Trading will suck your soul many a times. Yet, you have to put back the soul and keep moving.
This page is dedicated to the traders, who are keeping the insanity alive. Write, rant , anything here. Anything works. Lonely affair it is, it’s okay to write things out in public.
November ended. And it is a losing month for me. Rubs more into the wound, when you take more losses than actual. Trades that you should not have taken. Could have, would have, should have. Always it is.
The battle between yourself.
Trading is what I love to do. Red and green are part of this riveting experience. I play with the chips that I can afford to loose. I bet only that much which I make peace with. Hence there is no pain but there is lot to gain.
Been there. Done that.
The thing that makes this game difficult, is that it’s more about yourself. How you set yourself against losses and wins? How you hold yourself during losing streaks?
The randomness factor will test you. The most significant thing is that, everyone knows what to do, yet you ll end up doubting yourself many times.
Detaching the money factor is integral. Saying is something, but doing is the real thing.
Everyone can read rules of trading. Yet your own pain will teach you lot. Your narrative and experience is your best teacher.
That’s the reason, I suggest, traders to narrate their screw up mistakes. That’s what the real deal is, and not the profits or losses.
Someone might find a smile, provoke a thought through your narrative, my narrative.
In the end, as humans, we ll always end up doing errors and screw ups, no matter how smart one projects. The screw ups are important.
So admit your screw ups. If we are that big traders, we ll not be here in this forum. We are not market wizards. So feel free to narrate your screw ups.
It’s okay.
Trading has been a journey for me which could be best described with the maxim “Penny Wise, Pound Foolish”, Life too follows the same dictum. All crafts allow themselves to be a miniature versions of life if done enough. Be it Music, Chess, Making Furniture or Cutting Grass. Stare long enough into the abyss and the abyss stares back.The Trading Journey usually follows a path like this.
1. The Great Accumulation : You are thrown into a world where there are 5 million ways to accomplish a task. All those million ways come with their own garnishing. Body triggers a fight or flight response and the only thing you have a control over is the accumulation of knowledge. You don’t know if it will work or not. The only thing you know its the easiest thing you can do.Here begins the agnostic accumulation of information–buying books, going to seminars and researching blogs, asking questions, watching documentaries.
2. Trading The Information : We begin to trade with our ‘new’ knowledge.Some of it works, most of it doesn’t. But the one that does is enough to get you hooked and trust the process. When you hold a hammer every problem looks like a nail. You don’t care about who Fischer Black or Myron Scholes were, or why they made their now (in)famous equation. You have an equation and that’s enough.
3. The Great Donation : After you have ‘donated’ a considerable sum to the markets you realize you may need more knowledge or information.The one that you had wasn’t enough, or wait you may have used it incorrectly. Doesn’t matter. More information is always good. The Donation Continues.
4 Finding your Instrument : It all makes sense now. You were trading the wrong instrument all along.There is no way you could have known more about a stock than the players who make the stock that stock. But for some reason you are supposed to have a better time relationship to USD/INR Futures. You switch the underlying and something works, you don’t know what, but that doesn’t matter.
5. The Second Wind : You go back into the market and trade with your ‘updated’ knowledge. This time its different.
6. The Great Donation Part 2 : You get beat up again and begin to lose some of our confidence. Fear starts setting in. There is no way someone “less informed” than you can be making money and is a professional trader. Maybe you don’t have it, maybe your dad was right, FDs was the only way to way to accumulate any money, your friends are getting married with that FD money, and doing pre wedding photoshoots who noone wants to see, and, here you are staring into a screen trying to do big boy stuff, and the only big thing you are doing is losing every morning. Time is money, you’re losing both.
7.The Exit* : Most People Will Give up at this Point as they Realize Work is Involved or the Saturn in their Kundalis isn’t well placed. Money Gods, atleast the gods of prospective gains aren’t pleased with your pursuit. Better things may await elsewhere but surely not here.
