I lost really big on two different trades when I first started, wiped out all the gains. I lost money the first year, but it felt like I was getting the hang of it, so I continued. Been profitable for 4 years after that. Decent money, but not huge. My main focus is still value microcaps. I'm profitable on a little more than 60% of my daytrades. That's the biggest thing to deal with: your own ego. I always wanted to be "right". I don't think that way any more. I have plenty of losing days, but they are not massive. I have losing weeks. Haven't had too many losing months, but occasionally.
A lot of it really is mental. Position sizing is very important too. I think you're using about the right size. You'll probly have a couple of weeks where you really kill it and want to triple your size becuz you're a genius!! haha, don't. Start small and stay small for about a year or so. Even now, I rarely take larger than a $20k position, and I don't truly risk but a small portion of that.
Examples: If I'm buying a breakout at $1.34, my stop might be $1.32. Most of my winning breakout buys are never in the red. They should be green and stay green, or it's likely to be a failed breakout. If it doesn't move instantly, I'll likely get out. So I have a time-stop on breakouts as well. Yep, you can count on having plenty of times where you sell at $1.32 and that is the absolute bottom and it runs to $1.78 by the end of the day. That's okay, there will be some of those. You can survive those. What you can't survive is not selling at $1.32, then averaging down at $1.18, then it finishes the day at $.89 And then you convince yourself to hang on until tomorrow becuz maybe it will come back, etc., etc. It just cascades. It's only numbers, it's not your ego. You'll be wrong a lot. Get used to it. It's not a math test in elementary school where you're trying to get 100% on the test. I think the biggest problem is our upbringing. Getting 60% on a test is almost failing. 60% winners in trading can be just fine. Don't try to be perfect.
One of my favorite lines is: to make money, you have to learn how to lose money.
I congratulate myself when I take a small loss and stick to my plan.
Hope some of that helps.
