The Art of a Loss

I have been fortunate to have some of the best trading days, months of my life this year. With that being said I have also had some of the worst losses of my trading career. I am currently in one of the biggest slumps of trading this year. I go up and down 5k but cannot seem to be very consistent right now.

As I continue to churn my p&l I have noticed that I have gotten away from the roots of my trading. In order to be up over 300% this year a few things have had to happen. For one it had to be an outstanding market. By now I am positive most of you know about the enormous run up in Bitcoin which brought the rest of the market along. This hype cycle was one of the biggest opportunities for growing a small account quickly. As always I would do anything to go back and play it differently but it is what it is.

To grow my account to this size I also needed to take the opportunity at hand and go at it guns blazing. That is exactly what I did. I went in and hit everything with size taking enormous risk knowing that this was going to be a moment in my trading career that would make or break me. Since I didn't have anything anyway I found little risk in going all in.

Unfortunately all good times come to an end. As I chop around without real consistency right now I have realized that I am not trading with a designed set of rules, and this is costing me. It is easy to be emotionally stable during good times, it is the times like these that shine light on your flaws. As I grow as a trader I am always looking for things to implement so I can excel in my trading.

I wrote this post in hopes to show traders, especially those that are younger, that the good days are not there to stay. Trading is a business and should be treated as one. There are ups and downs and these draw downs should be calculated and controlled. When things are not going well it is because you are not doing the right things for the environment you are in and need to adapt. I also am bringing to the light that trading is not a glorious profession. One day it may be the most rewarding job, just to turn around and become the most discouraging profession the next day. How you deal with these times is what defines your career.

Feel free to leave questions in the comments below!

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