Your back is against the wall as a trader. Simply, you need to make money. You feel the pressure. The economic strain is a reality. Failing at your dream job is a time period away. That thought is crushing, perhaps soul-crushing.
How can you turn this around?
Let me share a turnaround story from our trading desk.
We sat in our SMB management weekly meeting discussing a veteran trader at the prop firm. He was doing so poorly. He had had significant periods of success, but it just wasn’t happening for this trader end of 2018. His losses were starting to pile up. And none of this made sense as this trader can trade. Moreover, he was an important member of our firm, who we needed to do well.
Shoulders slumped, empathy for this trader’s underperformance, and deep concern for this trader of his under-performance choked the oxygen in the room, while we fretted what we had to do next. We needed to deliver the message.
That message was: you need to start performing.
That message was delivered AND with a buffet of suggestions for improvement and a full offering of help.
A quarter of trading passed……
We sit in our training room during a monthly review as this same trader presents his monthly review. Many of the same players who sat in that management room concluding a message needed to be delivered are participating in this review. This time the room was filled with….. joy. We could not be happier for this trader who had turned his trading around.
Our Floor Manager praised the trader for his turnaround. Our trading coach stressed the specific improvement this trader had made. I beamed at the role modeling this trader had done for how you turn your trading around.
What a terrific job by this trader!
How did he do it? In his words:
- trader decreased size and let the stocks breathe more with a wider stop
- losses were kept in check
- improved not fighting the trend
- let the trades come to him and didn’t have to be the first person in
- stopped trading the Open
Notice that trader made effective changes to turnaround his trading results. Even those with ability experience such challenges and tests from the market. There are often solutions. And those solutions need to be found.
*no relevant positions
