Biggest mistake: being short 60 ITM SPY calls on Div-record date (part of a spread). Assigned obviously but long calls not exercised as they were supposed to have been. Woke up with 1.4M USD and -6000 shares of SPY. Liquidation was to begin at 9:40am. Made my plan and did what I could. All in all ended up ~4K on the "trade" but still owing the divvy payment put account in the whole a good bit. Agreed. "Trading Mindfully" - great book for any of those interested.
Been trading for less than 3 months but my biggest mistake imo is trading without a margin account. (Cannot short positions.) I see a ton of short opportunities everyday but very few long opportunities that would continue to rally by the time I spot them and due to impatience and having no other choice but to long I lose money just like that. I am definitely better at spotting short opportunities than long. Might be it's just been a bad month & approaching another bad month.
In forex trading indeed about psychology trading has high role in trading activity, many trader fail because still don't understand what they doing in trading and having tendencies to follow desired emotion, control emotion is important during trades to making proper plan trading
Of course, it is absolutely true. The majority of traders don't realize the importance of psychology in trading. Only after the losses they begin to understand that emotion is the main enemy of any trader.
Mother of all mistakes in trading is underestimation of how much time (forget about money and other valid points) it takes to build a working method...
Yes usually like it, especially novice trader, first time they look order on floating loss, sometime making their heart beat faster, and still afraid get loss but still often making mistake and this is normal process i think in learning stage
Just one of many but ...."leaving a deal ticket open on my laptop screen while baby sitting a 2 year old" Came back from the other room to find I was the proud owner of 10,000 shares I did not want ! TRUE STORY
Biggest mistake - adding drugs into my trading in the late 90's. I let the drugs do the thinking - broke all my rules by putting on a huge bet which tanked when the U.S. Cole was attacked - I was so high I did not even know I was in a trade until a week later when I came down to find out I had lost nearly half a million. So I took more drugs ending up in skid row a year later. Had to take min wage jobs - but within 8 years made it all back through trading without drugs.
Never trade when you are ill- back injury cost me many thousands, and the mdeication put me in a panic. Nowadays I can be wrong but I don't panic as there is a strategy in place. I trade options you are up shit creek if you trade directionally and get it horribly wrong-been there with futures. I doubt that any strategy works more than 50% of the time,so you can rely on luck or trade small. NEVER be a forced buyer or seller.