Ouch sorry to hear it, but the best thing is that you’ve jumped back on the horse, and are continuing on, commendations for that, as you’ve just proved, that despite taking a major blow, the tenacity to keep trading is there.
Face it, that’s winner attitude, i’m pretty sure after such a “learning experience” you’ll be a better trader.
When I first learned to trade, it was drummed in…dont worry about profit, first manage the risk, ask “what if i’m wrong?”
Best of luck, but something tells me you wont need it.
Thank you for the kind words. Yes, I am still in it and my determination and current plan is many times more solid than before. I think that loss may have been the best thing to happen to me, some of the best lessons are the most painful.
Luckily I am a lot older than 19 (31 this year) so I have had my naivete beat out of me over the years and tend to learn my lessons a little better now. I imagine these kinds of experiences are a lot like coming down from a hard drug, its great on the way up but hell on the way down. I am glad you are still trading though, its all about the determination of a person who is willing to learn.
I came across something that was very interesting and helpful for me to get a proper perspective on the “exciting”, high risk nature of trading.
Like PurplePatch is always saying, trading should not be exciting. If your adrenaline is pumping and you are on a rocket straight to riches that is a sign that a fall is just waiting around the corner that will take your money just as quickly. I worked it out and if I made only 10 pips a day then I will surpass what I make at my full time job now. When I build my account back to full strength in about 6 months then 10 pips will get me 5x what my job makes me now ( I have a pretty good job too ). I think I can live with that:D
Wish I stumbled on fx seven years earlier like you there, still I count myself lucky to have. Never lost all of my account, guess its because I started quite puny compared and topped up alot. I too had to work with no mentor. Ive had my ‘biggest-blunder-yet’ which wasn’t about money, & fx is kind of the only shortcut back available. Wonder whether that counts as enough grey hairs?
Howzit that all the big fish tell you that they once got thrown out of a far bigger pond than they are in today, even though they’re/'ve working/ed around to reinstate the quo? To stick it out large one needs experience, its like there’s no other way to get that but through the murk? You guys are/were biiiig money men!
Brett Steenbarger, wrote in his book “Enhancing Trader Performance”, about what he called the “high-five sell signal”, which is when you’re sitting around patting yourself on the back because a trade performed far better than expected…get F out. Close it. Done. Excitement will kill your account.
If I had remembered that, I wouldn’t have decimated my account due to one really lucky (and highly over-leveraged) trade that made me think I was a genius.
Ouch ouch ouch!
Been there, i´m familiar with the feeling. I felt so bad the day that i blew my account in one day, that i promised myself to never make the same mistakes again. That was the day i started to see the light.
Take that loss as a lesson, from now on you will be a succesful trader!
“High five sell signal,” gonna write that one down. very good one. I can’t count the number of trades that went beyond expected profit that I let turn into a very small profit or even a loss. Trades, that if I had just set a postive sl at would have had a huge reward to risk ratio.
hi
sorry to hear about such big losses.ive been there many years back and wasnt able to face it and stopped trading.wrong attitude. but your just great with the right attitude towards trading,your going to go very very far.sky is the limit.
It is good you still have a positive attitude towards trading, however all of the supportive comments in the world isn’t going to make you trade better. You have to completely get a makeover on how you trade. If you dont, then I fear you will come to the same fate all over again. Id like to know (as I’m sure others do) what type of progress you’ve made since first posting on this thread. I wish you the best.
I am still learning a lot of good lessons and have currently dialed down the amounts that I trade with for a little bit. I am trading on a “demo-live account”, I am trading with the smallest amount that I can (0.01 lots) and maintaining my daily/weekly goal of 10/40 pips. So I won’t be making anything really but I don’t have to worry about losing much either. This is a great way to learn on a live account without the stress of risking large amounts. It’s actually something that I learned in the military, scaling up the training exercises from slow, safe movements up to full live fire engagements. And if the student can’t handle a certain phase then it is time to take a step back to find out what they missed until they are ready to move forward again.
I have been on a bit of a roller coaster trying to sort out how I win and lose. A huge part of trading really is psychology since we are all human and make mistakes based on bad thinking. The trick is to isolate those things that we do to cause us to lose and cut them out like a disease. For me, establishing rules that I will not break are key to establishing boundaries to keep me from taking actions that regularly cause me to lose money. Looking back it is easy to see the exact point(s) of failure in my trading after examining losses. I have to be honest with myself and say “I screwed up right there!” and if it was a true mistake and not just a market anomaly then I have to address it and change that behavior before it causes more losses. Here are some things that I will share in case there are others that have the same issues:
Impulse trading: Seeing something that might be good and placing a trade before taking the time to analyze properly. This trade might meet some of the rules of your system but if analyzed with a calm, big picture look then it would become apparent that it is not a safe trade and waiting would be a better choice.
Averaging: Placing pending trades as a big losing trade begins to “improve” to combine smaller wins with the bigger loser. This can work but the risk of adding another loser is not worth it, many times this will only increase your losses and drain your account faster. It is better to wait and have patience than add more losses, it is best to have a SL to make that choice for you though!
Stop Loss: Learn how to use them. This has been quite difficult for met to grasp. Where to place the SL without causing more losses but also not risking too much of the account. There are many schools of thought on this but 2-5% risk seem to be popular numbers with 2% being the most common. Hedging can be a way to limit losses but can also be an easy way to create more losses if the trader is not really good at it.
Overall my progress is slow and I am not making net profits yet, I will be back here once I do though. The good and bad thing is that it will be quite a while until I see net profit again. This is good because I will be taking it slow, building my account slowly while learning as much as I can along the way, a rebuilding period for sure. The bad thing is that this is necessary at all but I would rather suffer now in the beginning and get it right than nurture bad habits and practices that will become costlier mistakes down the road. This is a marathon after all and not a dash for cash.
Well, that is all for now, I have a 3 month retraining period now and then I can get back to some serious trading. Thank you all for your comments, your support and suggestions are very appreciated.
which broker do you seem to be using and whats the lot size and leverage u used to make a profit of $9.9 with the $210 left?
im a newbie and im hoping to open an acount soon and im based in london
