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The guy that ran the desk came back from vacation and there was a meeting with the owner. I knew what was coming so I stayed quiet and let people be who they are. The meeting started with a review of how things went. It was bait....and it was taken hook line and sinker. Second day back and the guy had no idea how the account looked. The FIRST thing each day was to review associated firm accounts, check trades, review positions.
The guy said in the meeting that (Dan) doesn't know a stock from a sock and that he wondered if the street invited me to cocktails at the clearing house...a thing that often happens to newbies as the clearing house is not an actual place. The owners response...CLASSIC, yeah we were all hoping Dan would not take a shit while you were not here to clean it up.
So the top 3-4 guys were there and the boss says that the trading desk needs to adopt the firm's culture when it comes to dress and office hours. The idea was the we were on "corporate" floor where investment banking and corporate finance were located...we had to "look" that part, not in golf shirts and khakis. The guy said that's not how trading desks are and that laundered shirts cost 1.25 a day...no shit, he said that! One of the other guys asked me what I thought of that. I said that I have 2 or three appropriate shirts, but I'll go look for some deals over the weekend. The boss told me he had a guy and that his wife will make the introduction before we go to dinner. Dinner? I said. Yeah, we should celebrate if you take the job.
I did not know anything...but there was no way this was going to pass through my hands. The word decision means to separate from all other outcomes and on that day the trading desk became my life's work.
The guy who sent his staff to help me was one of the greatest men Ive ever known. I could write a book about what he taught me and the stories I was part of because of him. Guys like that are why I linger around in the forums and why I want everyone to find their way in trading or life.
Thanks for the poll . It helps to know that I am not the only one who has struggled with profitability. Seeing the other
people's comments help me keep things in perspective, and to control my expectations and ego.
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Great poll, Mike. We like charts, so here are the results as of …
The day is done. I got a bunch done up here on the acreage up in the Great White North right against the Canadian border. Saturday I will trailer the boat out of the equipment shed and go trout fishing in Back Lake up here in Pittsburg NH.
This thread is about expectation vs. reality. This is my story: a requiem for a futures trader. It's my personality: in futures, I expected to make instant profits and the reality is I never made enough to write home about, mostly nothing. Because I am vain I will say I have been successful in business and stocks and their derivatives. That gives me a certain mindset. At this point if I never trade an ES contract again, it doesn't matter; I figure I am set for life. But I want to trade ES for one last time, it's the ultimate game and I have all this experience in futures trading and I am vain, a matured vanity. I am risk adverse and patience and I no longer sweat the small stuff. I do lack some discipline but because I am more Zen (now) and don't sweat the small stuff as I trade within my comfort zone and account; I can stick to a trading plan. That would be my future in futures but I am not going to bet the Ranch on it.
So this is my history, a requiem, not that I failed but that I have not succeeded (in futures). It's not that I am looking back at the trading day or week but decades. I am not wining about this or that, but to move forward I thought I would review the past and it is fun for me to remember more youthful days, not that I am some old buck now. Actually it seems like I have never been better in mind, body and soul. And Futures.io (BMT) also.
So I am 18 in 1975, I am living at home in Hooksett NH and going to college. I open a stock account with ML in Boston. Okay minor success, so in 1976 (can't remember exactly) I get the notion I can trade futures and succeed instantly, I have an easy $2500 and my mother gives me another $2500 to open an account in Chicago with Maduff and Sons. Imagine I am reading the daily futures prices in the newspaper and updating my charts by pencil that I receive in the mail every Monday. At this moment the only trades I remember is Cattle, but in six months I lost half of my account, $2500. I gave my mother her 2.5 K and the tax lost. The takeaway is that I relied on the broker for some advice and he knew I was another chump. But to this day I remember what he said to me when I tried to rationalize the market. It's about the TV show at the time but he said, "don't try to be Baretta and interpret every price move in the market."
Out of futures and back into stocks with Advest, Manchester NH. Okay great success, double my account, then I am in business entering the 80's but back in stocks at the end of the 80's. Okay by 1989 my industry: construction is bust, we sell everything and in the spring of 1990 we move to Siesta Key, Sarasota Florida. To sell everything in NH and move to Siesta Key was one of my best years in life, 1990, everything was prefect, a salaried job, great weather, great beach sand, super Gulf of Mexico from Spring to Autumn. Just beyond belief for a New Hampshire boy.
Okay 1993 back in business, somewhat boring so back to futures again, I can do this. This time it Welles Wilder and the Delta Society. I have an IBM 50z, Delta charting program and data. I have an introducing account with I can't remember what broker I remember that in was with Lou and his office was at the Bank East building at South Pineapple and Main Street Sarasota. I remember Lou was a drunk and he was at the bar at the Four O'clock Club sucking down martinis after market hours. I don't remember any victory but neither defeat, the takeaway was in Lou's office was an Air Force Retired Intel guy, John, who knew futures and how to profit and I didn't engage him as a mentor and he didn't offer. Lost opportunity? Back to business, no future in futures.
Okay fast forward, it must be 2009 keying off my BMT date of Feb 2010. I have stock accounts, I make money; I am tired of business, I can be a day trader. I enrolled in this day trading course for $4K. The course by a 40 year well known veteran; makes money every week. The problem was when I took the course, he changed the charting software and engaged a new series of indies. So he was demonstrating something new that somehow related to his past and present success and course materials but wasn't how he did it before. I was lost but. I emulated this trader, I could succeed in stocks on swing trading but I was simply horrible on day trading the ES. It was horrible, alone as a again newbie, I drifted and drifted and then I don't know how I found Big Mike's Trading.com. BMT was a stabilizing force where I could base out and regain myself. BMT was mystical with the back in the day traders.
So at BMT, I learned and experienced much, a human sponge for trading. I have treads and posts. But I failed to achieve a birth right of success of my choose: day trading. Why? Because I didn't tend to business. I counted that I have 384 chart templates, maybe five is enough. I did have medium size drawdowns trading someone's option technique, because I was too lazy to do my own analyze. I guess the bottom line of my distractions in trading is that I avoided success by avoiding failure or I avoided failure by avoiding success. The lack of discipline of a decisive trading plan which I had hundreds. I wasted my opportunity, a moment in time. The unforgiving opportunity of a lifetime again. Gone as a burn out and a laggard.
That's it, a lost moment in time. I got back in business, forget the ES, just stocks; BMT is now Futures.io. I move from Sarasota back to New Hampshire. I am engaged in all types of activity. My accounts are at record highs. I am much more active on futures.io now. I will have other opportunities, moments in time. But I am here. Now.
A quick shout out to Zsike, BMT member 20,000; my wife.