Giving Up

How many times per year do you guys feel like giving up? I'm feeling it pretty strong right now, after several months of great performance followed by three months of just terrible performance.

A short time ago I felt great about trading, what I wanted was crystal clear and how to get it made sense.

Now I feel like I'm completely lost all over again, as if the last year of 60+ hour a week studying and trading was nothing but a dream that produced no skills or experience in the marketplace. Like a noob, all over again.

The scary thing is I know I will never give up, no matter how much pain I go through. But I have to wonder, how much worse does it get?

I know it's a problem with me, some combination of fear, or greed, perhaps my confidence has taken a hit amidst the draw down I find myself in (which at -22% is not as bad as it could be).

Ah, just venting, I'm sure I'll be fine after some sleep.

Dont worry mate, ive been feeling exactly the same over the past couple of weeks. I think the key thing to remember is that your trying to win in the hardest game ever invented, where other players have a large informational advantage over you and some even enough capital to move prices where they want it to be.

Dont make it personal and dont let your (current) failure hit you to the point that you think less of yourself, a little soppy coming from me; but I know how shit trying to make It trading can make you feel.

'Back to the drawing board Brain?'

'Im not sure Pinky'

Take a break. Whenever I find myself a little lost, I take a few days to recharge the ol' batteries. I've only made one trade in the past two weeks, have golfed a ton, and am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things (trading, not golf ).

Seriously, I bet you will feel 100 times better if you take a few days off and clear your head. The markets will still be here. I do it periodically (take a few days or a week+ off), probably about once a quarter, if not more often.

Every uptrend has highs, but also lows. As long as the lows are higher than the previous ones (metaphorically speaking), you're heading in the right direction - even if in absolute terms you are down a bit. Setbacks are to be expected, but it is how you react to these setbacks that reveal the character of a man. Have a few days off and see if you don't feel even more motivated to succeed. If you are, then you can begin the post mortem of where you went wrong and how you can put it right.

the times when you are literally near tears, that is when you make the most progress.

The one tip I give for what it is worth. Really step back from your trading, try to really look clearly at what your methods are and if they are just blinders. And as always if you aren't simplify simplify your trading. More = worse in trading. Less = better.

WE have all been in that place. But a year is nothing in the long run of things so just keep at it.

Best of luck
Mike

I second that. You really do need to step back and ask yourself some questions: are you following your trading plan? If not why not? Are you recording your trades their setups and conditions? How could your entries/exits be improved? Are you trading with the right mindset, do you make a daily trading journal recording your trades, emotions and what you did right and what you did wrong. Are you reviewing your trades on a daily, weekly and monthly basis identifying your strengths and weaknesses and setting yourself goals to build upon your strengths and reduce your weaknesses, achieving these goals before going to the next level. If you are not doing this then you are not taking the correct steps to putting things right. It takes effort to do all this but in time it makes you become more disciplined and in control of your progress. Here's something I wrote a while back, hope it helps:

Monitoring and Record Keeping

This is by far the most important aspect of trading, more important than any indicator, system or method. Without documenting your trades and trading behaviour you will not be able to develop into a successful trader. You need to strike a balance between monitoring your overall profitability and allowing yourself to make mistakes as part of the learning curve.

Documenting your trades and how you feel emotionally takes time and many traders fail to do this for that very reason. But it is essential. Documenting your trades and making records of your behaviour will enable you to identify very quickly where you are going wrong and what you are doing right. By recording what you are thinking and what market information you are focusing on when you make a trade, your conscious mind will present to your subconscious mind with solutions on how to change and improve. Using this information with your trading performance will help you understand why you do what you do to help you improve and develop.



What Should I document?


Traders Journal

The trader’s journal should be a record of trades and emotions about those trades. It should detail feelings, emotions and thoughts, belief systems and perspectives that you have about your trading career. It should detail how you feel about each trade as well as how you feel you are progressing overall. It should document how you feel about every trade you make, how you feel at the end of the trading day, the trading week, month and year. But also you must record how you feel generally with regards to life in general. This will put the trading into a psychological perspective and enable the feelings and thoughts to be physically examined and dealt with on a conscious level.

It can also deal with day to day issues such as the weather, relationship problems, problems with the car and all the other things that can cause some concern on a day to day level which could affect the trading performance one way or the other. Such issues should be recorded at the beginning of the trading day so that it acts as a sort of brain drain, clearing our minds of distractions before you focus with a clearer mind on the trading day.

