The hard truth – 7 Week Losing Steak

It is very hard to open up about my worst ever losing steak in my short 2+ year trading career, but I feel it’s important to do.  Therefore, I am going to bite the bullet and lay it out there.  My hope is maybe my experience will be beneficial to others.  But also, this blog is meant to help me grow as a trader and document my journey.  I need to document this for me as well. 

I recently came off of a 7-week losing streak that culminated with an unacceptably large 20K loss on CLSN on Oct 4th.  In total, I lost 46K during the 7 weeks.  All my gains for the year and then some were gone.  After that 20K loss on CLSN, I took two weeks off.  I was seriously considering throwing in the towel.  I was convinced I lost my “mojo” or that I never really had a good strategy in the first place.  For some reason, I no longer knew how to trade.  Anything I tired I screwed up.  I could not continue to sustain these kinds of losses.  I would eventually lose all my capital.  I was beyond frustrated and depressed.  I was losing my dream of becoming a profitable full-time trader and that tore me up inside.  Honestly, I hated myself. I knew, I knew better.  My big losses like CLSN were due to my stubborn stupidity once again.

Despite seriously considering quitting, I still went to Traders4acause.  I had already paid the registration so I figured I might as well go.  I went thinking that maybe I will learn something that would help me, as secret sauce maybe!  During the conference, I got to meet with a lot of other traders.  Some of those traders who are very experienced and well known.  I heard all kinds of different approaches to trading and risk management. Through those conversations, I realized that there is no secret sauce…at least not how us newer traders think of it!  There is no one strategy or approach that will make you successful.  I started to see first hand the thing that makes the great traders great.  It’s not some secret they know that I don’t.   It is their ability to admit when they are wrong.  It’s that simple.  It became evident by the end of the conference that everyone struggles with stubbornness, even the greats.  But the successful traders have learned to keep their stubbornness in check enough to let their winners outpace their losers.  They can bounce back from emotional defeat and start fresh.

I came back from the conference with a renewed spirit.  Ever since the conference, I have been doing all I can to climb back.  And let me tell you, It has not been easy.  Like I said, I hated myself for what I had done.  I broke my rules and it destroyed me.  I think I have overcome hating myself, but now I’m working on building back my confidence.  It has been over a month and I am still struggling with confidence.  I am working on it though.  I have sized way down and have been working as hard as I can to build my confidence back.  I believe I will get there but it will just take some time.

This experience has shown me that it is an unbelievably hard journey to climb back emotionally.  When pro traders say trading is 20% strategy and 80% emotional they are not kidding.  It has also shown me that it is unreasonable for me to think I can 100% eradicate my stubbornness or trading mistakes.  What I can control is how I bounce back from it, what I learn, and how I implement that to improve as a trader moving forward.  @AT09_Trader is a great example to me on how he came back from his DRYS loss and I am grateful he shared that with all of us.  Like him, I am not going to give up.  I will come back from this stronger than ever.  That is my goal and desire.  All is not lost.