1 is integral to trading, future uncertainty will always be there even after a trader achieves good profitability.
Rest are irrelevant. We will have losses, we will be wrong, we will not get every move, we will give back profits. This is also integral to trading. Edge is proven only after all of this we still have : profits – loss = good positive number.
This is how trading works, its probabilistic, out come of any 1 trade and even a series of trades in short run is very much random and we have no control. It takes a lot of time and experience for this kind of mindset to sink in, and further in my case it only happened once i actually had concrete proof of edge.
Have you backtested this ? How many trades have you taken ? Do you really know for sure that what you are trying to do has an edge in backtest? Do you understand that edge fully and know your numbers ?
Without that, you are supposed to have psych issues. Mind knows.
For some reason, we tend to overestimate our analysis when not trading/paper trading but as soon as live trading starts reality bites. I have seen this a few times when i was struggling. So you got to test your rules without error and be sure that it works. And you have to do this yourself.
Make a clear cut plan – no ambiguity. Don’t change this plan midway when testing it otherwise that never ends. And only way to know if a set of rules has an edge is to test it without error and then see the numbers.
Cut down capital and position size to something you don’t care about ( or least possible ). Then just execute. Don’t look at pnl, dont care what happens, only focus on execution. A famous trader traded with only 1 lot for over a year and eventually turned the corner in this way.
Only when you have data for say a year or more, look at the numbers and see if you have edge. Even 1 year is not really enough even for intraday but generally it should give some indication. Multiple years backtest + say a year of forward test would be much better.
If no edge, then change system. Advantage of backtest is that you can do an imperfect but still valid test much more quickly. If there is no edge in backtest, then there is no edge for certain. But reverse is not quite true, live trading is worse than backtest, but atleast you will have some proof that it might work.
Yes, we cannot depend on trading for salary type income. Not possible as we can have long periods of drawdowns.
So you need a source of income or some sort of support system to pay the bills. Having large capital can also help.
Even after you become profitable, dont consider trading as salary substitute. Its more of an investment substitute and at best you can hope for is yearly salary and even that is not guaranteed – markets are competitive and they can change.
Good luck …