The journal needs to be an honest account of your feelings emotions and thoughts and evolve over time to give a clear account of who you are as a trader. It functions as an important feedback loop from which the traders can learn from. This can then be used against performance statistics to discover areas of improvement during different parts of the trading process which must be reviewed on a regular basis. Patterns of behaviour and thought processes must be examined when looking at losing trades and winning trades and assessing what motivated those trades. You will learn most from your losing trades and it will focus your attention on the realities of your trading. But remember, undisciplined trades made by not following your trading plan may be profitable. You therefore have to consider such mistakes and identify profitable trades that were poorly executed.

If this is not achieved the negative thoughts and feelings will interfere with the clarity of thought and mindset. The feelings and fears will compound rather than alleviate and cause the trader to do less well than his potential and may focus the mind on previous losses rather than on what the market is doing today.


Traders Daily Action Plan

The Daily Action Plan is a micro version of the Trading Plan. The Daily Action Plan anticipates the days decision making processes and seeks to identify up and coming trading opportunities. The Action Plans purpose is to highlight trading opportunities that have yet to materialise as a result of the trader’s analysis. ‘What if’ scenarios are examined forcing the trader to think about other events that might take place well in advance of the price action. The trader can then act upon the price action with confidence if he so wishes, should these scenarios take place. It is prepared prior to the trading day enabling the trader to have a clear understanding of how he should position himself within the markets underlying structure and identifies the currency pairs that demonstrate the potential for high probability setups. Some currency pairs will be offering immediate opportunities and others will have opportunities emerging more slowly to be exploited at a later date.

The daily action plans need to be updated every day reflecting the market changes on a daily basis showing new opportunities and dispelling others, invalidating or increasing the probability of a behaviour taking place. The action plan may change according to changing market behaviour and propose an appropriate strategy, as outlined in the trading plan, to trade that particular behaviour. The action plan will also take on board any minor changes made to your Trading Plan with regards to risk re-assessment, psychological development factors such as limiting behaviours and external factors such as time available to trade.

The daily action plan is based on what you see not what you think, and disciplines you to look for quality trade setups rather than randomly looking for something to trade. Once these opportunities have been found the action plan should propose how the behaviour should be traded with entries and stop positioning.

Creating an action plan involves writing down what is happening at various time frames for that currency pair and establishing why the behaviour of that pair is of special significance and what your indicators are telling you. The action plan must be detailed and descriptive and start off with the date and then a detailed description of what is happening on all time frames for that currency pair and the main reasons for the currency pair to be highlighted. The daily action plan is part of documenting every stage of the trading process so when you look back you will be able to find patterns of behaviour and trade setups in which to refine and develop your trading ability.


Trade Analysis and Assessment

The Trade Analysis and Tracking does exactly what it suggests. It is vital to record this information in detail so you can look back at the trade and learn from what you did. It documents every technical aspect of the trade setup and entry details. It records all the nuts and bolts of the setups; risk, entries, exits slippage and spread and the details of the technical setup that caused you to take the trade in the first place. The data from the trade analysis data is very important in plotting an equity curve of your trades and monitoring the overall performance of your trading alongside the Traders Journal and the Daily Action Plan.

It should record the entry, duration as a consistent measure of risk and exit details of the trade and its outcome. Was there a profit or loss and whether there was any slippage? You should also note what you thought about the trade in its duration and once closed. Did it meet your targets and do you adjust your stop and reasons why? Were you anxious to exit early and why? Did you manage the trade to the best of your abilities given the nature of the market at that time? Did you undertake a necessary risk analysis and was it appropriate to the trade type? Was the trade part of a series of multiple entries of a strong trend? It should also act as a checklist making sure you have considered every angle of the trade before pressing the trigger as well as act as post trigger analsysis.


Save a screen shot of the trade set up to enhance your understanding for the reasons for entry. Charts can then be annotated giving further details of the set-up and will provide more knowledge on the level of your trading skill. Record keeping is the only way in which to realise poor habits and develop as a trader as well as to use the data to analyse the aggregate profit or loss. Your win to loss ratio might be good but you need to know that your losses are not bigger than your profits.

If you do not monitor your emotions and document each trade you are not going to develop as a successful trader. You need a trail of surveillance to look back upon that will show you the right way to develop and move to the next learning stage.

Cheers
Pete

I know exactly how you feel. I have felt like that several times and like everyone says here the first thing to do is to stop trading, step back for a while and the re asses what is going wrong. After 3 years I am now consistantly profitable and it only came, oddly after staying away from reading all the Systems and posts for a while here on FF. Simply so I could learn to make my own decisions and not be swayed by other opinions.

