It’s been a while since we’ve last spoken with community member “Etan” (alias in chat room), but there is quite a bit to report from our last conversation. Our previous interview had Etan with his ax to the grindstone paper-trading and fine tuning a trading strategy; however, as you’ll hear, life got in the way and knocked him off course. What I like best about all of this is Etan did not pull out the pity-party-card, he just adjusted and did what needed to be done. We once again have some interesting free flowing conversation… so by all means, please come be a fly on the wall.
Notes:
Today we revisit with community member Etan. He was focused on shorter term equity scalping and had paper traded for quite a long time with modest success. Unfortunately, his day job picked up very quickly so his time to trade had shrunk considerably so he decided to go back to his old style of swing trading after trying to trade futures.
Etan summed it up very well about how he had a lack of ‘chemistry’ with futures. When you are uncomfortable trading something, no matter what it is, you will not make rational decisions. Comfort in your trading is key and comes with practice and persistence.
What he really enjoys about options is that he can set and define his risk in advance. It is much less rigid and much more flexible than futures for him and this fit with his personality much better.
Etan is a big believer in logging not only his trades but his thoughts/feelings on the trade as well so that he can look back when he gets in a similar situation and recognize that it’s not as bad as he may think and that he has proven he is capable of managing this regardless of the outcome.
Quotes:
“It’s funny sitting at the table and seeing everyone with their emotions and how bad they get.”
“I tried futures and it did not work so well. It moved differently. The risk per tick was different. There was no chemistry for me.”
“I’ve been doing Advanced Options since before I even learned charting. So I papertraded and traded those for a couple years.”
“It’s a lot slower. It’s really just looking for support levels and resistance levels. It’s a lot less stressful for sure.”
“I just pull up the positions, check the probability of profit column to make sure I don’t have to do anything. Takes me 30 minutes or less.”
