I think I need to put in something here, the way traders make losses look like one big trading abomination is quite disturbing. I feel losing is one big step closer to winning, as for myself, for every loss I have sustained in the market, I had made sure it counted as I always have something to learn from the loss. It is either I am refining my technical analysis after a loss or I am reassessing my psychological approach to my trade. Losses has helped me with immense trading experience I must confess.
The horrors of losses
- Thread starter Xenomorph
- Start date
Hard to determine when to stop trading. I have a certain amount I want to stop trading for the day if I hit that loss amount. I want to continue to at least do another trade in the day if I get a 1st win especially if it's a small win. So I thought if 2nd trade is a loss after a win, I could just end the day BE.
So anyway this is where it is hard. 1st trade today hit my stop loss. I decided to reverse direction and my 2nd trade hit my target. My target on my 2nd trade was greater than my stop loss although sometime my stop and target are even. So now I am up for the day, and while I saw another possible entry I felt some fear of taking the trade since my goal is twofold. First, I don't want to over trade / revenge trade which can lead to losses. Also, I don't want to give back my gains for the day after I went from a loss to a profit. Since I feel if I now go to a loss for the day or even BE after now being up, I will start to revenge trade.
However, I am not sure if it's better to set a stop loss amount for the day or trade number maximum and trade profit target for the day. For example, should I strive to hit a target goal and only stop if I hit my stop loss instead of for example just stopping trading right now since I have reversed a loss into a profit. If no suggestions, I can try on Thurs to go for my profit target no matter how many trades it takes and only stop if I hit my stop loss.
So anyway this is where it is hard. 1st trade today hit my stop loss. I decided to reverse direction and my 2nd trade hit my target. My target on my 2nd trade was greater than my stop loss although sometime my stop and target are even. So now I am up for the day, and while I saw another possible entry I felt some fear of taking the trade since my goal is twofold. First, I don't want to over trade / revenge trade which can lead to losses. Also, I don't want to give back my gains for the day after I went from a loss to a profit. Since I feel if I now go to a loss for the day or even BE after now being up, I will start to revenge trade.
However, I am not sure if it's better to set a stop loss amount for the day or trade number maximum and trade profit target for the day. For example, should I strive to hit a target goal and only stop if I hit my stop loss instead of for example just stopping trading right now since I have reversed a loss into a profit. If no suggestions, I can try on Thurs to go for my profit target no matter how many trades it takes and only stop if I hit my stop loss.
Way too many take losses personally like it is a flaw of some weakness in them, I chalk it up to either a minor frustration in day trading or it is part of my trading plan to take many losses in long term trading. It is not flaw in myself or my trading plan, it is a safe guard so I will have a business tomorrow and next days. Sure I love day trading for my session and have no losses and once in awhile I have them, but face it, losing is part of trading, no one trade has better possibility than the next trade if you have a well back tested Trading Plan.
Dumbest loss I ever took was I was still learning, was trading Mid-Am T-Bonds so each full 16th was $15.625, had a $300 protective stop, I was short and I just "knew" I found the highs, I cancelled the stop and watch this market go an go and go higher till I pulled the plug at $10,000 loss, I was stunned I lost, it wasn't the money I was angry about, it was me, but there were two problems I had to fix. One was the money as I wasn't ruthless enough to fight for every tick and the other was I took it personal. Stops don't have to be hit where you have them, you can get out earlier and you have to change your mindset, it is a business and not have anything to do with me.
Happy Holidays All.
Dumbest loss I ever took was I was still learning, was trading Mid-Am T-Bonds so each full 16th was $15.625, had a $300 protective stop, I was short and I just "knew" I found the highs, I cancelled the stop and watch this market go an go and go higher till I pulled the plug at $10,000 loss, I was stunned I lost, it wasn't the money I was angry about, it was me, but there were two problems I had to fix. One was the money as I wasn't ruthless enough to fight for every tick and the other was I took it personal. Stops don't have to be hit where you have them, you can get out earlier and you have to change your mindset, it is a business and not have anything to do with me.
Happy Holidays All.
Or even try to love losses - something like "Due to my risk management systems I have lost less than I could...". And enjoy this feeling ))
In trading its a little bit problem to be successful always. Sometimes we forced to sell cheaper than we bought
By R.Vince's opinion it could lasts up to 60% of time even for successful strategies (so called Arcsin rule). And that is the problem.
In life actually.
The horror of losses is when you're satisfying an underlying psychological need by incurring them.