Trading Futures in Croatia – Sim Time!

After 2 weeks of trading on the simulator we get a glimpse of what it is like to be a futures trader. It’s early days yet for results but we’ve experienced the full range of emotions, from excitement of winning to confusion, panic, hope caused by market’s fast movement and the occasional losing streak.

The first two days went very well. My numbers were positive. Beginners luck or is this trading stuff easy? Exactly as I caught myself thinking that trading may not necessarily be that hard, things immediately became more difficult. Those first few days were kind to me, but it was time to meet the other side of the game – loss and loathing.

The losses came hard and I had to begin wrestling with the emotions of hope and fear. Even though losing is not easy to accept, it’s actually not that bad for us at this stage at all. Our mentors tell us that we can learn much more from losing than from winning. If you win from day one, your discipline isn’t tested. Your resolve isn’t tested. Your personal inner strength isn’t tested. It’s a trap to think you know something, especially as a trainee. When you analyze losses, you have to think more about why you lose, why that one specific trade went against you, and what you can change. You need to take time to analyze the numbers and scenarios and figure it out. To quote Reminiscences of a Stock Operator “When you know what not to do in order not to lose money, you begin to learn what to do in order to win. You begin to learn.”

We are in this stage of finding out what not to do in order not to lose. Part of that is reviewing our trades.

At the end of every day we spend time reviewing our trading performance with our senior traders and mentors. Even though we are down most days and our sheets are filled with losers, they are supportive and satisfied with our results as long as we follow the rules. They get very grumpy and lecture us when we don’t follow the rules. They share their wisdom with us daily and push us for better results. The biggest focus is on following the rules and being disciplined in our approach.  As trading is a career where discipline is an integral part of becoming successful. Being disciplined is one of the most important aspects we work on, specifically, know the rules and follow the rules. They tell us that positive numbers will come if we can just do that. I hope so. All these losses suck!

It’s winter holiday time soon so we will be winding up the year shortly. We’re looking forward to an old Positive tradition: the annual football/soccer game, as well as end of year party. Woohoo! So don’t worry we’ll be back in the new year to share more thoughts and experiences on what it’s like being a futures trader at Positive Equity. In the meantime happy holidays to you and yours. See you next year!