1. Always wait for the setup: No Setup-No Trade.
2. THE BEST trades work almost right away.
3. Never take a big loss. If it doesn’t ‘feel’ right. Remove it!
4. Always perfect your craft and sharpen your skills(good traders are constantly learning)
5. Be patient with winning trades: Impatient with trades that fight back.
6. DISCIPLINE is the key to winning at everything!
7. Never get emotionally attached to trades, trading, losses or profits.
8. Always trade with the size that makes you unemotional(emotional trading is the quickest way out of this game).
9. Keeps things simple and do not over-think or over-complicate your trading. LESS IS ALWAYS MORE.
10. Stay humble at all times.
Archives of “trading losses” tag
rssA Trader’s 5 Best Teachers
Trading Losses: There are two types of losses, one loss is caused by the market simply not being conducive for the profitability of your system. The other loss is due to your lack of discipline causing your system not to work. If you followed your trading plan and had a loss that is to be expected. If you are trading a proven and tested method then you have simply learned that taking a loss is simply part of trading. However if your breach of discipline caused your loss, whether not taking a stop, over riding your plan, not taking an entry, trading too big, etc. then it is time to learn why you had the loss. Ego? Fear? Greed? Overconfidence? Laziness? and many other things cause losses. It is crucial that you learn why you broke your trading plan so you do not repeat the mistake again.
Charts: Studying the past price action of charts is very educational. It will show you how prices have reacted at support/resistance levels in the past along with moving averages and any other indicators that you may choose. It is important that you understand how your market has historically traded whether it is currencies, commodities, stocks, or bonds. It is crucial that you learn how to identify a trend, a swing trade, and a range bound market. (more…)
Overcoming the top 10 Pains of Trading.
Here are 7 painful aspects of trading and what to do about them.
- The pain of losing money. (Trade smaller so it is not painful, it is just an outcome)
- The pain of being wrong about a trade you were sure about. (You lost simply because the market didn’t match your trade, trend followers lose money in choppy markets, swing traders lose money in trending markets, it’s the market not you.)
- The pain of a draw down in capital.(Even the world’s best money managers do not continually hit all time equity highs. Your path may look like this $10,000 to $20,000 to $15,000 to $25,000 to $20,000 to $30,000. Mine was rockier than most, and after blood, sweat and tears I am now able to trade with $250,000.)
- Consecutive trading losses hurt. They make you doubt yourself, your method, and your system. (You need to remember your winning trades, your winning years, or your back-testing, or paper trading of the method.)
- The embarrassment of public losses. You told everyone who would listen about a great trade, and you were wrong. (Never be overconfident in any trade, but always be sure of your stop loss.)
- The pain of of admitting you were wrong. (Cut your loss and move on to the next trade, trade reality not your ego.)
- Losing paper profits, you are up 20% on a trade then a massive whip saw takes back those profits in one move. (Take your trailing stop and move on to the next trade, there is truly no reason to cry over spilled milk.)
- You are following a guru and come to realize he truly is a salesman not a trader. (You stop following gurus and look to learn how to trade you yourself.)
- You buy a super hot stock that you have researched for many weeks then it goes down due to a bear market. (Only trade stocks long in up-trending markets)
- You start trading a system that did amazing in back-testing and promptly lose 10% of your account. (You have to stick with it so it can win in the long term, you may need to make slight adjustments in position sizing or stops to account for volatility that you may have missed.)
Whatever the pain, just don’t quit, there is gold to be found in trading right over the long term.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Let’s be brutally honest, there is no easy way to react to trading losses. If you are expecting me to give you a magic formula, then I am really sorry, as I don’t have one. Going trough losses is not easy because, for many, these are your hard earned money and of course it will be painful. However, every time you feel the pain from losing, you have gained new perspective to how “pain” feels like. From personal experience, I can honestly say this – it only gets easier because you start to know how your emotions will react and to a certain extend, you get immune to it.
Some would think that getting immune to losing is not a good thing. Agree, but you’re missing the point. When you are immune to losing, it is because you understand yourself better and you are better at managing your expectations and emotions. More importantly, when you are immune, you are emotionless and you can focus more on making rational decisions. And that is the ultimate goal of staying positive.
Twelve of The Biggest Trading Losses in History
If you are ever feeling down about your trading losses or feeling sorry form Ackman’s current disaster trades long J.C. Penney and short Herbalife then this article may put both of these losses into perspective. These losses really show how crucial it is to have a price level that will indicate that you were wrong and will need to stop out at. There is no reason to ever take a huge loss to your trading capital, position sizing, stop losses, and managing the risk of ruin is the first job of a trader, growing capital comes second.
“Two basic rules: (1) if you don’t bet, you can’t win. (2) If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet.” -Larry Hite
Here are 12 of the biggest trading losses of all time, heed the lessons of these tragedies and realize the traders on the other sides of these trades made a huge amount of money,
#12 German billionaire Adolf Merckle, one of the 100 richest people in the world, killed himself by jumping in front of a train—emotionally “broken” over a bad bet on Volkswagen in 2008.
