when I lose, most is caused by my fear and my un-disciplined bahvior. my mindset will be to seek certainity, I see a rally, I may sit there, wait and wait, wait too long, see the obvious trend or rally, then jump in. I see a drop, I may sit there too long, wait and wait, wait too long, see the obvious drop, then short. the more sure the trade looks, the better chance to lose. when I am doing well, I often jump in when I sense the market next wave, even I did not see the actual move yet. I am cold minded, no emotion attached to the trade, no money attached to the trade, know what I am doing, think logically and clearly. not maybe, or, possible. I will pass those obvious setups and look from another side. that is the best time of my trading. I am a trend trader, or directional trader. I do not bet either or. only those large breadown and breakup. and I trade options. when I start losing, I will fade trends. Do most uncomfortable trades will bring you back to winning. I am not comfortable to buy if it is dropping, or I am not comfortable to sell if it is ralling. but it helps.
What aspects of your trading are letting you down ?Big list here http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3673933#post3673933
they had a guy who would let you flip a coin, and look at it without letting him see it. And then you stated whether it was heads or tails. He would look at you and then guess if it was heads or tails. If he was right, you paid him a dollar. If he was wrong he paid you a dollar. I never saw him lose. And when he was on a roll he could just about clean you out.
the game became so gruelling, that you would fall into a pattern. If it was heads you'd say tails. And he would figure out that is what you were doing. So then you would just be truthful, and if it was heads, you'd say heads, and he quickly figured it out. Then you would lie one time and tell the truth the next time. And he would figure out that is what you were doing. No matter what, you just could never beat this guy. And it was all based on nothing more than a coin toss. But he was very good at reading what you were probably doing.
it never really mattered to him if the coin came up heads or tails, all that mattered to him was if you were lying or telling the truth.
Moral of the story: "95 of traders, lose. They just lose". Why? Because we are playing with a limited amount of money against a market containing effectively an unlimited amount of money. This is actually an argument in favor of gambling. You may be better off designing a strategy that exploits that random chance of great riches. Having achieved those riches, walk away, or you'll just give it all back again. "All I Do is Lose Money" Are you giving it all back? Oh my God! I'm starting to sound like EMG!!
once I tried to beat him by just calling heads on every toss. After an hour we were both about even. But even still, he was ahead by one or two dollars.