Mindset of a losing trader

Discussion in 'Trading' started by TripleJs, May 28, 2021.

  1. TripleJs

    TripleJs

    I Found that market a lot of time specially during chop hour market would dance around those known stop area than reverse, so I think it's best to monitor it myself. most of the time I know I should close the trade from my read, but than I gave too much time and took larger loss.
     
    #21     May 28, 2021
  2. smallfil

    smallfil

    One other problem traders have is they want to squeeze every last dollar of profit. Have done that in the past too. Just a dumb move. Most times, the stock price reverses and you are looking at giving up more profit because you were too greedy to get out when the going was good. You are not going to get every dollar of profit so, why even try? Selling into strength is the better approach.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2021
    #22     May 28, 2021
    TripleJs likes this.
  3. TripleJs

    TripleJs

    I can't follow, that's a why I am so frustrated at myself, it's not something that I can talk myself out of it. Do you have any method to deal with that?
     
    #23     May 28, 2021
  4. wrbtrader

    wrbtrader

    This is much more than the mindset of a losing trader...
    • This is a trader that should not be trading or should only be trading in person (none of that online crap) with someone that has a successful mindset.
    Yet, there's still hope if the trade has hard statistics about their trade performance versus the hard statistics about the backtest results of their trade strategy especially involving situations as you've described.

    Further, if this is a consistent problem with the trader, its a trader that should get professional help from a trader psychologist / psycho therapist prior to their next trade.

    The starting point is your statistical analysis of your trade performance versus the statistical analysis of your backtest results. This will help you know your edge and understand it so that you can know where the problem areas are in your real money trading because you already know one thing...

    The problem is you but you will not know how to attack that problem without your statistical analysis.

    Stop trading until you do the above.

    wrbtrader
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2021
    #24     May 28, 2021
    SimpleMeLike and TripleJs like this.
  5. smallfil

    smallfil

    Like I said, sell when the going is good and the stock is going higher. You get out at favorable prices, instead, of waiting for the stock to tank and take your monies with it. You will not get every dollar of profit but, very few traders if any do. Reminds me, today, I will sell my AMC call options as I do not like the price action in the pre-market trading.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2021
    #25     May 28, 2021
    TripleJs likes this.
  6. fan27

    fan27

    I agree with MrMuppet....you have no edge. When you have a strategy you are confident in with clearly defined rules, you are less likely to deviate from your plan and place pointless trades.
     
    #26     May 28, 2021
    SimpleMeLike and TripleJs like this.
  7. deaddog

    deaddog

    Do you have a written trading plan?
     
    #27     May 28, 2021
    SimpleMeLike likes this.
  8. A lot of good comments here in this thread. I'd like to add that having enough capital and trading small size relative to that bank roll is also very important.

    @TripleJs in your original example, you should never have the possibility of blowing up an account from an intraday trade. If you do, that means your trade size is too large relative to your bank roll.

    For example, Micro E-mini (MES) is $1.25 per tick. According to https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/ES*0/technical-analysis the average daily true range of ES is 50 points. Let's say you bought at the top, and sold at the bottom, your maximum loss is only $250 per day.

    For bank roll management, let's say no more than 1% of total bank roll at risk per day.
    $250 / .01 = $25,000

    This means to trade 1 MES contract, you would need $25,000 in your trading account. Of course this is very conservative, and can probably do with less. But if you did have 25k and were only trading 1 MES contract, you wouldn't have many of the problems in your original post. Your stops could be much wider, and also larger profit targets. Your entire strategy could be changed.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2021
    #28     May 28, 2021
    comagnum, TripleJs, Overnight and 2 others like this.
  9. wrbtrader

    wrbtrader

    Exactly, when the mindset of a trader starts thinking they can blow up their account from a single trade...

    The account size is too small to properly manage the risk of the position size of the trade.

    wrbtrader
     
    #29     May 28, 2021
  10. DevBru

    DevBru

    If one wants to learn what not to do, easy, take a look at what Padutrader has posted or done over the years and don't do what he did.
     
    #30     May 28, 2021