Risk Management
You Start Losing Money You Never Made
March 23, 2020. The market is moving fast. Really fast. COVID has turned normal trading days into something else. You're watching ESM20. And you're watching one level in particular. 2175.
The Struggling Trader
The live market is the best teacher, and the tuition makes Pepperdine look like a Dollar Tree. I have decades of emotional scars, hard lessons, and just enough perspective to find it all darkly pleasurable. You've been warned.
Risk Management
You Start Remembering Yourself Differently
You flip back through the notebook. Three months. Six months. A year. Charts glued to pages with a glue stick you swiped from your 4-year-old. Then you stop. There's an entry you don't remember writing. Good day. Stayed with the plan. Huh.
Risk Management
You Start Trading to Get Back to Even
Fifteen minutes before the close. You're down $50. One quick scalp. ES is moving. You don't need much. One point. Two contracts. Make back the fifty. Shut it down. Finish the day flat.
Risk Management
You Become What You Repeat
The trade moves against you. Closer to your stop. Your hand moves toward the mouse. Click. You move the stop. Just a little. You've done this before. But maybe you don't remember where it started.
Self awareness
You Start Keeping Two Scoreboards
Friday afternoon. Best week you've had in months. +$1,840. Your wife walks by. Good week? Yeah. Pretty good. And it was. That's one scoreboard. But later that evening something about the week is still bothering you.
Self awareness
You Start Making Exceptions for Yourself
The note is taped to the top of your monitor. You wrote it yourself. NO TRADES FIRST 15 MINUTES. It's 9:37. Eight minutes to go. Then something starts moving.
Self awareness
You Start Moving The Goalposts
Sunday night. You open your notebook. Fresh page. At the top you write: Goal: $300. Nothing crazy. Sixty dollars a day. Five days. You close the notebook. Friday afternoon you look at the number. +$75. And somehow that becomes a good week.
Self awareness
You Start Hiding How Much Trading Matters to You
You're sitting at dinner. Someone asks how the trading is going. You keep cutting your food. It's fine. Making any money? You shrug. Some. Then you change the subject. A few hours later the house is quiet and your notebook is open beside the keyboard.
Self awareness
You Start Trading the Outcome
Your setup appears. You've been waiting all morning. Entry, stop, size — it all matches your plan. You take the trade. Your stop gets hit. Down $400. Everything was where it was supposed to be. A thought appears. What did I do wrong?
Self awareness
You Start Needing to Know
The market hasn't opened yet. Coffee in one hand. Mouse in the other. Your setup is already there. You know your plan. Still you keep looking. Just one more thing. Maybe one more chart will make the decision easier.
Self awareness
You Start Practicing The Wrong Thing
The market closes. You lace up your running shoes. You haven't even reached the end of the block and you're already replaying the day. You already know which trade you shouldn't have taken.
Trading Psychology
The Trade Ended. You Didn't
Your stop was hit. The platform made its little chime. The position disappeared. You pushed your chair back. Walked into the kitchen. Life was supposed to continue. An hour later you opened the chart again.