Honestly losses bother me much less than missing out on trades - particularly ones I saw coming and either couldn't get positioned for with a reasonable risk, entry missed by some minor amount of ticks, punked out by some stop run, or just simply wasn't available to take the trade. Now that kind of stuff definitely gets to me more than a simple wrong trade.
They quit. You won't be trading for long if you have no money that is how they cope, they close their account and find a real job or find other money making opportunities.
if add the time you put into your portfolio or trade and put $20/hour you spent on the trade, even if yo u sold at break even you've lost money. in business it's called other cost. not the cost you paid for the shares but other cost.
There is also one more way of dealing with losses. When you take a loss you usually feel like a loser. But you can change it. Just give yourself more testosterone and you will feel like a real man. How to do it? Just put your hands up like a winner. After that even blind peopel feel like a winner.
You mean like when getting mugged? Yeah, I know: http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en
About twice a year or so, I take all my trades, parse them, and graph them. Then I pull stats out of them. How many wins/losses? Avg percent of profitable trades, etc.. If you don't know which stats, use the ones that ninjatrader has on their back-testing platform. Learn what they mean (if you don't aleady). Then you will come up with some of your own. What does the equity curve look like? Does it look random as ever? Don't be afraid to admit that your strategy stinks. Those are facts you need to face head-on. The day may come that you are profitable. And, you will wish you had more capital. So, trim down on size if you are just testing live markets. You will also want to look at those times when you hung on way too long and took a bigger loss than you were supposed to. I guess everyone is different. But, for me it helps to sit and analyze what I've done. Get a measure of it. I like to say that if you don't know where you are.. then you probably are clueless to where you are headed. So, take some measurements..
Thanks everyone for the responses. Taking a loss without losing discipline will be a BIG step for me in becoming a profitable trader.
It is also important how you think about your losses. When you hate them then you just decrease your losses. In fact you should enjoy or at least accept your losses becuase they get you closer to profit. It requires some practice but if you do it properly then it is possible to achieve this state of mind.
remember that taking losses is also the same as taking profits. Cutting losses equals profit. The thing to avoid is to ride the loss all the way down to zero.