I Finally Quit!

April 16th, 2024.

Just over a year from when I started this journey.

Yet another Apex account blown.

Today’s the day I quit. I’m so done with this “process” and this “journey”. I just don’t have the mental capacity to try and do this part-time (or probably even full-time). Trust me on my technical abilities, I built an entire framework and have a database of nearly every statistic of Asia, RTH, and European futures sessions. But when I get stopped out on literally every 50%+ setup, I’m just sick of the whole thing and I start to tilt, and I just want to get my money back. Hell, I think even if I went with a long-only or short-only strategy today I still would have lost money. Go figure.

The market is like this. For everyone who made money on the big 300-point trend down day yesterday, the market seeks to take the profits of all of them back today. I did have an inkling to not trade at all today, but who am I kidding, after a session like yesterday? We should have a big move again today! (If my model has even just the slightest edge). But no, 2 hours in and we’re just slopping 80 points up and down in the most painful way possible, just destroying stops. It’s truly stupid. And so I’m done, I’m out.

I was spending a large majority of my free time looking at red and green candles move about, and on days like today, a lot of up and down but not really going anywhere. Only to get both stressed, and lose money? Sounds like a shit deal, sorry. For some, trading may be worth it to continue to pursue, but I’ve finally been broken. Sure, a year of effort was “wasted” on my part. But it could be much worse - I’ve spent many more years on many other failed projects… but that’s a story for another time.

In the end, I totaled:

• 18 trial accounts, 3 of which I successfully converted to PA accounts

• 3 PA accounts, each one blown before payout

• 1 good month in 2023 in my personal futures account where I netted ~$3K

• A net loss of nearly 20K considering all costs and account losses

It was a pleasure and I learned so much about markets… but just never enough to control myself or feel confident enough in my edge or models.

I wish you all the best of luck and mental fortitude to continue. As for me, I’m truly content riding off into the sunset, another statistic of the 90% who fail at trading…

-Chris