[brownsfan019]

Here's the problem if he takes the job - he'll always wonder 'what if...'

Which of course can lead to a new form of stresses.

I suggest following your heart. You get one life to live. Do what makes you happy. For me, that means I cannot work for a corporation. Tried it and it destroyed me from the inside.

The safe option is obviously the job. While the markets will always be here, you also can't buy the time back that you lose either.

[torero]

Brown, you're the greatest! Always thinking out of the box, can't go wrong with that!

It's a tough choice. If you have need to trade support your expenses, it's a big order and lots of stress. You have to prove yourself you can do that first and be comfortable with it before taking the plunge. This stress will show up eventually in your trading at crunch time near end of the month. The outside factors will cause undue emotional stress and it may get to you.

You can always continue to study the markets in the meantime. Record the market session and view them after work or on weekends. Using this technique and paper trade it. The other option is you can trade the first hour before heading off to work.

Either way, good luck on a tough decision.

If the job is a relative sinecure, that easily and comfortably puts $$$ on your family's table, then by all means, go for it.

But if it really doesn't make you happy, you'll soon be disillusioned and leave anyway.

It all depends upon your goals in life. Make money, feed your family, and be happy.

[Dogpile]

thanks for the input fellas.

I have this post-it on my computer which I got from a great book I read "Trading In The Zone" by Douglas.

Fear <==== Correct Mindset ====> Reckless

could also read as,

Insecurity <==== Correct Mindset ====> Overconfidence

I find myself drifting from one side to the other of this little balance. I have learned to control this somewhat by using mechanical strategies for entries and instant hard stops on all trades.

I have a few years worth of mortgage money saved. I do make money every month --it is the intra-month dry spells that cause stress. Actually, the real cause of the stress is the seeming random factor at work in the market. I love my set-ups -- but there is a certain randomness to how they work over the course of a week or a month because of the stop-loss factor. Sometimes your stop works by a few ticks and you make big money. Other times you get stopped to the tick and you lose. Other times you are just off on your gameplan and you stop out quickly and happy you did cause the market takes off in the other direction. I do truly believe in stops. There is just this funny game I play with the market for that percentage of your overall trades where the market tries to hunt down your stop before proceeding with what it wants to do. Sometimes your stop holds, other times it doesn't. This has been a never-ending process of how to set stops. But I chat with traders every day on this and this happens to everyone so I know its not just me. So you go on some run where you just feel cursed. Other times, your stop holds and you feel like you are a fine-tuning monster.

Thanks again all. Always good to work on some psychological stuff -- such a big part of this biz.

[brownsfan019]

Dog - it sure sounds like you are advanced in this wonderful biz, so I would caution you to abandon ship now. I mean, you sound like you are at a point that others dream of achieving & obviously paying the bills right now is not a concern (which can often lead to immediate failure). Just learn how to deal with the stress a tad more and I think you'll be fine. I would not give up now, it sounds like you are close by how refined your last post was. Many noob's could never write something like that.

[jperl]

Originally Posted by Dogpile »

Sometimes your stop works by a few ticks and you make big money. Other times you get stopped to the tick and you lose. Other times you are just off on your gameplan and you stop out quickly and happy you did cause the market takes off in the other direction. I do truly believe in stops.

Well Dogpile, since you raised the issue of stops, let me suggest you learn not to use them. If you were a newbie, I would of course tell you to use them, but you're not a newbie, so you need to learn some advanced techniques of trade management that allows you to turn a losing trade into a winner. I used to use stops all the time and was slowly bleading to death. Eventually, I learned how to do scale ins and reversals. That got rid of the slow blead. To do this requires that you change your mental set with regard to loss. You need to develop the idea of risk tolerance. How much of your capital are you willing to risk on any one trade. Once you do that, you can better manage your trades. Stops if you use them at all should be relegated to safty stops, far from your entry in case your whole system crashes due to power failure.

JERRY

[brownsfan019]

Originally Posted by jperl »

Well Dogpile, since you raised the issue of stops, let me suggest you learn not to use them. If you were a newbie, I would of course tell you to use them, but you're not a newbie, so you need to learn some advanced techniques of trade management that allows you to turn a losing trade into a winner. I used to use stops all the time and was slowly bleading to death. Eventually, I learned how to do scale ins and reversals. That got rid of the slow blead. To do this requires that you change your mental set with regard to loss. You need to develop the idea of risk tolerance. How much of your capital are you willing to risk on any one trade. Once you do that, you can better manage your trades. Stops if you use them at all should be relegated to safty stops, far from your entry in case your whole system crashes due to power failure.

JERRY

That's one theory Jerry.

I personally would never put on a trade w/o a hard stop. Takes those emotions right out of the trade when stops are placed in a protective position. And by protective I mean where your position has a 'get out' place that is respected and protective in case of power failures. Stop placement is just as crucial as the entry and exit, if not more; however I would never recommend trading w/o one.

[Dogpile]

<<you need to learn some advanced techniques of trade management that allows you to turn a losing trade into a winner.>>

hey man, that is good stuff. I would also like a magic potion that allows me to sleep with Hollywood actresses on the down-low.