This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

So I did a really boneheaded thing today. After trading without any luck this morning, and losing -2.6R over 5 trades in CFC, I was mad. I was mad that I had smacked CFC around yesterday and it was “beating” me today, and I felt like I could scalp the money back. This was after 3:00 pm already, on an OPEX Friday. I traded, lost a lot and gained a little, and then doubled my size, and lost more. During all of this, I kept very tight stops, but when I came to my senses I had traded 8 more times and lost another -3.4R, making today’s loss -6R overall. Based on the $ sizing, today I gave back -6.5% on my equity because I chose not to leave it alone and stop trading. I am responsible for these trading results. Boneheaded choice, no? At least I still ended the week up 4.3%.

This wasn’t a “Keep Swinging” problem, because you don’t size bigger when you’re down. That’s backwards. So I’m going to learn from this lesson so that my tuition money isn’t wasted. I will not open positions after 3:00 ET, only manage open ones. I will also only “Keep Swinging” if I see a defined setup. I will not increase my size when I’m down. I will not scalp blindly, but only in combination with a good setup and tape reading. I knew the action was aimless and random, and I had no business gambling to make my money back.

My biggest problem is that I hate to lose, period. I’ve made peace with the fact that every trade can’t be a winner, even though it took me a while. Now I’m battling with myself that every day can’t be a winner! I need to accept that I will have some losing days–I can’t be green every day! My goal should be to end every week in the green; I believe that is achievable. There’s nothing wrong with losing, just losing big. There’s nothing wrong with being wrong, just being wrong big! I should have walked away, and next time I will. I can’t imagine how much harder this must be for someone who trades for a living and has pressure to take money out of the market to pay the bills. There is no urgency in my trading, other than the urgency of wanting to get enough capital to trade full time.

I share all of this for juxtaposition next to my results from yesterday. It shows how much I’m still a novice trader, and that my personal discipline and psychology need work, even if some of my techniques are starting to improve. See what I mean when I say that ol’ Jesse Livermore and I have something in common? With me, you’ll get the good and the bad–it’s “reality internet”. I’m really mad at myself, but that won’t do any good, so I’ll refocus my anger into discipline, and come back ready to look for quality setups on Monday.

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com