Feel ashamed and embarrassed after todays CPI

Trading Discussion Trading Lifestyle
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Like most people I guess I had high expectations for todays CPI. I had a gut feeling that this being August, and we’ve already had pretty severe Fed tightening not only here in America but around the world that surely (hopefully) we’d see some sort of a peak or down tick from the expected, and that’s exactly what we got.

The reason I feel ashamed and embarrassed is that I took what “I THINK” the Forex market should do and didn’t plan for the what if I’m wrong scenario.

And so I have a pretty big unrealized loss right now in my account. Matter of fact, the thing I heard early this morning is Ninjatrader speaking through my speaker “Order Filled.” But I had no order in. And that’s what broke me out of my daze as my account cratered before Bloomberg could even read the news. So my broker had already sold one of my positions and now I had two more that were devastated.

Specifically, I was long USDCHF, short EURUSD, and … blah blah, you get the idea. I was betting on the good ole USA. I had already been in these trades for a little while with meager unrealized profits, just to turn around and BAM! Profit gone and now I’m in the whole. The two I just mentioned are ones I’m holding onto and they are slowly coming back in. But that one that my broker closed for me, on my behalf, to save me from myself, well, that gets my goat. (no offense to goats.)

I didn’t blow up my account completely. I’m holding those two trades open and like I said they are coming back in. I pulled out my debit card and put a little more money with my broker so I could have at least one trade I could place that I actually want to be in. (is this insanity, I think not)

Tonight around the kitchen table I started rambling about Elon Musk and his selling $6.4 billion more of Tesla shares just to have cash on hand in case he needs it as his takeover of Twitter goes forth. Nobody cared as we’re passing the chicken casserole and mashed potatoes. I try not to talk about my Forex stuff because they not only don’t care but say things like, “everybody’s hiring right now. why don’t you put in an app at Home Depot.” I should explain here that my family around the table here is all grow adults, none of us related by blood. We’re all down and outers in one way or another. Mostly going through divorces. One in my group is in the witness protection program, worked as a bookkeeper for Bernie Madoff during the Enron years.

I think of Elon Musk, and his fortune, and he tosses amazing amounts of money, billions and billions of dollars like it’s just for entertainment.

It’s just so very hard, starting out that is. I finally get to where I can make $73, then $25, two positives in a row. Lose $50, well that’s ok, I’m still up. Make a little, lose a little. Is this a business or a hobby. In a hobby the profit is in the sheer enjoyment of the work. But I need the money. I’m an IT guy by trade. And I love putting advanced hardware and software together. And frankly, I’ve never enjoyed any trading as much as I do Forex. To me this is no hobby. I’m here for the money. And I spend hours and hours thinking and calculating and planning how to make every last dollar.

Before I discovered Forex, I felt I was at the mercy of unpredictable whims all manner things out of my control. Maybe you’ve had this experience, you’re holding an option for Apple lets say, and Apple has been going up as you’re moving towards their earnings date. And then BAM, after the market closes Apple announces and they beat estimates with $0.34/share when expected was $0.30/share, a frigging blowout quarter, and guidance for the next quarter to exceed, yadda, yadda (as they used to say on Seinfeld). And what happens, the stock price goes down 6% and my option gets cut in half or worse.

So my brokerage account today is less than half what it was yesterday. It feels right now like it did when I tried to make money in stock options. This isn’t play money to me. I need this money.

So a friend that turned me on Forex called me this morning. He didn’t know what had just happened to my account. I told him, and he said, "Well bless your heart, (which is Texan for “you poor stupid idiot”) My advice is to exit all your trades before a major announcement that everyone is watching. Then when it seems like the initial reaction is fading jump in and ride the wave as it corrects back to the mean.

I feel a little better now having shared this. I’m reminded of a thing an old Vietnam veteran friend of mine used to say, “I am a soldier, I have been wounded. I will lye here and bleed awhile. I will rise to fight again.”

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I hear you. It sounds like you’re dealing with a lot.

First of all, switch to demo. Trust me. If you need that money, then switch to demo until you can have some profits. If you can have a month or two in the green, then it’s safe to switch back to live trading.

I had the same problem. I was trading live, I lost a lot of money, and I had to put myself back in demo. I’m losing money in demo, but I’m grateful that it’s in demo.

You probably don’t wanna go to demo in case you hit big profits. But if you get a couple good trades, you’re gonna lose it again because you haven’t reached the level of consistent profitability.

