If buying you bid a few ticks below and if selling offer a few ticks above. Or just bid or offer out. Think about this, if most semi successful traders (gross positive but net negative) could get the spread they would be successful. I am still on the hunt for the most consistent ways to loose money trading with out leverage. It is just a way to get get fresh ideas!
Not having a TIME limit, on profitable trades that get your target, find out what the "mean" amount of time it took for these trades to take. Over staying your welcome usually causes losses. If trend trader, and EMA is cutting thru middle of bars, that is chop. Have set amount of loss before being stopped out to make new target your original entry price. Breakouts normally come back to trendline or beyond to get rid of weak hands, often times this is best place to enter for first time. Revenge trading cause your pissed trade took you out at or one tick beyond your protective stop. Bored trading cause you want to be entertained instead of making money. Having 1-2 entry signals and not having 40 reasons of money management. Mistake trades and "hoping" they will come back, when hoping it means it is hopeless, just get out. Not have a back up brokerage account up and running if you lose feed, not having backup Internet, T1, cable, DSL and satelite, pick two. If you are scalping, using a smaller timeframe to get out of trade faster using Price action. Not using Elliot wave- meaning, if too deep into existing trend, chances are you will be last to the party. If you can't make a profit cause of the spread, really need to figure out different approach, it is so tough to maintain high degrees of concentration. Not putting on trades first hour of the day session, best movements normally. Don't trade just before a report. Slippage is a bitch. Unless you can make money several years in a row and trading size, not prudent to avoid stops. Unless your weekly losing percentages are under 10%, leveraging down is bad news for most. And when you do ave down, losses are staggering, so it must fit your personality and your account. Drawdown, if method you are using doesn't match your personality, you won't be able to sleep. When a signal is NOT a signal. Think of all the reasons when not to take that signal, bars expanding beyond the norm, world gov'ts, USA gov't, report coming out, 10.00pt one minute bar... Being lazy, do your own work, forums were to give us ideas, not step by step approachs. Leaving computer thinking you canceled all orders. Nervous twitch in thumb and then find out you have four times as many. Trading while drunk, flu, having sex and putting together Xmas bikes. Some had happy endings but all cost me money, LOL. These are from MY experiences.
trying to trade using someone elses method rather than spending the time understanding the market in a way that makes sense to you
That's easy, what else. Averaging Down and Praying for the next day to carry you through..... then when 4PM hit, you dont close, hoping it turns, next day, gap against you, then the loss gets bigger and bigger until you go POOF!
Not having a stop loss. That is, when trend trading, assuming overall market volatility hasn't jumped, odds are when your stop loss gets hit then there's no profit to be made staying in the trade any longer.