Hi Jules, thought I might enter another perspective on things. It is never a good feeling when anyone has taken a beating from a starting point of good intentions.
When you understand what this conglomerate of a market is made up of - in terms of many and varied market participants, imperfect regulation and inequality - in order for anyone to survive (brokers, institutions and individuals alike) you need to have uncanny levels of devine luck or an accute understanding of what moves the prices of your investment.
Blind faith - for all it's pure and good intentions - is no better than blind luck in todays markets (or any market in history most likely). To make a go of it, keep small the number of stocks and know them exceptionally well. Be confident in going into them as much as being confident to say "thanks for the ride, but I've made a mistake".
There are some quite corners of the market, but on the whole everything is converted to a percentage, and 'alpha' is the only rule of this fight club.
My aim is not to win more times than I lose, but to win more than I lose. The probability of a winning trade only has to be 50%, but if you keep your losses to a minimum, and hold onto your profits, then you end up in front of the game. Focusing on this alone and not your win/loss rate does wonders for your confidence.
To me, this is much more important than only being right only some of the time. It's actually more profitable to anyone to know when they are wrong, and to act early.
I've made some absolute doozy of mistakes thinking that it's down 75%, it 'has to' come back. After thinking that it was only down 50% the day before that, only after first thinking when it was down 25% that I should sell.
The answer is always - limit your loss. If you were wrong to sell, you can always go back in. But you can't always get out. Stupid hey?
As for brokers, they can never be expected to think like you, or understand your needs. I prefer not to use one - but I do so understanding that it is my own peril.
