Reviewing your own performance is a critical element to sustained profitability. If you take a minute to recall the most important trading moments from 2015 you’ll likely be thinking of your biggest wins, biggest losses, or biggest missed opportunities. For me, those memories only cover a tiny fraction of my trading activity – so the real lessons worth learning (or reminding yourself of) are found by going back to my day to day and month to month trading results to find out what the most important trading moments from 2015 really are.
One phrase that came to mind even before I started an in-depth analysis of the past year was this – I came into 2015 with nothing to lose and I leave it with something to protect. January to April was a period of very high trading volume and very aggressive trading which inevitably led to emotions running high and out of control a few times. But it was also a period of great learning as my plan and emotional discipline evolved and became more refined, stronger, and clearer.
May through September I capitalized on what I had experienced in the previous four months. My number of trades came down and the days were often less exciting. I had trimmed the fat through hard work and was rewarded in kind. I could say that good things never last – maybe I believed that at one point – but if this year has taught me anything, it’s that good things can last as long as you want them to. Perhaps more accurately I could say that I let myself become too complacent and resistant to change which threw me back into a rough patch as 2015 drew to an end.
In many ways I ended 2015 not so different from how I started it. Trading more, bouncing around trying different things, and always trying to find what was working and what was not working. It’s hard to point to a single catalyst as I went from the top of my game to one of my longest drawdowns from October through year end. I think I went from changing too little to changing too much too quickly. I am confident that ultimately I will be far better off in the long run for forcing these changes upon myself.
All of that aside, it was a good year overall with some incredible highs and a few deep lows. Adversity was a good teacher though and I have learned a lot with plenty more to come in 2016.
As a final takeaway, it is worth noting that all aspects of your life play some role in your trading performance. I have found that sometimes the answer to getting out of a drawdown comes from changing or fixing something seemingly unrelated to trading. Everyone is different, and though as traders we experience many of the same problems, the solution may be very different for me than for you. Don’t hesitate to do what you feel you must to continue growing as a trader, and the only one who can find out what that is, is YOU.
