New Personal Record – 4 Days In A Row With Losses (Trading Downturn)
This has been a pretty bad week for my day trading. Yesterday, Thursday, I recorded my 4th day in a row with losses. The loss was significant as well. I couldn’t remember the last time I had 4 days in a row! Looking through my records I discovered this is the first time it has happened in my 12 years day trading career. Still, I’m in black for the month, and my swing trading is going well (I’ll get back to that in July with my results), but this still makes me a little worried. 2011 until 2012 was miserable day trading, but I changed my style completely in mid-2012 and have done well since then. However, the last 4 days have shown a complete change in many stocks. Is this just a short-term pattern? Will it continue? This is the big unknowns of trading. I believe much of this is related to more focus on interest levels. I trade mostly boring stocks and a lot of those are sensitive to interest levels.
However, what I feel quite confident about is that after so many days with losses a very good day will just be around the corner. Those always come about when I feel pessimistic. This is just the way markets are!
FAQ:
– Is it common to experience a series of consecutive losing days in day trading?
Experiencing several consecutive losing days in day trading can happen, but it’s not typical, especially if you’ve been trading successfully for an extended period. Each trader encounters losing streaks at some point.
How can you deal with a series of losing days in day trading?
Dealing with consecutive losing days in day trading requires resilience and confidence in your trading strategy. It’s important to stay focused, review your trades for possible adjustments, and maintain a positive mindset. Losing streaks are part of trading.
– Is a short-term pattern of losses a cause for long-term concern?
Short-term patterns of losses are not necessarily indicative of long-term performance. Markets can exhibit changes and uncertainties, but skilled traders often recover from losing streaks and find profitable opportunities.
Sometimes there is one sign series. It’s probability theory… It’s hard to say what is the length of the series… I hope your main strategy continues to be right and profitable for long-term.
I suppose you are aware of the huge jump in the USD this past week, after Bernanke’s talk, implying that interest rates will start going higher in the not too distant future.
Maybe that’s what affects your interest rate-sensitive stocks..?
Oh yes, I’m aware of that!
Can you talk a little about changing your style in mid 2012? I thought I kept up with your posts but don’t remember you mentioning that. You are still primarily looking at mean reversion strategies with time stops?
Thanks for the great blog.
Hi,
Yes, I’ll write about my daytrading since 1. july 2012.
Actually, I got 5 days in a row with losses. And the last week was 4 days in a row with very nice profits. This shows the importance of not reducing the size after losses. Last week gave 3x times more profits than the previous week’s losses.
Oddmund,
How did you completely change your trading in 2012?
Hi, I made more and different strategies based on different parameters.