Now this is unbeleivably boring and tedious but I spent hours every day just watching charts, simply drawing lines and watching for patterns that kept repeating (watching different time frames at the same time) day after day. Eventually I had the confidence to start trading small amounts again and kept to a rigid plan. Discipline and being prepared to sit and wait for a setup is now my only challenge each day.

Keep the faith, persevere, be prepared to be utterly utterly bored and you will succeed. Good luck !

Hey JJ,Never give up,how bad do you want to "not" go to a job 60+ hrs a week to devote your time,talent to make someone else happy,rich etc...As you probably know you do not need half that time (60)hrs aweek to make money.It is not easy but I would rather do this than anything else out there.read the second post from the"JACKO" thread that should give you plenty motivation."STICK WITH IT !!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for all the posts everyone. As Mike mentioned I am definitely at the point where I am broken down more than I ever have been, this trading game is like nothing else I have ever come up against. More effort and more time has always solved my work related problems in the past, but that approach just is not working with this trading thing.

A few days to look back and review / reflect this past year, and then a revised plan to get back in. I realized tonight after a few hours of thinking that my philosophy of the markets and the way I have been approaching my trading lately are complete opposites, so obviously that is a problem.

Anyhow, thanks again for all the replies. I'll never give up, but I sure do hope birdt is right, that these lows following the highs are never lower than the previous low, cause this low I'm in right now just plain sucks...

The last weeks were very hard to trade, so don't feel bad. In general it's a good idea to take out some money if you're doing good. Let's say, withdraw 20% of your wins per month - see it like a fee to yourself.

Failure doesnt lie in falling down. Failure lies in not getting up again.

Many will say this wont/cant/doesnt work....but read it and stick to the rules no matter what anyone, indicator or market is telling you...

For negative correlated pairs. <= -0.8

IF, EURCHF is trending upwards

BUY 1 Lots of EURUSD
BUY 1 * EURUSD/USDCHF Lots of USDCHF

IF, EURCHF is trending downwards

SELL 1 Lots of EURUSD
SELL 1 * EURUSD/USDCHF Lots of USDCHF

Close out for profit or loss just before the end of the day. Now, how do we know EURCHF is trending in either direction...

IF EMA25 EURCHF > EMA50 EURCHF = TREND UP

IF EMA25 EURCHF < EMA50 EURCHF = TREND DOWN

For this investigation, you should use DAILY chart for all three pairs.

...and finally, dont enter the trades if that day there is economic/news statements affecting USD.

In theory, if you follow the above to the letter then you should have more profitable days than not. Also because we are BUY/BUY and SELL/SELL drawdowns and potential losses will be allot lower than if we were BUY/SELL or SELL/BUY.

It is not perfect but a better type of methodology to follow. REMEMBER, dont trade if there are USD announcments coming up for the new day.

Try it on demo for a week or more and see how you get on.

Best of luck.

I like this classic post on 38 steps. It helps me keep perspective on where I'm at in the stages. I have found it to be fairly accurate. Your mileage may vary. I've been trading less than a year and I feel I'm between stages 14-16.

http://www.forexfactory.com/showpost...=1&postcount=1


The market has no problem kicking a man when he's down, you just have to get back up.

Oh how this rings a bell .

If, as I suspect, this feeling has hit you after a reasonable spell of what felt like easy chart analysis, highly profitable strike rate and a feeling of mastery over the markets then you have PeterFM's Complacency Syndrome (PCS).

All the things you've been doing right are now going wrong. All the instinctive trade entries that seemed to carry low risk are now going against you. You now start putting everything you done before this spell down to good luck not what you've actually learned over the past few months.

Don't fall into the trap of starting all over again. All that has happened is that the market has changed ever so slightly and you have, maybe, fallen into the trap of relaxing in your analysis of the chart. Maybe you've slipped out of whatever routine you had developed and started trading on gut feeling rather than proper analysis.

Go back over the losing trades and see exactly what you did that broke your rules. Did you move stops on poor trades to try and get out a hole by holding on? Have you upped your % simply because everything had been so good for so long?

No doubt I could go on and on but you get the message. I've been there, done that and have the T-Shirt to prove it but I re-grouped and am still here.

You will be too, just take a step back and take a good long look at what may have changed in your trading.

See you next year when we'll help you through your next crisis of confidence .

Hey man i have been there too, know what i did to turn it all around? Started doing the opposite to what i would normally do, i started getting profits coming in in the first week, i was gob smacked! Carried on, and yes, they kept coming, so step back and try doing the opposite and see how ya do. Let us know how it goes.


