%% Sounds like as a student, with $15 k-- you should not risk $150 @ all.One important trading principle; NEVER risk money you cant afford to lose. You may have noticed patterns this. For example SPY , even in a good uptrend swings 1% all the time.[ To tight stops are counter productive but with low or no commissions you can do it that way.] As you make more profits, losses sting less. I like trends like QQQ+ related; it pays to use wider stops sometimes with a good trend.[Even though qqq is diversified to trade/invest in that alone; I do more than that + took some qqq profits today.] Any part time trading work is more risky/but you seem careful...……………………..
Focus on getting consistent and only then scale up. Without consistency, risking more will only mean you will be losing your money at a faster rate.
%% Even with a hi% hit rate like 97%+ thats seldom seen; easy to be wrong more than 3 months in a row. Good thing about blowing up an account when young; maybe can replace an account. ANY, stock, any etf, any derivative has risk/ but thats life. AGAIN/ do not risk anything you, especialy op/student, can not afford to lose. Drawdowns are not losses, with good etfs; but with single stocks, could be drawdown into bankruptcy/DAL/LEH/GM...…………………………………………………………...
The maximum amount that a trader can risk in one deal without compromising his long-term prospects is 2% of his deposit. We are talking now about long-term profitable trading. Most amateurs have small accounts and the 2% rule breaks the dream of big profits. Most successful professionals, on the other hand, consider the 2% limit to be overstated. They do not allow themselves to risk more than 1% or even 0.5% in one deal. The 2% rule reliably limits the damage the market can do to your account. Even five or six losing trades in a row can't significantly impair your prospects. In any case, if you are playing in order to have good statistics to attract investors, you will hardly want to show 6% or 8% of monthly losses. If you have reached this limit, stop playing until the end of the month. Use this time off to re-evaluate yourself, your methods and the market. You need to know in advance how much you can lose, when and at what level you will limit your losses. To do this, you can take the maximum drawdown from your tests and multiply it by 1.5 - 2. If the actual drawdown exceeds this value, it's time to stop. It is also important to decide how much you are willing to lose as a percentage of your deposit. For example, your system gives a drawdown of 20%, so you should stop trading when the 40% drawdown is reached. But this is almost half of the account and you would not want to risk more than 10% of it. In this case, you just need to reduce the system risk by 4 times, which is equivalent to a test drawdown of 40% if the 10% drawdown is reached.
You gotta try focusing on making the consistency and then gradually increase the number, esle there is more chance of you losing more money in shorter time.
It is definitely a challenge but as long as you are aware about it and keeping your head up, you will get better in sooner than later.