by Ray Burke on January 18, 2013

All too often in the day trading business I find that people only focus on the entries rather than strong money management. the exit, and very important, trading psychology.  Throughout the past few months some of you know that I have quite the personal challenge in my life, I suffered a loss.  In day trading we will suffer losses as well, weve all been there and anyone who says they have not is NOT telling the truth.  All too often, and I am guilty of this too in the past, I let my losses get to me and in turn my trading account payed the price for my inability to let go.

This is where this post will get interesting; how are personal challenges and trading losses similar?  Well, simply put, they are both losses.  Frankly, the personal loss or challenge is ALWAYS greater than just losing money in my opinion, but when we do even get a string of losers, it seems like the end of the world.  Well guess what, it is not the end of the world when we have a bad trade!  Personally, my situation had me convinced that my life would never be the same, that it would never get better.  Guess again, it does get better if we take the right mental approach and learn to maintain a winning attitude toward our future as well as HAVE THE RIGHT TOOLS to help us.  Trading is the same way; even if we have a set of strong day trading signals. we will still have bad trades.  So whats the key to trading AND life survival?  Damage control!

For my recent life challenge I had to do a lot of damage control, so what did I do?  I hired a lawyer for the legal garbage and for the more emotional stuff I joined a group and spoke with a counselor.  I have a buddy of mine that went through the same crap with NO help, and you know what?  He toted that garbage for FIVE years before finally coming to grips with what happened, I know traders who have done the same thing with their account.  I chose to use TOOLS to help me get back on track as soon as possible; dont get me wrong, I still struggled, but I learned proper life management to cut my personal losses if you will.  Just like I have a futures trading strategy, I have a life strategy as well.

So what do we do for damage control on our day trading accounts?  Well, much like any other challenge that comes our way, maybe there is a tool to make it easier.  Fortunately for your futures trading strategy, there is a way to implement sound money management (or damage control for your account).   Sound money management regarding our position size in relation to our account and automated stop management could help you in letting go when you need to.  It actually can assist you in following that age old trading saying Let your winners run and cut your losers short.

I had to let go as a professional trader, the market will do what it will do.  How we manage our money and stops are all we can really control. This is what is going to help ensure our profitability on the good days and survival as well as mitigating losses on the bad days.  Heres my point: If you are having day trading challenges, stop beating your head against the wall and investigate some tools that may help propel you to day trading success!