38 steps to becoming a trader

They are as follows:

1. We accumulate information - buying books, going to seminars and researching.
2. We begin to trade with our 'new' knowledge.
3. We consistently 'donate' and then realise we may need more knowledge or information.
4. We accumulate more information.
5. We switch the commodities we are currently following.
6. We go back into the market and trade with our 'updated' knowledge.
7. We get 'beat up' again and begin to lose some of our confidence. Fear starts setting in.
8. We start to listen to 'outside news' and to other traders.
9. We go back into the market and continue to 'donate'.
10. We switch commodities again.
11. We search for more information.
12. We go back into the market and start to see a little progress.
13. We get 'over-confident' and the market humbles us.
14. We start to understand that trading successfully is going to take more time and more knowledge than we anticipated.

MOST PEOPLE WILL GIVE UP AT THIS POINT, AS THEY REALISE WORK IS INVOLVED.

15. We get serious and start concentrating on learning a 'real' methodology.
16. We trade our methodology with some success, but realise that something is missing.
17. We begin to understand the need for having rules to apply our methodology.
18. We take a sabbatical from trading to develop and research our trading rules.
19. We start trading again, this time with rules and find some success, but over all we still hesitate when we execute.
20. We add, subtract and modify rules as we see a need to be more proficient with our rules.
21. We feel we are very close to crossing that threshold of successful trading.
22. We start to take responsibility for our trading results as we understand that our success is in us, not the methodology.
23. We continue to trade and become more proficient with our methodology and our rules.
24. As we trade we still have a tendency to violate our rules and our results are still erratic.
25. We know we are close.
26. We go back and research our rules.
27. We build the confidence in our rules and go back into the market and trade.
28. Our trading results are getting better, but we are still hesitating in executing our rules.
29. We now see the importance of following our rules as we see the results of our trades when we don't follow the rules.
30. We begin to see that our lack of success is within us (a lack of discipline in following the rules because of some kind of fear) and we begin to work on knowing ourselves better.
31. We continue to trade and the market teaches us more and more about ourselves.
32. We master our methodology and our trading rules.
33. We begin to consistently make money.
34. We get a little over-confident and the market humbles us.
35. We continue to learn our lessons.
36. We stop thinking and allow our rules to trade for us (trading becomes boring, but successful) and our trading account
continues to grow as we increase our contract size.
37. We are making more money than we ever dreamed possible.
38. We go on with our lives and accomplish many of the goals we had always dreamed of.

Most traders will identify with this list and should be able to place themselves within these steps. Keep in mind that very few people progress through these steps in an orderly fashion. Developing your trading skills is an iterative process. For example, you may reach Step 13., find that although you were making money, your basic premise for trading was flawed (you might have been benefiting from the bull market, rather than your own trading prowess and then have been rudely awakened when the market entered a bear phase) and you may drop back to Step 4. and start 'climbing' the steps again. Having the proper mindset, attitude and psychological makeup becomes increasingly important as you progress through the steps. The focus
of the earlier steps is on external issues, i.e. developing proficiency in the mechanics of trading while the focus of the latter steps (particularly from Step 30, on) is on internal issues, i.e. improving ourselves mentally and psychologically, maturing as
traders.

Ah, so this loss of confidence does happen more than once. Something to look forward to I guess .

Thanks for the post, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who has gone through this.

Hardest game ever, why I like it.

Lack of confidence = lack of trades and losses.
Over Confidence = Blown account in 1day

back and forth back and forth



I can totally relate to quiting, 98% give up before coming profit, don't give up!!

Probably not quite the same scenario you've been going through but the mental turmoil at the time was just the same.....

This is a post in my own thread and was written from the heart....

JIMMY:
If it's not for you then leave & use the money you have sequstered to better your {& your's} life.

Questions?
Did you ever buy a lottery ticket?
Did you spend more than you could afford to purchase it?
Did you leave fate in the hands of others and take the "Quick Pick"

Just a thought before you go.
Is the issue the Market or your method of spanking it?

Having Lost is one of the Best Educators in this game.
I would suggest you think twice before throwing that {very} hard earned education away.

Just a thought but whatever you decide, Take care. Smooth Roads & rest on the horizon.
BMc.

Hey Pete: Is that in your "My way of Helping thread?
That's gotta be a sticky somewhere. No?
Of course it is.

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...d.png?v=15.1">

that was very informative especially to the original poster. to the original poster I hope you are not trading with low capital to pay your bills. this is way to stressful. do you have money that you are able to trade with that you do not need and can forget?