Is Trading Your Passion?
By Cliff Clark
Why did you get into the trading business? Was it for the money? Are you trading because you think it will make you a lot of money. Is money the primary motive that got you into trading. I'm wondering what else you've tried in your life that was motivated by money.
I've found in my life that things I tried to which I was attracted by the lure of money seldom ever worked out. Why is that? Well, the lure of money was nice but when it came time to apply what needed to be done to earn that money I didn't really have the drive to follow through. It just seemed like work. I thought I was working hard but not making it. I was better off staying with my day job and earning a guaranteed pay check. The reason I failed at several attempts was because I didn't have a passion for doing the work that it took to be successful. I was just chasing the money.
So it is with trading. Trading is a really tough business. I don't believe anybody will be very successful unless they have a passion for this business. You have to be willing to put in the hard work. Are you willing to study for 2 to 3 hours after a hard stressful day of trading? Are you willing to spend and entire weekend doing a back test of different management strategies? How about spending every Sunday night scanning thousands of charts? Those are just some of the things that it takes to be successful in this business that most of you won't be willing to do. Unless you have a passion for trading meaning you live trading 24/7 you probably won't make it.
If you want to make a lot of money in this world the best way to do it is to find your passion. Something you live and breath. It may be trading or it may be something else. But all really ultra successful people I know have a passion for whatever business made them successful.
I tried and failed at three previous businesses because I didn't have a passion for them. When I found trading I knew I had found my passion. Even after finding my passion it took time and energy to become successful but it was easy because I loved what I was doing.
If you sit at your trading station everyday praying for the day to end and then turn off the computer until the next morning you probably don't have the passion to make it in this business. You might get to the point were you can grind out enough to pay your bills but is that what you really want? You can get a job that gives you benefits and not put up with the stress that trading puts on you. If trading feels like a grind to you, you might be better off moving on now and saving yourself a lot of time and money. You can use that time and money to find your true passion.
2 trades for me today with +1.5R total
1st Trade QCOM +2R
148.39/149.97 exit 143.25
12% gap down under pivot support and 50ma after a strong daily double top rejection,. I took it on a congestion breakdown with a fairly wide stop, leaving my 2R target 50c over its ATR, slow but consistent move down with great RW, hit my target on the penny before it bounced.
2nd Trade AQB -0.5R
9.40/9.70 exit 9.56
I rarely trade stocks under $10 and even more rarely short them. I liked this daily chart as it broke its uptrend channel and stayed under a strong 9.50 support line enough room to its daily 50ma. I entered after a pullback with a fairly wide stop but only 1/3 of its ATR used at the time. It failed to break down with the strong market open and stayed in a narrow range.
I actually broke my plan with this trade as I lowered my stop to a pivot where price made a big bounce earlier at 11am with a large seller sitting there. My thought was that if it breaks that level again then it will likely...
1 trade for (-1R)
I took a BD on QCOM. I was worried about the target being close to the daily range, so I took a tighter stop on the 2 min chart. I am looking through PTS right now, most of the examples have 2 options for where to put your stop. It looks to me like one of the stops would be at the bottom of the main consolidation area, and the other at the bottom of where there has been a shakeout or turnaround bar (if there has been one). Due to the daily range I took the tighter one on this. In hindsight it seems obvious to take the wider stop, but in the moment it looked ok.
I was then looking at the 15 min 3BP on QCOM, but the reason I used a tighter stop in the first place was because of the range. The 15 min 3BP would have needed to have gone even further than the wider stop on the 2 min BD, so I didn't take it.
