I have been actively trading for 5 years. I have followed the market for 25 years.. I have tried trading covered calls, medium and high beta stocks (ex — AApl, SBUX ,CELG, TSLA. I have tried intraday trading options -no luck. It seems like every I “perceive” an opportunity I jump — just that I seem to be extremely inconsistent. I have a hard time cutting losses when I’m wrong (and since I usually do this with options — the losses mount rapidyl).
Any suggestions?
@MikeBellafiore
Consistency, how to be more consistent, is a common challenge in the trading community. Let me offer some thoughts on how you can become more consistent as a trader.
1) Learn how to trade. The first 8 months of your trading career, if not two years, should be dedicated to learning. PnL should not be a concern. Learning actually how to trade should be. Build a solid trading foundation.
2) Trade strategies that have edge. There is definitely edge that can be found trading high beta stocks with technical analysis. I have seen and know many traders who utilize this strategy. The other strategies are at best what I would call “soft edge”, meaning only the best in those niches will succeed.
3) Give it some time. I wonder if you gave high beta stocks enough time or just jumped to the next strategy. When you learn a strategy you are learning to chunk trading data. This is important. Of all the data in the trading universe you are breaking it down to much smaller bits. Excellent.
Said another way, you are learning trading patterns, worth study. Terrific. But, and this is a big but, you must next turn knowledge of these patterns into skill- the ability to trade them profitably in real-time. This takes time, experiment, mistakes, corrections, coaching, mentoring, review, data crunching, reps, and restudy. And it takes nothing less.
4) Hit your losers. There is no such thing as a consistent trader who does not limit their losses on their losing positions. You will need to fix this if you want to become a consistent trader. Before every trade you must determine a stop loss and stick to that stop loss.
For more on trading consistently, please watch the video below where I dive deeper into this issue.
*no relevant positions
