Dec
05
The Weekend Trader – 2010 Reflections
By
As we approach year-end, my personal self-assessment of 2010 performance begins … this time in video form.
Areas of improvement at this end include working harder to make that extra effort when required, while not trying to markedly improve on that which doesn’t require it.
As I mention reference in the video, here are the links to the two previous year-end posts, both of which provide insight into the good, bad, and ugly of recent years.
2008 A Night To Dance
2009 Another Night To Dance
great book! Thank you for pointing out that rule.
I think this book is so underrated because it has to do with managing yourself. The easy part is learning the technicals and strategy of poker and trading. The difficult part which will be for all of one’s life is self management. I think that most people don’t want to do this and when they realize this is the key and how hard it is they give up. It’s like most are chasing a golden key which fits into a hole and it unlocks the gates to everything when in fact it’s a struggle to the very end. They don’t want to believe that the struggle is everything.
Those are good points above. When I first got into trading I figured it was simply a matter of learning the secrets of the market, and then the profits would flow easily and relatively risk-free. I remember how excited I would feel after seeing trading “educators” cherry-pick out the winning trades off past charts. I thought I was part of the in-crowd and would soon be rich. Of course, there was no mention of the psychological challenges, nor were there any opportunities to watch real traders trade. As if it could ever be so easy. There is no golden key.
I think this ties in to why some are critical of the webinars coming at a cost. They’re still in grail-search mode. They believe there is a golden key to stress-free profits in the markets. “If you’re making money in the markets, why do you need to sell this?” I’ll grant that part of this may stem from an justifiable sense of skepticism of this industry filled with snake oil salesmen. But IMO a lot of it comes from a belief that Don has a holy grail crystal ball that makes it easy for him, and thus he shouldn’t have a need to make any money from anything else.
Managing yourself is indeed the key. I’ve been at this for 18 months and you could say that it is the rate determining step of my development. I’m at the point where I’ll do ok for a while, and then the wheels will fall off and I’ll have to send myself back into the demo account to get back on track lest I throw good money after bad. It’s not the market’s fault, nor that of my methods, it’s me. I’ve been considering getting the webinars, but am in the middle of questioning whether or not I *really* want to do this. I enjoy the problem-solving aspect to trading, the figuring things out part. It’s the management of myself that is the challenge and at times makes me question whether or not being a full-time trader is right for me.
Thanks for keeping it real, Don.
hey Dave,
been doing this for only 2.5 years so we’re more or less in the same boat, but still every extra month is pretty important. think at 18 months there are couple things that I tried that helped me keep going instead of giving up.
-use a stop watch with alarm to manage the time in a trade-enter position set for three 8 mins. or 3 mins depending how fast the market is and go read tabloids or some BS. check back and go with your gut reaction to what you see has transpired since you enetered the trade. pay attention to your impulse which is heightened by shortening the duration of time you are looking at the chart otherwise the price action tries to play with your mind lulling you in to taking the wrong trade.
-play chess on chess.com if you are feeling unsure whether you are strong enough to trade. if your chess game is off your trading will be off.
-trading is an auction, is market trending or rotating(this is hard for me), trader floor pivots, bbs on multiple timeframes…
sure people who’ve been doing this a lot longer don’t need to do these things, but for those of us still in the beginner/int. stage we need to use some training wheels. if you’re short of 7,000 hours trading futures you probably need training wheels like me.
Don,
What is the longest time frame you are in a trade? Are you ever in a trade sequence more than 1/2 hour/1hour? Especially on trend days with few retracements?