8. The Atheists : The Atheists continue to pursue, either disregarding the Kundali or that by now markets have given you a thicker hide than an Assamese Rhinoceros.It wasn’t about the money anyway. Its the only thing that makes you get out of the bed everyday, the photoshoot can wait. The Dollar is about to crash any second now.
9. The Serious : Here a trader begins to get serious and start concentrating on learning a ‘real’ methodology. Learning from his own mistakes, betting small, betting often. This is where the craft is born. The trader realizes that everything their past self did was stupid, but it was important, they gave birth to seriousness. More mistakes await, but donation has stopped since a few months. Winning small, winning often, losing small, losing less often. Whatever it is the trader was after is close, the trader can smell it. This is his year.
10. The Professional : The Trader finds their system. It is at this point the question arises. Whether to make a career out of this, join a desk, start a fund or work with other traders on the floor. Make it a profession or if age or circumstances do not allow. Just use it to manage the savings. The Formers make it a lifelong pursuit, the latter make it a lifetime hobby.
Pick your poison and let it kill you.
Realistic expectations are the key. Never hope to win all the time. Never believe that its going to be red all the time. The bottom line is to have a plan to play with, have enough capital to be a player and never gamble oneself to self destruction.
Consistent results will take away the doubts with time.
Absolutely. This is why different people, given the same setup yield differing results. At least in my experience its is important to take out subjectivity and bring some objectivity on the trading table.
Its about finding a trading plan that one can follow. A bunch of rules are of no use if it cannot be followed between the chores and uncertainties of life.
All that this far has been from my real world trading experiences. When I started I tried almost everything I could try for a little money from the market. Its after that I became the trader I am. I will win, I will loose but I will stay afloat and I shall make money when Nifty trends.
One doesn’t have to fail to be in this forum. This country needs good examples of trading success. That is how more people will come in to the market.
Damn! I like this. Everyone should bookmark this.
This crisply describes the journey. The madness, the grind.
I like people who went the grind, the doubt and somehow keep the sanity alive. Damn, with a child growing up, it’s really something.
I don’t know man, just going with the flow.
The grind never stops.
Love when people resonates. I am not the only mad one. Respect man.
hey man, I think we are rubbing a little way off. I wanted to make this page like a market rant, the one Tom Canfield does now and then. You heard about Tom Canfield, right?
As you quoted so many of mine, let me quote yours.
it’s okay to fail. I repeat, it’s okay to fail. Failure will shed the fat, and work the muscle out. Yes, people will quit. That’s the beauty.
Talk about making as a great athlete, a violinist. You need to screw up now and then. Till the scars make your identity.
Where was I? Well, trading is not as rosy as it seems. Well, if you made big out of it, killed all the emotions to excel in this game, well, tell your story, tell your screw ups. C’mon, don’t tell me you never screw up big time.
I screwed up my wife’s money, a lot, trading. Those were the best years behind.
I am not a tad bid shy narrating personal experiences. There would be people like me, with a kid growing up. Now, that’s as realistic as you can get.
Everyone knows trading has red and green days/months. Everyone knows the basic stuff.
But what goes into your head during those stages. Do you flip? ahh, do you go back to the drawing board, or you continue what you are doing? Or you just chop wood. Yeah, I have a big backyard, and I chopped lots of wood, if I feel I am in the tilt.
So, I am calling out all the imperfects here, to narrate their heart out. Your story connects. This comes from a man, whose ears are stuffed with shitload of traders podcasts.
Connect each other.
And please don’t flex too much. That’s not the point.
well , all say money in stock market is only through investing for long long term … Trading has no money …only 10 %survives through trading … But without trading there cannot be investment .
How you can survive your annual or daily income through investment , for that you need to feel the pain . no way
Trading is the easiest thing I have done to make money in my life. The hardest was to use plane polarized light to detect nano metre sized particles in a colloidal solution or to design systems that send radio frequency waves to space and capture it at the other end.
In here, I will say this much and step away.
