I think you guys are overlooking the fact that I've been at this for five years. It wasn't this week that has me frustrated, but it has been the straw that broke the camel's back.
Time to be totally open about my trading history:
I tried 1 trade a week. In fact, I tried it for four years. I didn't once come away with a winning month with that strategy. Not one single winning month. I would say I averaged probably an 80-90% losing rate with 1 trade a week. (Basic rules: Trade only Tues/Wed/Thurs, only if price is @ daily/weekly support or resistance, in line with market flow/fundamentals, drawing fibs on 1hr+ timeframes).
So, that not working, I figured I'd switch it up and see if that helped. And it did. I switched to what I'm doing now about a year ago, and I immediately went from consistent losses, to consistent (albeit very small) gains. 10-15 pips a week, at most. (Basically, my average gain is in the 50-60 pip range, but each win is accompanied by several 5-10 pip losses).
I thought I'd be able to increase my consistency to the point where I could confidently bring home 50-80 pips a week. There have been a few weeks where I've done this, but I've never had a 200 pip month. I always seem to give it back in tiny 5-10 pip increments.
Now here is the real issue: I'm exhausted. Utterly, and completely exhausted. Even after a full week off I haven't really recovered from my exhaustion. My relationships with friends and family are strained simply because I've been unable to put in any time or effort to actually see the people I care about, and when I do manage to see them I am too tired to be fun, exciting, interesting, or a good time in general. My performance at my day job is absolutely abysmal, because I'm too exhausted to put in the energy required to do it. My trading performance is abysmal, because I'm too exhausted to put in the effort required to do proper analysis (this thread was supposed to help with that - and it did help a LOT when I had the energy to put together a comprehensive analysis).
Basically, everything in my life is going poorly simply because I am too tired to successfully do... anything, really. Any down time I have is spent sleeping. I haven't really done anything fun in years. No vacations, nothing. Something has to give, and I know that, so I tried my damndest to get to the point where it was my day job that I got rid of, but it looks like my efforts weren't enough. My drawdown over the past weeks (losing maybe 10-15 pips a week?) has gotten me to the point where I can break even on my deposit to my account. I'm not ahead, and I'm not behind. Knowing that had I instead left my deposit in a crappy savings account earning maybe 1% I would be further ahead than I am now is an extremely depressing bit of knowledge, and I think is the biggest signal that this isn't for me.
I think half a decade is long enough to have considered giving trading a fair shot, and is a long enough time for me to concede that I will not be able to do it as a career. The hard part now, is coming to terms with the fact that I haven't succeeded at something I've dedicated so much time to; and that it doesn't make me a failure as a person.
So, unless I have a massive change of heart over the weekend, it's extremely unlike that I'll be continuing with trading. Thanks for all the kind words and support, and best of luck to you all!
Time to be totally open about my trading history:
I tried 1 trade a week. In fact, I tried it for four years. I didn't once come away with a winning month with that strategy. Not one single winning month. I would say I averaged probably an 80-90% losing rate with 1 trade a week. (Basic rules: Trade only Tues/Wed/Thurs, only if price is @ daily/weekly support or resistance, in line with market flow/fundamentals, drawing fibs on 1hr+ timeframes).
So, that not working, I figured I'd switch it up and see if that helped. And it did. I switched to what I'm doing now about a year ago, and I immediately went from consistent losses, to consistent (albeit very small) gains. 10-15 pips a week, at most. (Basically, my average gain is in the 50-60 pip range, but each win is accompanied by several 5-10 pip losses).
I thought I'd be able to increase my consistency to the point where I could confidently bring home 50-80 pips a week. There have been a few weeks where I've done this, but I've never had a 200 pip month. I always seem to give it back in tiny 5-10 pip increments.
Now here is the real issue: I'm exhausted. Utterly, and completely exhausted. Even after a full week off I haven't really recovered from my exhaustion. My relationships with friends and family are strained simply because I've been unable to put in any time or effort to actually see the people I care about, and when I do manage to see them I am too tired to be fun, exciting, interesting, or a good time in general. My performance at my day job is absolutely abysmal, because I'm too exhausted to put in the energy required to do it. My trading performance is abysmal, because I'm too exhausted to put in the effort required to do proper analysis (this thread was supposed to help with that - and it did help a LOT when I had the energy to put together a comprehensive analysis).
Basically, everything in my life is going poorly simply because I am too tired to successfully do... anything, really. Any down time I have is spent sleeping. I haven't really done anything fun in years. No vacations, nothing. Something has to give, and I know that, so I tried my damndest to get to the point where it was my day job that I got rid of, but it looks like my efforts weren't enough. My drawdown over the past weeks (losing maybe 10-15 pips a week?) has gotten me to the point where I can break even on my deposit to my account. I'm not ahead, and I'm not behind. Knowing that had I instead left my deposit in a crappy savings account earning maybe 1% I would be further ahead than I am now is an extremely depressing bit of knowledge, and I think is the biggest signal that this isn't for me.
I think half a decade is long enough to have considered giving trading a fair shot, and is a long enough time for me to concede that I will not be able to do it as a career. The hard part now, is coming to terms with the fact that I haven't succeeded at something I've dedicated so much time to; and that it doesn't make me a failure as a person.
So, unless I have a massive change of heart over the weekend, it's extremely unlike that I'll be continuing with trading. Thanks for all the kind words and support, and best of luck to you all!