanted the rest of the time.

But so now when i started trading ive found that no amount of physcially begging and pleading with the stock market through my laptop screen will actually make it change and go back to trending in my favour!! LOL
Even when i then start to swear and threaten the market it still just doesn't work!! LOL ;)


But i am extremely ambitious and enthusiastic to practise and practise on my demo account every day from morning till late night until i get to my 80% sucess rate goal!! :)


(SORRY FOR SUCH LONG REPLIES WITH ME JUST BABBLING ON AND DRIFTING IN AND OUT OF MY LIFE STORY!!) LOL
But i feel that from now on the stockmarket world needs some new enthusiasm and enegery!!! ;)


So, get a copy of trading in the zone, search for the gambling thread and think hard about how not to be gambling. Do not "trade" because what you are doing is building conditioned responses that will be almost impossible to overcome.

I will ask you some more questions soon to find out more about what kind of trade style might work for you and then suggest study in that direction so that you can build a winning strategy.



Edit: Some additions to help with thinking about trading plans:

Someone else's thinking: http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/29689-jay-s-journal-post403644.html#post403644

For this second one, you'll have to pm dbphoenix and ask if you can have access to his group:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/mapping-territory/
 
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But a few people then started to get cocky and sarcastic and try to mock me still though, and that was what annoyed me!
spanish89,
As I appear to be the primary cause of all your woe, allow me to offer a small olive branch of peace. In addition to nine's questions, here are a few more that you might do well to consider and help you on your quest towards consistent profitability:
T2W Day Trading & Forex Community
Have a gander at the pdf and If you need any assistance, I'm very happy to help - either here on your thread or privately via PM. Oh, and I'll do my level best to keep the cocky and sarcastic comments to a minimum, but I'm not promising anything!
;)
Tim.
 
Really? What's your thinking on this? :)
I'm interested in nine's response too, but I guess he's referring to behaviour patterns (good or bad) that then become hard to break. E.g. if you've learnt to drive without professional lessons, you might drive with only one hand on the wheel and cross your arms when turning etc. However, if you've had pro' lessons, a good instructor will clamp down on such practices the first time they spot them and, hopefully, prevent them from becoming habits in the first place. However, if you've already developed this (bad) pattern of behaviour, the genie's out of the bottle so to speak, making it a hard habit to break. It then becomes another and unnecessary obstacle to overcome before you can take and pass your test.
Tim.
 
Ah, yes, maybe! Never thought about it in terms of trading. What are the possible bad habits in the world of trading?
 
What are the possible bad habits in the world of trading?
Too numerous to mention!
I'm in enough trouble with spanish as it is shadow'; if I attempt to answer that question here, his whole thread will get derailed and I'll suffer another smiley attack! It's a good question though - a subject for a new thread perhaps?
Tim.
 
spanish89,

I'll be brusque. Forgive me.

Almost everything that you are doing is wrong.

And unless you turn things around fast you will never get anywhere.

SOME OF THE REASONS WHY YOU LOSE:

"over the last 3weeks ive tried almost every different stratergy there is!!!"

This is a major problem. Three weeks is probably not enough time to try one strategy let alone several. Stick to one that you feel makes sense and learn it inside out.

"If there i either buy or sell into it, with minimum stoploss available (20pips on ftse/ 30dow oil and fx) as i simply cant aford any greater risk.

If it continues to go in my favour i will hold till i have about £6 - 8 profit and then close, unless its trending in my favour very fast and constant."


Shadowninja already told you; I'll tell you again. This is a LOSING strategy. If you have a 20 tick stop on the FTSE and you take 6-8 ticks each time you win, you are stacking the odds against you. Cut your losses quicker or let your profits run. If you can't do either then you are simply going to be the liquidity for the better traders in the market.

Once close i then look and if it still trends more over next 10 - 15secs i will trade again, or if its moving opposite way i will try to cash in on that too."

WTF is this? So you close, realise it's going further and get back in? Why waste the spread? This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard...

I dont just jump onto every tick and every trade randomly just to pass the time,
i do actually wait and only trade when i see a trend line forming...


In my opinion, trend lines are not particularly reliable. Most of the time they need to be constantly redrawn as price fakes them out. Try support/resistance pivots instead.

And my heart beats very fast after i have done my research and made my trade but then once i go into loss of more than 5pips i start to get very scared and i just feel upset and sad and scared.

Unless you can trade without fear you will never win consistently. Fear hinders your ability to trade.

You have a huge amount of problems ahead of you:

Here are my suggestions:

1. Take some time off - as long as you need to clear your head - it must be long enough that you feel recent losses are out of your system. I would suggest a minimum of a week without looking at the market or reading about it WHATSOEVER

2. Find a strategy that makes sense to you. I tried hundreds of different techniques until I realised that trading price action on 1hr and daily TF made sense to me. Just try something and STICK WITH IT. Give it a month of executing it properly and then analyse your P&L. Don't bin a system if the first trade or the first three trades or even the first week of trading results in losses. Some trend following systems, for example, lose a majority of the time and then have a small number of wins that make up for all their losses. As a side note I would suggest you don't scalp oil. The spread that most SB firms offer makes it prohibitive for scalping . The FTSE is fine if you have a 1 tick spread but if 20 tick stops is the minimum then change your broker.