Its up to one self to find what works for one self. Its important to try different things to find this out. But make small bets with money one can afford to loose until one finds a workable plan. Never go all in and loose all that was put in.
Never bet with wife’s money. More than making money it is important to keep wife happy as a happy wife leads to a happy life 
Man, you really have to drive your point. Everyone got it okay. You are second to Einstein,and for you trading is easy as ABC, and you missed being featured in Jack Swagger s unknown market wizards.
Rest assured, everyone got it the moment you replied.
But hey, that wife advice. That’s unwarranted. Wife’s money, family fortune, dad’s money,.bank loan, people have different narratives. You got to respect that.
As a man, that’s your zip your mouth shut area. No wifey jokes. That’s lame.
Anyway, many times when people share a story, they are not looking for advice or a consolation. They just feel good letting it out.
But man, there is always someone who wants to be the smartarse.
Yo. Let it soak for a while.
How much an trader can loose or make money trading on daily.basis?
i know there is no limit but what can be the average?
There is a limit. You need to keep limit.
People blowing out accounts is nasty, and it hasn’t had to be that way. I repeat, blowing accounts is not necessary. It’s a complete failure of money management.
Trade with money, you can afford to lose, is another mindless statement. You ll not care about the money, and you ll end of blowing up anyway. Well, you ll always end up thinking it’s money that I can lose. That’s complete noob move.
Money is sacred. The only way people quit is they lose too much money too fast. Trading is a skill. Acquiring skill takes time. If someone talks so rosy about it, he is just passing through luck. And luck don’t last.
Answering your question is one thing. But you understanding and feeling it is another thing.
If you are just starting out. Say, you have a strategy. The rule of thumb is risk no more than 1%of equity per trade. Here again, this makes no sense. Even 1% risk per trade losses will feel so heavy unless you traded that strategy for quite some time. I say, risk 0.3% per trade.
Well, you want to make it big. Show consistency risking minimum 0.3%. Show that you can really make money for a year, trading that strategy. If you don’t have time for slow drip, have a fun time in the trading graveyard 🪦.
Now you have your risk unit. Now, comes how much you take when you win. Cuz how much you take when you win will offset your losses.
Yes, losses will happen lots and lots. Your win % will dwindled the more trades you take. A healthy win rate can be under 50% and you can make money. My win rate is 43% , and yes, there is money.
But for some trading a 43% win rate can be frustrating. It is dotted with losses. But what if I say, you take 5R and more when you win.
But it’s not always necessary to win big. You can take less, and end up making money. See, trading is so personal. It’s YOU.
That’s the reason you can’t trade someone’s strategy. Cuz when the losing streak comes, you ll not know what to do. You were not the builder. And you are not the mechanic,to know the tweaks to do, when the time comes.
Long story short. There is no fix amount. Risk is all relative. 1000 for some is nothing, for another it is rent money.
Whatever the thing is, make small losses relative to your money. Cuz if your strategy fails, you ll still be left with enough to test another.
In day trade taking leverage is a good option?
If you strictly manage your risk, leverage or no leverage, is all the same.
Yes, leverage is good, provided you strictly maintain your risk.
In day trade how much loss or profit in a day is good of equity capital with leverage?
i think shuldnt cross 5% either way
Think in this way. What is your capital damage if you get 10 losses in a row?
Even if I get 20 losses, I ll still be standing intact, emotionally and financially to take the next trade.
Think of losses. It can come in bunches.
That’s the reason, I said, 1% risk per trade can be too high if you just started testing out your strategy. 10 losses means 10% hit on your capital.
On real money terms, that will make one squeal. That’s why trading is hard. Cuz it fuccs your 
.
Change is trader’s personality over time…
I used to have losses, I still have losses…
only difference is I never used to expect and accept losses and let them grow bigger…now I expect and accept losses and cut them short.
I used to have profit, I still have profit…
Only difference is I used to catch quick small profits…now I let them grow bigger.
My Win ratio to loss ratio used to be 70:30, now it is 30:70
But I used to be net loser, now I am a net winner… 
