One Step Forward ... Twelve Steps Back

With the exception of the week my father passed away, this may have been the most difficult week of my life mentally and emotionally.

Just when I thought I was starting to get "it" at work, I turned in my worst performing week since I have been there. I did not have a single positive day, including yesterday, when there were seriously only 5 traders (out of 80) that were negative on the day. I can't help but doubt that I will ever be successful doing this for a living. It seemed that everything I tried went against me as soon as I got into it. There were some trades yesterday I took for 30 and 40 cent losers, and I never do that.
It is true that all traders are going to have rough times and they have to fight through it. I know I need to do it. But there is this little voice in the back of my head saying, "This job was just a bad "trade", cut your loss early, get out of there, and look for something else."

So, where do I go from here? Well, I am not going to quit ... at least not right now. I didn't quit my decent-paying tech job to give up after three months.I am at least going to give this job until the end of September. That would be roughly 6 months of trading with real money. If I am still feeling and performing the way I do, I will have to leave to perserve my psyche. I write all of this and I am so upset with myself. I always called myself a "realist", but if there is one thing I have learned from this job, it is that I am a "pessimist". And you can't be a "pessimist" and a "trader". My natural tendency is to always think something is wrong, so I let my losers run (to prove a point to myself), and cut my winners short (because I don't think my decision will be the right one in the future). It sucks, but I really think subconsciously that is what I am thinking throughout the day. So, change it, right? Yeah ... it is that easy (sarcasm off). In the words of Sammy Chua, author and master trader, "The trade begins and ends in the mind." And right now, I got some funk going on up there.

I come home after work and talk to Kim about my trading day, and she continues to say basically the same thing:
1) What have you tried to do differently if you know something is not working for you?, and
2) What have you done to learn from other people who are successful?
I think those are great questions to ask myself, but unfortunately, I just don't remember them during the trading day. I think I need to slow down a little bit and really start shadowing one or more of the better traders. I have done that a little bit, but definitely not enough. I do think I am thrashing between different entry techniques though, changing too much. As a result, I am not really getting a good feel for any technique. I need to stick with something that works and run it into the ground. Lastly, I am going to start trading maybe 3 or 4 stocks exclusively. I have been thrashing around between different stocks and really don't get a feel for how a particular stock moves. Best example of success doing this is a guy on my team who came in Friday afternoon for 2 hours, traded in and out of one particular stock during that time, and made $1,500. If you know one stock well, that is really all you need.

Unfortunately, my natural response to something when I encounter difficulty is to "log more hours" -- work hard, long, and smart to figure this thing out and be successful. I don't know whether that will really help me in this case, but I do feel that I haven't been doing everything I possibly can to get better when I am away from the trading office. Sure, I have been reading a lot of books and been dinking around with the Amibroker program, but I haven't been doing the one thing that will absolutely help me and that is reviewing my trades. Until I start spending more time learning from my mistakes, I feel I am going to be destined to repeat them. This is definitely gonig to require more time and focus in the evenings, but until I give this a try, I don't feel like I will be doing everything I possibly can to get better.

What this eventually boils down to is, sacrifice. I feel, at least in the short term, I am going to have to sacrifice some "family" time to get my business off the ground. I love the analogy my coach gave me - that I am trying to build my own business there. It is so true. And what do small business owners do ... they work their asses off, until their business gets off the ground. So, if my business is going to have a shot of making it, I got work hard, long, yet smart in the coming weeks. I know I will still need to have a "work/life" balance, but I think for the next 3-4 weeks, the name of the game for me and Kim will be "sacrifice". It kind of sucks that it has come to this, but I think it has to be done. No regrets.

So, the hopes and dreams of a five figure paycheck after 5 months are most likely out the door. I am struggling to survive. But as the saying goes, "the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory." I have to find a way to be successful and hope that one day, even if it is a year or two from now, I will be able to taste that victory.

Wish me luck this next week ....