Trading can really suck sometimes.

Especially during those times where everything you touch turns out to be wrong. Those dark periods are part of the business, and unfortunately, it’s just a matter of time before you find yourself in the next trading drawdown.

Recently, I found myself in a very challenging environment. Choppy price action and quick shakeouts with no follow through.

I was ran into a long series of small losses, one after another, and not enough large winners to offset positively.

It’s time likes these, that one of my all-time favorite trading quotes makes its way to a post-it note stuck square on the middle of my desk for the month.

Never let a good drawdown go to waste

I love that quote. There’s so much wisdom packed into that simple sentence.

It reminds us that, not only do we need to learn how to accept drawdowns, but we really have to embrace them, and use them as an opportunity to emerge stronger and smarter than before.
 

Have a review process

The next time you find yourself in a trading drawdown, try implementing a review process. It’s easier said than done, but coming up with a list of questions ahead of time can really help.

This is especially important for discretionary traders, but it applies to everyone.

Here are some of the questions I ask myself:

• Is my strategy performing as expected given the current market environment?
• Has anything changed that invalidates my strategy / edge?
• Is there something I’m doing wrong? Have I broken any of my rules?
• Are these losses reasonable? Do I need to revisit my risk management rules?

By answering these questions, I’m trying to determine if this is expected volatility in my trading system, or if something has changed in the way markets are behaving that my system wasn’t accounting for.

Generally, this review process leads to one of two outcomes.

1. Slight tweaks to existing rules, nothing major, simply some housekeeping or optimizing.
2. Renewed confidence. Nothings wrong, the system is behaving just as I expect given what the market is throwing at it. Go out there tomorrow and execute without hesitation.

The less likely (hopefully) third outcome would be the realization that something is, in fact, wrong with the trading system or our own personal execution.

If this is the case, take a break from trading, and go back to the drawing board.

Identify what is causing problems and plug that leak before getting started again.

Research & development

When I find myself in a trading drawdown, I find diving into research very helpful.

Research could mean conducting some backtests, reading a new trading book, reviewing old trading notes, anything to get my mind off the current challenges and into new ideas.

This research may never find its way into my live trading, but more often then not it will help me ride out difficult times, and sometimes, spark some small adjustments or a better way to do things.
 

How to emerge from a trading drawdown

We’ll never be able to eliminate drawdowns from trading.

There are always going to be periods where we lose money due to normal volatility and occasionally from our own foolish mistakes.

Accepting this means that we need to be comfortable with some sort of review process that helps us identify and plug leaks when they surface.

The goal in that process is to make sure we never make the same mistake twice, and most importantly, never let a good drawdown go to waste.

Good luck out there!