Overeagerness to trade when switching to live account | Forex Factory

Options

Permalinks
Print Thread

Similar Threads

Dukascopy Live Account - Don't Post if you haven't traded live with them! 117 replies

My Live Trades on my Live Account 588 replies

3 week demo account leading up to live account. 20 replies

Switching From Demo to Real Account 7 replies

Demo account versus live account. 19 replies

Overeagerness to trade when switching to live account

  • #1
  • First Post: May 10, 2011 7:57pm May 10, 2011 7:57pm
Hey everyone, just wanted to share a new psychological problem I seem to be having when switching to my live account.

Over the past few months, I've finally developed a scalping system that was consistently making pips from the market. Comfortable with my method, i opened a live account and have started to trade..

Unfortunately i'm noticing negative psychological factors during trading with my live account:
- I'm easily getting emotional about the trades, instead of letting them proceed as i used to. This problem i successfully resolved when trading on the demo account, but it seems back again.
- I'm finding i have an overeagerness to trade, as since this is real, i'm more glued to my seat looking for trades. This is resulting in bad entries and of course losses.

Anyone else experience this when first starting with their live account? Any suggestions for a good way forward?

I'm thinking i should stick with the live account, but on much smaller lot sizes, until i can sort out these issues and firm up my practice until it goes back to what it was before.

Thanks,
  • #2
  • May 11, 2011 12:39am May 11, 2011 12:39am
Quoting stockmarcus
Hey everyone, just wanted to share a new psychological problem I seem to be having when switching to my live account.

Over the past few months, I've finally developed a scalping system that was consistently making pips from the market. Comfortable with my method, i opened a live account and have started to trade..

Unfortunately i'm noticing negative psychological factors during trading with my live account:
- I'm easily getting emotional about the trades, instead of letting them proceed as i used to. This problem i successfully resolved when...
yeah, start trading small sizes and slowly increase them.
  • #3
  • May 11, 2011 12:59am May 11, 2011 12:59am
I ahve exactly the same psychology after first day.. almost to the point of paralysis!! The practice account is confirming the method, but somehow everything is too tight
  • #4
  • May 11, 2011 1:59pm May 11, 2011 1:59pm
Hi guys, I had the same problem for a while as well. I started to just focus on looking for my setups and that was it. If it was there it was there. It is okay to not have a trade for a few days even weeks.

If you want I would like to chat about some basic trading strategies and setups I use especially during market hours.

Interested add me on Skype my name is IntelliTraders but real name is Sam. Lets get rid of the butterflies.
  • #5
  • May 11, 2011 6:01pm May 11, 2011 6:01pm
Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Thinking about it further, the main rookie mistake seems to be:

- On the demo account, all i was focusing on was the trading.

Which worked, all was good.. then

- On the live account, the main thing i was focusing on was the 'money'.

Makes sense that losses followed! Well, this is the rookie forum

hena: yes, it was almost to the point of paralysis, especially after losses.

forex56/custos: think that's the next step/solution, focus on the execution again, starting with trivial lot sizes, and a firm plan to increase based on performance.
  • #6
  • May 13, 2011 9:14am May 13, 2011 9:14am
Hey Marcus what time zone are you trading in?
  • #7
  • May 13, 2011 11:10am May 13, 2011 11:10am
Quoting stockmarcus
Hey everyone, just wanted to share a new psychological problem I seem to be having when switching to my live account.

Over the past few months, I've finally developed a scalping system that was consistently making pips from the market. Comfortable with my method, i opened a live account and have started to trade..

Unfortunately i'm noticing negative psychological factors during trading with my live account:
- I'm easily getting emotional about the trades, instead of letting them proceed as i used to. This problem i successfully resolved when...
Hi stockmarcus

If you are focusing on the money value and glued to your seat then I would suggest trading much smaller value, you have to be able to say to yourself I don't care if I loose this trade and relax.

You can then relax because you don't care if it is not a winner, your trading then will improve.
Then slowly increase size until you get that gut feeling it's too much, then scale back again.

good trading to you.
  • #8
  • May 16, 2011 1:54pm May 16, 2011 1:54pm
That is good advice and it will really build your confidence. Another thing that might help is if you win on a trade just end on that. Start small, one winning trade and then another the next day or a few days down the road. Slowly build that winning streak!
  • #9
  • May 16, 2011 4:23pm May 16, 2011 4:23pm
Quoting stockmarcus
Hey everyone, just wanted to share a new psychological problem I seem to be having when switching to my live account.

Over the past few months, I've finally developed a scalping system that was consistently making pips from the market. Comfortable with my method, i opened a live account and have started to trade..

Unfortunately i'm noticing negative psychological factors during trading with my live account:
- I'm easily getting emotional about the trades, instead of letting them proceed as i used to. This problem i successfully resolved when...
Firstly a demo account shud ONLY be used for familiarisation with the platform features.

Secondly- you have suffered stage fright which is common amongst rookies.

The best thing to overcome this is to widen your time frame with a plan ie stop loss and profit levels and reduce the amounts.
Let the market come to you rather than chasing it.
This will build your confidence in holding positions rather than being caught up in the noise, chopping and changing.
Scalping is a specialist art.. You need an ECN to do it well.In other words you need to be part of the spread not trading against it.

Best of luck
  • #10
  • May 17, 2011 2:05pm May 17, 2011 2:05pm
To all Scalpers in this thread. I do not fully understand it and would really like to learn from those that do it. I am more a long term trader but want to try scalping. If you are interested in helping me can you please chat with me on Skype, add me my name is IntelliTraders. Or point me in the right direction here but would rather do live chat.
  • #11
  • May 17, 2011 2:25pm May 17, 2011 2:25pm
The problem with sloppy trading and overtrading is that it is a form of gambling. We are trading for the thrill and not the main objective, which is to make money.

It gets worse when we have a run of lucky trades. For obvious reasons - when they start to turn bad we don't know why because we thought we were invincible. Then we think our initial strategy must have been wrong from the start.

It's all part of the learning process.
Gone to a better place
  • #12
  • Last Post: Jun 2, 2011 7:54pm Jun 2, 2011 7:54pm
Thanks for the updates. Alot of wisdom in those responses. Since then, the key understandings which solved/solving the problem for me are:

- I thought i understood my technique, but i really didn't.
- There was one major hole in my method, in hindsight i was trading blind.
- I never fully disassociated in my head the concepts of, say 'trading well and making pips', vs the 'money' element of it.

Some further, more methodical backtesting, and also scaling in volume into my live account has helped this one greatly.

Or its hard to have that rock confidence, if you aren't really.

pps: that hole? I didn't have historical support and resistance levels plotted out onto my chart. Trading blind. What i do is in and around the intraday price range, go back in time, and just draw horizontal lines at daily highs and lows. You'll know when to stop. This does create a good number of lines on your chart, but its uncanny how much these lines are tested over a longer period (for intra day, say a couple of weeks). Then using fibonacci over strong intraday movements.. the high low lines that match up with the intraday fib+extension lines make quite strong support and resistance.

I was also too easily looking at the 1 min chart primarily, which at least for me is almost guaranteed to loose money. I've only traded well consistently off the 5 min charts (also glad that issue is fixed now).

Great learning. When it firms up (and i'm trading it consistently...) i'll be sure to write up a post with the method.
0 traders viewing now