I have a serious problem: I don't take a loss

Quote from BPtrader:

After I enter a trade, I do two things:

1. When the trade goes in my favor, I grab the small profit and exit.

2. When the trade goes against me, I wait until it comes back into profit. If it doesn't come back, I suffer a heavy loss.

I wonder if I am alone. I looked at the blotters of some traders on ET, and noticed they trade many times a day and seem to have no problem in exiting a losing trade.

Why is it so hard for me to exit a losing trade?
(I have rules, they don't help).
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I am serious here - you just do not have what it takes mentally to profit from this. Get out while you can.
 
Quote from trendy:


You mention having rules. What are they?
Do you have a firm stop/I'm wrong about this trade exit point established before you enter a trade? If so, do you just ignore it?
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My rules are good, actually excellent. I cannot think of better ones after years of trading.

But during trading, the exit rules are totally ignored.
 
Quote from BPtrader:

Negative.

that's not the reason.

I know the market, I know no trade is guaranteed.
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No, you DON'T. If you did, you would be able to exit your trades.

You "know" that no trade is guaranteed the same way that a girl in an abusive relationship "knows" that she should leave her jerk of a boyfriend that keeps punching her in the face. She "knows" it on a mental level, but she doesn't KNOW it on a gut level. She hasn't really accepted that one day he won't really change and become the guy that she dreams of being with. If she did, she would leave.

In the exact same way, you haven't really accepted the truth of the statement that I said - if you did, we wouldn't be having this discussion because you would be exiting your trades. I know this, because I used to think the same way that you do (although not for that long, I got over it pretty fast). Almost every trader goes through this at some point.

Here's a tip: visualize yourself getting into a trade that goes against you. Then visualize yourself calmly letting it hit your stop loss. Visualize yourself not getting pissed off. Visualize yourself being calm, and going on to the next trade. Do this 30 times per day before you start trading. It will help.

Finally, as I said before - if you have been doing this forever and can't get over it, you might not be cut out for the market. Not trying to discourage you, just saying the truth.
 
Quote from sicktraderII:



I am serious here - you just do not have what it takes mentally to profit from this. Get out while you can.
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You are wrong.

I know exactly why a trader doesn't take a loss. I am perhaps the only one on ET who knows the reasons.

I haven't come across a single trader on ET who knows why a traders refuses to take a loss.
 
Quote from BPtrader:

You are wrong.

I know exactly why a trader doesn't take a loss. I am perhaps the only one on ET who knows the reasons.

I haven't come across a single trader on ET who knows why a traders refuses to take a loss.
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In the first post of this thread you said:

"Why is it so hard for me to exit a losing trade? (I have rules, they don't help)."

Now you are saying:

"I know exactly why a trader doesn't take a loss. I am perhaps the only one on ET who knows the reasons."

If you know the reasons, why are you asking questions and starting threads?
 
Quote from FB123:


If you know the reasons, why are you asking questions and starting threads?
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To help other traders. Not believing me is your problem.

For years, I haven't read a single post that comes close to the real reasons of refusing to take a loss.

Lots of Jamaican voodoo instead.
 
You don't seem to want help though.. you want to argue or something...

I remember in 1999 all these short term traders would say, and I mean a lot of them "if it goes the wrong way on me I'll go long term" and they wound up with portfolios of dot com junk...

One very simple solution; collar your trades when you enter with a stop loss and a profit target and don't watch the trade anymore... if your target exit can't be predicted at the entry, that is, if it needs TA to know when to exit then program up a strategy in any of the trading software packages to manage the profit taking... or just keep on doing what you do and contribute money to the rest of us.....
 
Quote from BPtrader:

To help other traders. Not believing me is your problem.

For years, I haven't read a single post that comes close to the real reasons of refusing to take a loss.

Lots of Jamaican voodoo instead.
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Let me see if I get this straight.

You started this thread pretending to be a trader who can't take a loss, in order to see what we would say? So you could help other traders? Is that it? Not sure that this makes any sense to me, but answer this question:

Was your first post genuine or not?

If not, and if you really know more than you pretended to in the first post, why don't you enlighten us
with your pearls of worldly wisdom as to why traders don't take losses? I am just dying to find out.
 
Quote from FB123:


you might not be cut out for the market. Not trying to discourage you, just saying the truth.
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That sentence indicates your ignorance.

No one is cut out for the market. Repeat, No one is cut out for the market.

Hard work makes a successful trader.
 
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