We had another amazing day! I started my trading day listening to the squawk as I got ready. To me, there is no tool more valuable than audible alerts and news! I tell you that to show you that this is a life, not just a passion , hobby, or even career. During the time that we started taking trading seriously, we have met so many amazing people in the trading community! I couldn’t be more grateful. See, before I started this I was spending most of my days in a chair with a T.E.N.S. unit, ice pack, and heating pad. I also battled addiction with pain and anxiety medication. I have beat cigarettes, benzos, opiates, and even barbituates cold turkey. I got hurt in the Army back around 9/11/2001. Those injuries haunted me everyday until I decided to stop treating the pain and start beating the pain! I signed up for the Army right after 9/11. I couldn’t get to the recruiters office fast enough. I was shipped out within about a month. All that being said, I am not a hero and my injuries actually happened state side. I had told you before that I got my first stock back around the auto bailout. I also started paper trading Forex back at the same time. I was definitely not a trader by any stretch of the imagination. Over the years I started following a basket of stocks, some of which were penny stocks. I had thought that it was as easy as buying at the bottom and selling at the top. Seriously, I would do the math and say, “look what we could’ve made in $SPEX today Sara.” Fast forward to a couple years ago when we started actively trading daily. Right after we began the $SPY had a huge correction. Just like many others, we ran for the door instead of buying as much as we could. I believe we were up between 14%-18% before the losses started coming in. We had some huge winners early on like $1700, $2300, $1300. This is cause we were swinging for the fences. There is only one direction for an account being traded like that, DOWN! It wasn’t until I made RISK MANAGEMENT my primary objective, that we became consistently profitable. I stopped focusing on making money and began focusing on making good trades. Now it is far more exciting to follow my rules and respect my stop price than to “win” big. I have learned that consistency trumps all other things in the market. Huge winners are nearly always wiped out by huge losses. But that sweet spot in the middle is where it’s at. I no longer look at a stock as if it is going to the moon. Instead, I focus on predictable bite sized pieces. That being said, I am not a safe trader by any means. I trade the riskiest stocks I can find. I trade setups that would make most traders cringe. I believe being a static trader is a deadly disease, just as averaging down without max risk on the trade is. If you follow me in the market you will lose money. I can almost guarantee that. I do not believe in following any other trader’s crystal ball. If you don’t learn how to trade for yourself, you have no business trading!
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