Also, I suggest you read about trader psychology. Particularly, The Disciplined Trader.

This is your beginning; not your end. Go back to demo, get your strategy straight, then come back to live trading.

What do you think?

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Thank you dushimes, that is very good advice.

I do in fact trade in demo. Something about my personality, I don’t feel like I’m really doing anything unless I’ve got some skin in the game. I used to make like 8 trades in demo for 1 with real money. But after just a few winning trades I’m like “Ohh man, I’ve got this ■■■■, I’m brilliant, This is easy,” just to be humbled.

This CPI thing was different somehow. Man it’s weird, I know what could happen but just tuned it out. I remember thinking last night that I loved my positions so much (because they had been easing up just a little each day before the CPI) that I’m like WOO HOO, USA USA, and all reason and thinking left my body.

I was shocked and horrified this morning. and man, dushimesyou are so very right. Nothing replaces practice trades. On a quick note, I remember a motivational speaker saying at some thing I went to… it went something like this:
to paraphase: when Michael Jordon goes to practice do you know what he does? He does layups. Nothing else. He doesn’t practice dibbling or passing or free throws. Because he does one thing, and he does it perfectly, He gets the ball and he slam dunks it. In his practice he Slam Dunks 600 times to make a single slam dunk perfectly during a game.

Man its hard to practice that hard to make a slam dunk of $24, or $89, or $320. But that the work we have to put in to scale up to $2400, $8900, $32,000. And I know that man.

But thank you man, to take the time to comment. You’re reminding me to take my practice more seriously.

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Have you thought of starting a journal thread? You can post any and all your ideas. Also, you can look back and review your posts.

Have you completed Pipsology? What kind of studying have you done?

By the way, I think you have too much emotional attachment to your trades. The market goes up and down, you can’t base your emotions on something whose nature is to go up and down, and to a business that losses are part of the game.

If you take some losses, how can you trade with a clear mind? David Paul has a great video about this. I’ve listened to it several times and it helped me a lot. Take a look.

You’re not alone. I’m not consistently profitable yet. But I’m trading better than a year ago. When I first started trading, I was trading on my phone. I had no idea what I was doing. It was bizarre.

We all have our journey. Just keep at it.

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Thanks for your reply dushimes.

I’m very far along in Pipsology. In later Highschool. Haven’t been able to spend time with it in a week or so, but it’s a high priority to get back to, especially after today. I’m not knocking Pipsology but a lot of the content seemed too familiar as I have done a bit of options trading and know enough about technical analysis to be dangerous.

Perhaps today was the slap in the face to make me go “Back to School” above trading.

Not making excuses here, but my work schedule fluctuates day to day making it challenging to build good habits that I know are essential to successful trading.

As for starting a journal thread, that idea intrigues me. You know man, what I really need is some accountability, Which I’m not going to get around the kitchen table. I really need to have some look at my trades and comment on them.

What I have started doing is printing each days Trade Ideas and Chart Art from Babypips and even if I don’t trade their ideas I write down my entry, planed exit, and stop loss in the white space on the paper. I know this is not a proper trade journal. Actually I usually trade my own ideas but I love and learn from Trade Ideas and Char Art every single day.

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dushimes, on the subject of accountability and trade journaling, I’ve posted a chart this evening, the very first chart I’ve posted on babypips. Is that the kind of thing I could use as an entry in a trade journal? This is a link to what I posted before we even talked about trade journaling tonight: Fresh look at EURGBP

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No worries. That’s understandable. Just do whatever is possible. Even though you have a fluctuating schedule, that doesn’t mean you can’t be organized. You may not get home at the exact same time every day, but when you come home you can study for X amount of time until you go to bed.

Control whatever is within your power. Perhaps you can’t control what time you get home, but you can control what you do when you get home and before you go back to work.

You can find this from other people. An accountability partner. But I think it mostly has to come from you. Hold yourself accountable. You can lie to others about whatever, but when you look yourself in the mirror, you know what the truth really is.

You know what? You might like David Goggins…

Here’s an interview with him.

Totally turned his life around.

Anyway, here’s a journal about trade ideas from Babypips

I hope this helps.

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Man, dushimes, thanks for hanging with me tonight and for all the suggestions. I haven’t visited those links yet but you can bet I will.

Thanks for listening and responding. They say, “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” and my girlfriend hasn’t taken the stage yet. (yucca yucca, sometimes I crack myself up.)

