#1 Almost giving up trading several times right before the important breakthroughs. Just like a chart, breakouts happen right when you least expect it. Only way you can succeed in the game is to be in for the long term.
#1]buyin' waaay too many aapl otm options before report in summer 05 with 2days to exp...stock plunged'n'neddless to say me options were worhtless just 12hours after da purchase, r0r. #2]buyin' binaries above 70 without hedgin'
Ok here are mine: 1. Started learning how to "really" trade with Futures, the YM (mini-dow) first off. Very painful experience psychologically and made my wallet a bit more thin. 2. Read stupid books on indicators and all that. I believed that in order to win in this game you had to use an indicator and if you found a good enough indicator you would win..... WRONG On the contrary, the smartest thing I ever did: The smartest thing I did was learn about the psychological effects trading has on a person and finally start trading the way I wanted to trade. Going prop was the wisest dicision in my trading career.... I finally could afford to day-trade stocks. Also another smart thing was review as many posts as possible here on ET. ET is like an archive of great and doomed traders. I picked a lot of traders that I knew had failed and are current suceeding and review all their posts, hunting for information, tips, and all of that. I print out threads that I believe are beneficial to me and I print out threads of things I should never do. So there is the mistakes and the greats of trading so far for me EDIT: Also for me.... in all things in my life, things don't seem to gradually come to me. Things just sorta "click" in my mind, and I will finally understand something. For me it is usually an all or nothing kinda deal. I can't explain exactly when that click happened in my mind, but it was somewhere when I decided I needed to move to a different market to trade, and then I actually did. Just figured I'd throw that out there for others who learn stuff in a fashion where it just seems to "click"
Whatever it takes I had been wanting to be a trader since I was 14 - 15. Finally got my chance when I hit 18. Going to be doing this forever.
1. Using too much leverage. Every time I use too much leverage, I lose, yet I could position up a quarter of a lot, and God knows I'll make 300 pips. 2. Trying to front run my trading plan, when it's not a strategy that should be front runned...
Letting my 3 year old into my office....leaving the office for a second and coming back to being long 20K shares of a piece of shit, and losing 12K before it was all said and done. He sure did like hitting the keys.