Hi! I’m Mr Short and I’m a bad forex trader! (the AA for bad traders)

Let me tell you guys…

This is a painful thread to start. But considering my trading biography I think I am morally obligated to propose this little round table. It might be provocative for some, for me (and I hope for other rookies too), it’s somehow cathartic. So, bear with me fellow traders!
These last few days, using Tim Wilcox’s “trading plan template”, I objectively came across with some personal difficulties that might be permanently impeditive to the possibility of success. Also considering that (they say) 90 to 95% of traders fail to be consistent, I might deduce that these impediments are scaringly frequent and transversal to those who start their turtle walk through the business of trading.

This thread is an impudic description of my failure to understand this business. Through the expression of my frailties I hope that others can join me and start a dynamic group of mutual support that might help us cope with our limitations. If this is not your thing, no worries, use this thread the way you want. There are no limitations and no rules for the expression of our frustrations here… as long as you keep within minimal ethical standards, fire away!

First and obvious considerations:
1. Trading the forex market for a profit is hard! As hard as it gets! Fewer intellectual challenges are as hard as this. But so managing a restaurant in New York! I keep believing it is possible to be profitable… just don’t know why!
2. There is no holy-grail. This is obviously not debatable.
3. I never met a successful forex trader in person. That’s as hard as finding a gnome! But they say they exist…

My frailties:
I will share my frailties point by point in the hopes you can identify with it (or not). So let’s start this psychological stripping:
1. I’m arrogant: I always believed I’m intellectually superior. I always believed there is no problem I couldn’t solve. I’m an intellectual dictator. If I think it, it must be right!
2. I’m skeptic: I have a very hard time believing other fellows systems and strategies. At the first sign of trouble I have a tendency to disbelieve the system. At that moment I lose control.
3. I’m obsessive: If I fail I tend to keep at it until it hurts. And I like to have the feeling I can control all the variables. Considering the randomness of this business you might imagine what being a control freak means… total psychological disruption! In the end I just lose my confidence real easy!
4. I’m ambitious: I hate to lose. I want to win for the sake of winning. I must be the best at all times. I want to chase the markets to recover losses. In the trading business that’s a very good way to ruin your account.
5. I’m emotionally labile: all the characteristics above produce a very unstable mental situation. When winning I become an arrogant jackass, when losing I become clinically depressed. What a fruit cake!

My vicious circle of failure:
Let’s combine these characteristics and see what we get.
First I look at a chart, I examine it and I act according to my strategy. All good. Usually I get it right the first time. I become intellectually arrogant. I think I know what’s happening and I act in a relaxed more instinctive manner. The impulsiveness get me a little off track. I start to get scared with the possibility of losing. I tweak the system to protect myself. Then all hell breaks loose. I get into my position with an ambivalent felling to it. On one side there is my belief of the market development, on the other side there is the fact that I didn’t follow the system and I know that that might change the results. I start to get all doubtful and at the first sign of loss I panic. I retweak the system to protect myself even more. Even get trading frozen. I start to have serious doubts and all that system changes get me to lose more and more frequently. I start disbelieve my strategy. I start considering all strategies to be “snake oil”. I eventually give up. I stop believing that it might be possible to be successful at the trading business.

These cycles last for, normally, 3 to 6 months. Then I take a vacation of 3 to 4 months: I cannot look at the charts. I feel traumatized and cannot get into it again. After that time out, one day I look at a chart again and then an amazing thing happens. The trading bug bites me again and I jump into it even stronger than before.

This story, my friends, have been lasting for 4 years now.

The only thing I am proud of is that in all this deleterious vicious circle I haven’t spent a dime of real money… at least I’m that wise!

I designed this system of variables in a schema that you can see in anex. This way, the interactions are more clear (I hope). See how the green circle (circle of profit) feeds the red one (circle of loss) and not the way around. See how my skepticism is the factor of desistance. See how my tweaking is the central deleterious reaction. I think that this is nothing new for you guys but at least I got it on paper, for everybody to see, and for me to look at. This way I cannot escape.

I leave you for now saying…Hi, I’m Mr Short and I’m a bad forex trader!

This is the way I do it:

Thank you for your post Mingary.

Brilliant description! I feel your pain my fellow trader! Emotions can really get in the way...

Cheers!

ROFLMAO! I am going to frame this

LMFAO... classic !

If only it were possible to sell at point 4 or to buy at point 12 !


But I think that's forbidden.

Good evening Mr Short. Your post was fascinating. There is a lot of emotional turmoil going on there. If you feel that much emotion about this game, why on earth would you want to continue to put yourself through it? It's like having a bad relationship with someone and when you have a bad relationship with someone what do you normally do? Do you give them the flick or keep at it in the hope that it's going to be better one day? Personally, I give them the flick. Life is short Mr Short.