Cheers!
"

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I’m also very sorry for your loss. It is good that you fell ashamed, because it shows that you understand that you made something wrong. It wasnt your analysis and your market bias in general but to trade it without a stop loss, a safetynet in case your analysis doesnt prove right or even any form of money management.

I side with your friend who said to exit all your trades and dushimes who advied you to return to demo. If you dont want to exit your trades because their are “coming back”, my advice would be to immediately set a stop loss above/under the recent high/low. Because you dont want to lose even more money, do you?

I normaly dont recommend any youtube gurus, but in your case i like to point you towards a youtube channel called “Live Traders”. A guy there named Jared Wesley makes a ton of really good and helpful videos about every aspect of trading. Before every lecture there is a format called “When will the insanity stop?”, where he bashes people who make stupid mistakes like you did today. Watching a couple of episodes of this format and a few lectures about money management and psychology will improve your future trading and prevent you from doing it again.

Start with: “Trade Management Secrets: Why You’re NOT Making More Money!” and “Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom Through Proper Management”.

Just dont buy a trading course!! From anyone! You dont need it. He is a gap trader anyway. His strategy doesnt work on the forex markets.

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Worker_Bee, thank you for taking the time to respond to our thread. I say our thread because it’s public and people are contributing and that was the intention of spilling my guts like that. You’re AWSOME.

Thank you for the youtube suggestions, I’ll look for them.

Man, what I lost is probably less that many professionals make in an afternoon.

Thanks again Worker_Bee and hope to see you around these hallowed halls.

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Hello @toddfogal
As a trader there are always many things that we “could have, should have” done, but one thing you should never do is feel ashamed and embarrassed. However, one thing you should always do is analyse and learn from our work. The first option holds you back and the second drives you forward… and that seems to be what you are doing now! :+1:

It is always a challenge to trade a small account. Sensible risk management means small profits and a long road to meaningful profits whereas trying to achieve a good return in a reasonable time means taking excessive risks which inevitably at some stage hits your account hard.

I agree with the thought that one should avoid high profile event trading like NFP or CPI (in the current climate) or Fed meetings etc. These can go terribly wrong with a small account and there are enough opportunities during the other times.

One big general problem with trading is that one is self-employed and therefore one’s own boss. This means you are only accountable to yourself and you do not have to go and knock on the boss’s door and explain what you have done. These means it is too easy to take excessive risk and a lower threshold in accepting mistakes. It is good practice to try and run your trading as a business where you are the boss who wants to see the progress and the profits and not just the worker who lays the bricks with no one really checking on the quality of the work. That is not always easy.

If you had an external boss to report to then would he/she be satisfied just to hear that you feel ashamed and embarrassed? I think they would be more impressed with hearing your concrete plans on how you are going to change, improve, avoid repetition and find alternatives etc.

Another area where we traders tend to go wrong is that we focus only on the trades and not on our trading accounts! Compare this with our normal bank accounts - whenever we consider spending money we check whether we can afford it, if we have enough funds in our account to cover it and if there is enough left for other expenses, etc. We need to think of our trading account balance in the same way.

But when we trade we just think of the trade itself and how much we could make from it or lose from it (sometimes only the profit!). Our trading account balance should always be in our focus. The only objective here is that the balance grows, 3 steps fowards, 2 steps back, that is the nature of trading, but always gradually growing. The balance can never be allowed to shrink to a size where it is no longer possible to enter trades. Your car can’t run without fuel and your trading cannot continue without equity. You car with fuel can get you to where you want to go…and your equity can get you a better lifestyle.

So your account balance is your all and everything, not just your next trade. Nurture it, protect it, put in the effort and grow it. Then enjoy the fruits of your own work!

You should not feel ashamed or embarrassed of your mistakes - but you are allowed to feel a little proud of your success! :smiley:

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:smiley: I picked a sentence

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Thanks for sharing my humble journal @dushimes!

@toddfogal you got this! I hope you’re not beating yourself up too much! I used to do this thinking it will make me a better person or that I will improve and won’t make the same mistake but you know what, I could do all that without punishing myself mentally/emotionally! Be kind to yourself. :slight_smile:

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@toddfogal

Strange coincidence, I was just doing a bit of YouTube surfing and stumbled across -

’Disgust! The worst trading emotion!’- UKspreadbetting

The guy Mark is not too bad, I sometimes watch him, probably worth a look if you have the time.

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My man, you’re too much inside your own head. You need to take a step back and have a deep breath.

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so useful, i like this article