Today was a rough day for me. It was the kind of day that a lot of “gurus’ claim to never have, but in reality, do. This is because it doesn’t sell the dream that everyone has. I mean, when you are looking at the idea of trading, and buying something from someone, you want perfection. However, the reality is that none of us are. I know that I sell signals, but unlike so many others out there, I am not looking to be something I am not. I am human, I am fallible at times.
However, I do have that a lot of you don’t, and that is experience. Unfortunately, this is one of the scummiest businesses out there. It is about making money, and that normally means trouble. However, there are good people out there in the FX markets, and I hope I am one of them. Let me tell you about today.
After the Bank of England decided to try and support the bond markets, we saw the USD get hammered. This of course has been against the overall trend, and this means that I decided to short the market. (I sold EUR/USD and GBP/USD.) While this wasn’t the worst idea – the reality is that the market was going wild. I should have never been involved in this chaos. However, I was. And guess what? I lost money. However, that’s not the part that really pissed me off. It was what I did next that was the kicker.
I decided to re-short those markets, but with bigger positions. It worked for a little bit, but overall, I was still down. This was the beginning of my discipline going out the fucking window. Long story short, I ended up and down all day, making it a real psychological struggle, when it wasn’t necessary. While I did lose money overall, I am now flat for the month, after being down a few percent. However, in order to do that I had to take massive risks. It is because of this that I closed the platform down. When I find myself gambling in order to get losses back – it’s time to step away for a bit.
This point of this post is to let you know that this kind of shit happens to everyone. Professionals that trade for big firms have Risk Managers, which shut them down when its needed. However, we don’t have that luxury. We need to be better than those traders when it comes to our discipline. In this environment, I know that I am about to make a lot of mistakes if I continue to trade. It’s not that I am more intelligent or a better person/trader than others, it’s that I have fucked up immensely in the past. Trading is a cruel mistress, and she dishes out pain when things are treated properly. Learn from my mistakes, and my successes. In this case, although I made seriously bad decisions at one point, I ultimately recognized I needed a break for at least the evening. This is the most important lesson I have ever learned: When you start to trade emotionally, it’s time to step away, even if it is just for a little while.