Merckle’s business interests came out on the wrong side of 2008′s short squeeze of Volkswagen. Rival Porsche silently cornered the market on Volkswagen shares, and when they revealed the extent of their stake, the price of Volkswagen stock shot up to levels that made it briefly the world’s most valuable corporation. Many hedge funds who had bet against Volkswagen shares lost huge amounts of money, while Porsche made billions in profit. (more…)
A GOOD Trader WILL:
(EXERCISEEEE ! 🙂 )
1. Always wait for the setup: No Setup-NO Trade.
2.Knows that THE BEST trades work almost right away.
3.Never takes a big loss. If it doesn’t ‘feel’ right. Remove it!
4.Always perfecting his craft
5.Is patient with winning trades:Impatient with trades that fight back.
6.Knows that DISCIPLINE is the key to winning at everything!
7.Never gets emotionally attached to trades, trading, losses or profits.
8.Will always trade with the size that makes him unemotional
The Hidden Variable in Your Trading Success
Most traders realize that trading involves a lot of psychology. And most traders readily admit that a significant portion of their trading losses, or lack of performance, is due to “psychology”. Although the term ‘psychology’ isn’t always mentioned as an explanation, you can see it easily enough in the following statements ……”I froze just as I was about to pull the trigger”….. ”I hesitated and missed that trade and was so pissed that I got myself into an impulse trade right after”….. “That large loss was not what I wanted, I held it thinking it would come back because last time I bailed out of this type of trade I got stopped out right before it reversed”….. “I was really nervous about losing money again so I got out of my winning trade way before my target”
Those are four common examples of trading psychology issues manifesting in one’s trading. Do you recognize yourself in the above statements? (more…)
Expectation & Over Trading :Mistakes of Traders
Expectations that are too high, too soon. Beginning futures traders that expect to quit their “day job” and make a good living trading futures in their first few years of trading are usually disappointed. You don’t become a successful doctor or lawyer or business owner in the first couple years of the practice. It takes hard work and perseverance to achieve success in any field of endeavor–and trading futures is no different. Futures trading is not the easy, “get-rich-quick” scheme that a few unsavory characters make it out to be.
“Over-trading.”
Trading too many markets at one time is a mistake–especially if you are racking up losses. If trading losses are piling up, it’s time to cut back on trading, even though there is the temptation to make more trades to recover the recently lost trading assets. It takes keen focus and concentration to be a successful futures trader. Having “too many irons in the fire” at one time is a mistake.
‘A Trader’s Self-Evaluation Checklist’?
Are trading losses often followed by further trading losses? Do you end up losing money in ‘revenge trading’ just to regain money lost? Do you finish trading prematurely when you’re up money, failing to exploit a good day?
Do you cut winning trades short because, deep inside, you don’t think you’ll be able to make large profits? Do you become stubborn in positions, turning small losers into large ones?
Is trading making you happy, proud, fulfilled, and content, or does it more often leave you feeling unhappy, guilty, frustrated, and dissatisfied? Are you having fun trading even when it’s hard work?
Are you making trades because the market is giving you opportunity, or are you placing trades to fulfill needs — for excitement, self-esteem, recognition, etc. — that are not being met in the rest of your life?
Are trading losses often followed by further trading losses? Do you end up losing money in ‘revenge trading’ just to regain money lost? Do you finish trading prematurely when you’re up money, failing to exploit a good day?The Hidden Variable in Your Trading Success
Most traders realize that trading involves a lot of psychology. And most traders readily admit that a significant portion of their trading losses, or lack of performance, is due to “psychology”. Although the term ‘psychology’ isn’t always mentioned as an explanation, you can see it easily enough in the following statements ……”I froze just as I was about to pull the trigger”….. ”I hesitated and missed that trade and was so pissed that I got myself into an impulse trade right after”….. “That large loss was not what I wanted, I held it thinking it would come back because last time I bailed out of this type of trade I got stopped out right before it reversed”….. “I was really nervous about losing money again so I got out of my winning trade way before my target”
Those are four common examples of trading psychology issues manifesting in one’s trading. Do you recognize yourself in the above statements?
All four of those statements have in common one thing, fear. Whether it’s the fear of not being perfect, the fear of being wrong, fear of losing money, fear of missing out, the fear of not being approved by others, or some other fear, the common theme is fear. Most trading mistakes are a maladaptive attempt to deal with fear or anxiety.
Emotions like fear and anxiety cannot be eliminated; it is part of the human experience. But how you respond (your behavior, the action you take in response) to anxiety and fear will determine how successful you are as a trader. Some traders recognize this and do something about it; they learn to work with the fear and anxiety to reduce the chance that they’ll continue to fall into the same old behavioral response pattern to fear and anxiety. (more…)