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I first started trading after a friend took me to a Forex seminar sponsored by a company called Wizetrade. The product was called Forex made easy. It basically eschewed conventional trading procedures like Candle charts or price action. Instead you entered on a combination of green or red lights and crosses of green and red lines. Did I mention the software cost close to $4000.00? For reasons I still can hardly comprehend, I bought the software and embarked on a "life ruining" journey.
Was I a Gambler? I didn't think so at the time. I never had any interest in gambling in my entire life. Even the couple of times I went to Las Vegas, I never bothered gambling. I always thought it was silly. Nor would I say I had an addictive personality. I was able to drink alcohol moderately and do a few other things without ever having problems. I had always considered myself to be fairly well disciplined as well. I worked out, ate extremely healthy and never missed any obligations. But trading brought out a side to me that I had no idea existed.
When I began, I was in very good financial shape. I had plenty of money in Savings and I owned a nice home free and clear. I had done well investing in Real Estate, but since this was around 2009 and the market had crashed..I got out of Real Estate. I SIM traded for a few months and did great, even with the silly Forex Made Easy program. I found that I was good when there was extreme volatility in the currency pairs. I was totally deluded. I opened up a $50,000.00 account and started trading a sizable number of lots. Looking back, the amount of delusion and stupidity I had almost defies belief. I started having some serious losing days..$5000.00 and up. I found I was totally unable to stop trading when I was down. No max daily loss limit could be adhered to. My heart would pound and my palms would sweat as I would try to double or triple my lot size in order to recoup my losses.
I started keeping a journal and when I'd read what I did, it was like I was seeing a whole different person. I blew out at least three $50,000.00 accounts. My girlfriend begged me to quit. I couldn't. I felt, I had put too much time and money in to give up. I tried automated trading and lost lots of money on that. I finally stopped trading for a few months...
Then I decided to try Futures. That was several years ago. I took many losses at that too, but now I was trading smaller amounts. But those small accounts were also blown out. Why I continued is a total mystery. I am doing fairly well now, but it will be a long time before I ever recoup what I lost. Honestly, all the time, money and anguish this has caused me is probably not worth whatever small success I have now. If I could go back in time, I would never get involved in this. Let's face it...like I wrote a while back..finding actual consistently profitable Retail traders is about as easy as finding Sasquatch.
Good stuff. I laughed at the NINJACATORS reference because I want to buy a lot of their stuff but have not yet. Wow do they email blast that S*** outta you. All day long. Like that ORDER FLOW gimmick that expires TODAY for only $197. I want it.
It seems to me that most beginners should start with unlevered / retail instruments like stock. Curious what attracted you to futures + options.
(FYI I just re-read "how i trade for a living" by gary smith - highly recommended and zero bs. one thing that I've been picking up from several investors across the spectrum is how they hate leverage.)
I keep on repeating to myself "there is no skill in clicking the button" - aka it takes no more wisdom to trade than not to trade. Also, while developing, it makes zero sense to trade in ES or SPX/ES options - it makes much more sense to trade SPY or something less levered (now - maybe /MES). AKA be product indifferent and size according to your account size.
It takes no different skill to use order entry "1" vs. order entry "10" (except psychologically).
Broker: Edgeclear and Rithmic. (Nordnet 1 year more for Norwegian stocks)
Trading: ES, NQ, GC, CL (Maybe Dax if I bother to get euro data, probably dont need more.) futures only
Posts: 21 since Jan 2020
Thanks Given: 108
Thanks Received: 27
I have not read all of this. I just want to comment on alot of post said ;"your not gambling, you are trading. "
I will point out that all trading including risk management and targets are built on game theory. You ARE gambling. You just trying to be the casino that have the little edge. You will lose alot of times, depending on your approach. The trick is to have checked your edge if it gives you more winnings than you loose. (avg%winxavg win - avg%lossxavg loss gives you your expected win pr every trade from now. If you win your next trade tho is a coin flip. And I really don't know any better way to describe how to gamble than a coin toss!
Adolpho911
"Faith does not always let you fix the tuition fee; she delivers the educational wallop and sets her own bill" Jesse Livermore
"I am not curious when I know everything" Adolpho911
For instance, based on notional value + being product indifferent: 2 ATM SPX options = 1 ES future = 10 SPY options = 1000 SPY shares.
So (and this is all assuming you're trading equity indexes + not spreading to reduce risk + before MES was introduced) - how could trading 1 ES be less risky than trading 1 share of SPY?
Also, if you do the math, you'll see you really need a non-trivial account to trade 1000 SPY at brokerages where you can buy an ES contract intraday for < $500 margins.
But yes - I think all things are risky if you don't know what you are doing. Walking down the street can be risky, as can driving an automobile at 120mph. But clearly (aside from certain situations) you'll be more alert when doing one over the other.