First time posting here. I started out trading for thrills a few years back. Have made more money than lost nothing to write home about. But have enough capital to day trade for a living. Left my job a few months back and decided to trade full time.
When I started out I could trade for hours at an end. Take up 20 positions and track them all . Sit up all night doing homework for the next day. Since a year or so I can’t seem to be able to stand the nervous energy that comes with taking calls left and right. That in one of the best bull markets I’ve seen where literally everything and every trader in my circle is making money.
I am trading very conservatively these days and second-guessing even routine positions. but I wanted to continue trading and love it as much as the old times. Any advice folks?
Thanks for sharing this with all of us here. It is a very important yet tricky situation which every serious trader goes through in his trading career.
I’ve been a trader for almost 7 years and I felt this feeling many a times.
What I’ve mostly done is…take a temporary break from the trading activity in a phased manner. Like taking 10 trades a day instead of 20 and later doing only 5 and slowly pausing for many days. (Don’t forget to use the Kill switch feature if you feel extremely burnt out)
One more thing which I did was …going back to the drawing board. revisit my earlier premises (see where I was going wrong or right) and then make a closure (mentally). I believed that once the past ghosts are put to bed, only then we can move ahead. I then slowly began a fresh journey with new rules, new way of approaching market and life. (At the end of the day, both are interlinked in a much deeper way than other professions)
So, don’t worry - It is an absolutely common (infact mandatory phase) that every serious trader goes through.
Wishing you all the renewed energy and awesome trading journey ahead Cheers
The more you learn about the market, scarier it gets.
If I think of the trades I took 2 years back I feel I was just lucky to end up in profits. I knew nothing much but I was still so relaxed. But now I think of the worst that can happen if it doesn’t go in my favour.
Back then I was easily generating 10 percent per month. But now my target is just 2 to 3 percent. Who knows 1 year down the line I may even bring it down to 1 percent per month.
So I feel what’s happening with you is also common. Consider taking a break or as I did bring down your target returns.
I’m in the same boat as you. Earlier I had a much smaller account and I just to pack on way too much risk. I’d lever up my account 4-5x and carry naked short PE positions overnight. Now, this is just unthinkable. I kind of feel that I’m actually on a mission to avoid risk than to make profit, which partly explains why I haven’t really done well in this FY when even college kids are making money trading crypto.
Maybe, now that I’ve seen how the market keeps doing the ‘unthinkable’ every now and then, it’s really hard for me to pack on big risk and still be calm and confident about it. It just doesn’t happen anymore.
Take up algo trading…Will be like a new challenge just like trading was in the beginning and later you can just leave it to the system once you automate your trading strategies
Cheers