3. Keep a journal of your trades. It helps you see where you are going wrong. Pay just as much attention to your EMOTIONS (how you feel when you are going in and when you are getting out) as WHAT you are doing. Experiment when you run into issues or problems. Do you find yourself exiting too early? Devise ways to stay in longer. Do more of what works and less of what doesn't.
 
spanish89,
As I appear to be the primary cause of all your woe, allow me to offer a small olive branch of peace. In addition to nine's questions, here are a few more that you might do well to consider and help you on your quest towards consistent profitability:
T2W Day Trading & Forex Community
Have a gander at the pdf and If you need any assistance, I'm very happy to help - either here on your thread or privately via PM. Oh, and I'll do my level best to keep the cocky and sarcastic comments to a minimum, but I'm not promising anything!
;)
Tim.



LOL

Its fine mate,
honestly im not some sort of snarling raging lil man! :LOL::LOL:

I was probably just in a bad mood combined with having been drinking since the morning, and so just got rather over-heated. :D

Thans for your help tho.. :)
 
Wise trader once said..

Ah, yes, maybe! Never thought about it in terms of trading. What are the possible bad habits in the world of trading?

There are no bad habbits ,only bad choices . Choose care choose choice. Open the fridge door and maybe we be the ones filled with light ?
 
spanish89,

I'll be brusque. Forgive me.

Almost everything that you are doing is wrong.

And unless you turn things around fast you will never get anywhere.

SOME OF THE REASONS WHY YOU LOSE:

"over the last 3weeks ive tried almost every different stratergy there is!!!"

This is a major problem. Three weeks is probably not enough time to try one strategy let alone several. Stick to one that you feel makes sense and learn it inside out.

"If there i either buy or sell into it, with minimum stoploss available (20pips on ftse/ 30dow oil and fx) as i simply cant aford any greater risk.

If it continues to go in my favour i will hold till i have about £6 - 8 profit and then close, unless its trending in my favour very fast and constant."


Shadowninja already told you; I'll tell you again. This is a LOSING strategy. If you have a 20 tick stop on the FTSE and you take 6-8 ticks each time you win, you are stacking the odds against you. Cut your losses quicker or let your profits run. If you can't do either then you are simply going to be the liquidity for the better traders in the market.

Once close i then look and if it still trends more over next 10 - 15secs i will trade again, or if its moving opposite way i will try to cash in on that too."

WTF is this? So you close, realise it's going further and get back in? Why waste the spread? This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard...

I dont just jump onto every tick and every trade randomly just to pass the time,
i do actually wait and only trade when i see a trend line forming...


In my opinion, trend lines are not particularly reliable. Most of the time they need to be constantly redrawn as price fakes them out. Try support/resistance pivots instead.

And my heart beats very fast after i have done my research and made my trade but then once i go into loss of more than 5pips i start to get very scared and i just feel upset and sad and scared.

Unless you can trade without fear you will never win consistently. Fear hinders your ability to trade.

You have a huge amount of problems ahead of you:

Here are my suggestions:

1. Take some time off - as long as you need to clear your head - it must be long enough that you feel recent losses are out of your system. I would suggest a minimum of a week without looking at the market or reading about it WHATSOEVER

2. Find a strategy that makes sense to you. I tried hundreds of different techniques until I realised that trading price action on 1hr and daily TF made sense to me. Just try something and STICK WITH IT. Give it a month of executing it properly and then analyse your P&L. Don't bin a system if the first trade or the first three trades or even the first week of trading results in losses. Some trend following systems, for example, lose a majority of the time and then have a small number of wins that make up for all their losses. As a side note I would suggest you don't scalp oil. The spread that most SB firms offer makes it prohibitive for scalping . The FTSE is fine if you have a 1 tick spread but if 20 tick stops is the minimum then change your broker.

3. Keep a journal of your trades. It helps you see where you are going wrong. Pay just as much attention to your EMOTIONS (how you feel when you are going in and when you are getting out) as WHAT you are doing. Experiment when you run into issues or problems. Do you find yourself exiting too early? Devise ways to stay in longer. Do more of what works and less of what doesn't.



Thanx for all your help here, i will definitely take as much of your advice and suggestions as possible. :)

Oh and i have been reading quite a few of your prveious topics and find them very resourceful and helpful.
 
Really? What's your thinking on this? :)

Hi Shadowninja. I have met with Spanish89 Tuesday of this wek for a chat about trading strategies and will hopefully be joining you both for your FX demo on Monday pm as posted on Fxscalper2's forum. I used to trade some 20 yrs ago and have just started getting back into it. Am having some trouble with consistancy and strategy and feel the need to be straightened out by a current full-time experienced trader. Would you be able to meet with a view to giving some good basic help. I will of course pay for lunch and drinks. I'm based in Maidenhead and am flexible on times locations within reason. Thanks for any consideration you may give to this request. Best Regards, Geoff Hill. My email is [email protected].
 
Hi Geoff,

I am by no means experienced although I have been trading full-time for almost a year. Monday is more a bit of fun than a serious chance to make a killing and retire, but you may learn something; I may learn something! As I said before, use a demo account for my calls.

After Monday, you can decide if you want to buy me lunch. ;)

-Darren
 
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