So i had very good last two F.Y’s that too in stocks/indexes that had both serious down and up trends all fo that was in f&o ,the year before those two when i was new i did not do good as a newbie. This year idk why it feels like i am not in sync with the market it feels like me and the market are distant.
currently sitting with a 74k loss in a ITM bn 13th dec option for which last F.Y year me would have taken SL or not taken an entry in the first place or rather added some puts on the other side or some sort of spread.never before i have taken such a stupid trade,thinking market wont go above these levels.
but i have noticed Since june idk why i have been making small mistakes,zoning out,not following systematic trading, i have been ignoring stuff i wouldn’t have before,chalta hai attitude.i have missed out on so so many good trades too.
i feel like a cricketer/footballer out of form, somewhere i like to blame it on my relationship maybe i am too distracted/anxious of some stuff but then last year i was in a relationship too and had my best quarter that too when i had so many other issues going on, especially in my office and whole IT industry layoffs and all there was 10x pressure at the time.
Well i think your question’s answer is within you because it feels like it’s very personal. So my advice would be to stop trading for now and go to an astrology guru who can guide you if you believe in those things, or you can seek advice from your elders. Good luck.
“If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.” Will Rogers
Take a break, like we have setups when to trade it is important to identify when not to trade.
My list goes
Don’t trade if stressed or with not enough sleep.
There are days where we don’t have work like in any job so relax or backtest.
Boredom trades are real and if I isolate them the returns are abysmal.
Like we switch off after any job carry on with other hobbies. We are more than our PNL if we persist with right strategy in decades to come we will compound.
If you can, automate your trading. Then execution issues due to emotional reasons get solved as long as you dont interfere.
Just my opinion - This year has been tougher in some ways than last couple of years. Intraday volatility has reduced a lot, intraday shorts esp are not doing as well for many systems. I dunno how you trade, so your system may or may not be affected by this.
But point is - market behavior, while somewhat cyclical, can shift. Making money in last 2 years does not necessarily guarantee that we will make same money this year - or even make any at all.
Do try to verify - are you out of ‘form’ because system is not working as well as before. and that is inducing emotional mistakes which in turn makes things worse ? This is a very difficult task for discretionary traders as our biases can really get in the way.
Make sure that when you are trading, you are free from other obligations. You have done it for 2 years, so perhaps you can manage - but job + trading at same time seems like an impossible task to me.
I don’t have a fix but - Taking trades as per plan is a basic requirement to be able to trade professionally. If we cannot, then stop trading or atleast reduce capital so that mistakes wont hurt.
Also if system depends on outliers ( i think most do), then i strongly believe that we have to take EVERY trade, Every day as per system. That’s the job.
I solved these kind of issues by completely moving to fully systematic automated trading. This wont fix everything, we still need to adapt from time to time, but execution issues now only happen due to technical issues.
If not possible, read up some psych books i guess and try to figure it out. Discretionary trading can be very difficult because its hard to separate system behavior and self behavior. When things get tough, is it because of market or because of you ? Its very easy to get into ifs and buts, to see all the good trades you didn’t take due to whatever reason etc etc.
What i personally experience that following a systematic trading is much more important than doing a damn sure analysis.
95% is all about systematic trading in which you know your different trading stats like when you win a trade, how much usually you win, what’s an average loss that you take per trade.
Moreover you should have a good clarity of your trading skills.
Doing right analysis each time does not matter or even required. You can earn good even if your accuracy is 30-40%.
Hence the whole game settles in between RR×Accuracy. You can earn even if your accuracy is 30% with RR of 1:3.
So i would recommend you to know your different stats of trading to make a balance in between these two, will help you to make your trading systamatic, rather than trading without proper clarity or just by intuition.