Good evening, Patience,

Amid the turmoil, I get the pleasure of doing something only I can determine the result and from witch possible faults get to affect only me. We don't get to do something like that very often in life! That is probably the most fascinating trait about trading forex... I'm hooked... what can I say

Cheers

there's a guy that specializes in fixing guys like you... I will find the link if you're serious about trading...

oooh here it is...

http://traderspodcast.com/episode102/

Thank you very much 60minuteman!

I'll give him my full attention!

Cheers!

I'll add a little controversy.

Part of the reason you keep blowing up is precisely because you are not risking any money. A small fifty or hundred dollar account will not harm your standard of living but may help you to gain more discipline. Profitable trading is really all about discipline and demo accounts where you have nothing on the line IMHO do more harm than good.

One thing is for sure, you learn more about yourself trading than spending ten years on a couch with a therapist. This is the hardest simple thing I have ever done.

Good luck, remember though for most it takes thousands of hours to get the hang of trading. The key is to find something that works and stick to it. If you find yourself constantly jumping from one method to another you are adding years to your journey.

Hope it helps.

Totally agree with Seneca on needing to risk real money.

If Mr Short has not find a profitable forex trader yet, then you need to go out more and paid for education to find one.

If Mr Short been just playing demo for last 4-years, you cannot call yourself a forex trader yet.
Better to change the title of this thread to like bad demo trader.

the demo is nice/fine if you can impose and thought or regard as real money
but rarely can people do something like that if she/he was never get hit / biting before
sorry if my comments make you uncomfortable

salaam

How you take your trades, if you don`t have any strategy.

Lol mate. Nice graph

That is brillient I am going to pin it on my wall

Mike Haran

Hi chap,

firstly trading is not hard, the hard part is reading all the rubbish that comes with trading. The more complex and clever you are the more complex you make trading, its you making trading hard when in reality its easy, if you know what to do. Like any business you need to get help to start, many traders think that this is one business where the doors to the bank open and yet you don't have to know how to do it. Wrong


There are two ways to learn how to trade

1) Spend 5-7 years looking at charts and figuring it out.
2) Read all the books of people that did make money trading look at how they did it.

I mean real traders not snake oil sales men, anything to do with elliot waves or fibonachi is just pure rubbish, my opinion is my own if you can make it work then good for you, but for me they are crocks. I knew a really talented programmer, he decided to try to figure out the next move of the market using a NN, he could not do it. But he made some crazy complex program that did real complex things, because he was playing to his natural state...complex. He never made money trading.

I have a good friend who read loads of books on trading, and decided to follow one great trader Livermore. He is now sitting in a trade and he is 4000 pips up, he is still adding into that trade. He does mostly nothing except to look at his charts now and again. He took a winning idea and appplied it and thats what you have to do. Find out what works, and apply it to the market.

Another trader I know scalps 20 pips a day, he is in and out and possibly one of the most skilled traders I know, he only trades one currency pair and he knows it like a mother knows her son, he lives from his trading, and knows his market.

So depending on how much you want to do the market will give it to you, this is what they mean when they say trade according to your personality, the market is like a locked vault, but if you know how to there is a couple of crumbs that fall off the table and that keeps the clever mice well fed.


All the best


Mike Haran

This is gold here.
I noticed that we - at some point or another - inherently want to make trading this grand mystery wrapped in an enigma. We want it to be this soul-searching, life-altering mystery that we can portray as philosophy to those who don't do it. I always see folks saying things about what it's like to be in the "smart money" group or what it's like to work for one of the big institutions and I remember that day I was looking at my sloppy, indicator-coated charts. I said to myself:

"Wow, I have to look at 10 different indicators just to feel good about my trade. If I had to do this every day for a major company, would I really have time to sit here and read a dozen indicators before making a decision or would I be expected just to trade the damn market and lose as little money as possible?"

Geez, I look back at some of my screen shots from when I first started trading and I just go

Admitting that one is bad trader is big step in becoming good trader! Kind of paradox.

This is the path of trading. Emotion and hard pain feeling. So were I. Time is the solution to flush out everything and make all thing go well automatically. Myself, eventually understand more inside of me and know manage the incorrect attitude. Now i am calm and steady, there is no any ahha moment and f...k word came out from mouth, but now still damn f...k hard of coding something (Take long hours to solve problem). Lol....

In fact, now I become more cautions and comfortable with my trade now. I think logically and rational with plan, take whatever is it (Win is winning, lose is losing). There is no more chasing market, no more staring at the PC all the time. 2 important concepts that change me, discipline will lead me to correct outcome, 2nd concept is if there is a risk, so does have a reward, not necessary to earn big in short time (There is no such things if does not have high leverage/intrinsic value), this is the concept of balancing.

Take some free time to think more about ourself and learn....