Hi everyone, a loser trader here

[clubbhopp]

Hi guys, just wanna introduce myself, have 4 yrs day trading experience, lost money all the time trying to ride the markets those years , no profits as of now.
Stopped trading this year.
Still thinking to start over or not. Hate the emotional part of it. Cannot shut down my ego.
Nice to meet you and work together on emotional part.

[Dollar_McGavin]

I would say welcome to the community, but you’ve been here longer than I have!

So I’ll say congrats on the first post!

We’ve all been losing traders, so know what you’re going through.

There’s nothing wrong with your ego, it’s your mental wiring is not suitable for trading (you’re not thinking like a trader).

1. Emotional trading = gambling = trading positions that are too large for the account size and/or personal risk tolerance in an effort to make a lot of profits very quickly. This usually happens when inexperienced traders get “brainwashed” by YouTube traders flexing about making $1000s in a day.
2. You were focusing on making profits and instead of cutting losses. Manage the downside and the markets will take care of the upside.

[tommor]

Before you can think about re-start trading, you need to understand why you lost money. What are the reasons for this?

[clubbhopp]

You hit me in the spot
That’s exactly what happened to me

[clubbhopp]

Greed and big size trading.
Not cutting loses.
(Hoping it will reverse.) 8 out 10 worked but the other 2 blowed up my accounts.

[TYGMedia]

Hi @clubbhopp, welcome to BabyPips, a community for all babies to make money

Nobody is a loser. Most of us has the same experience in the beginning.

Most of failures come from our greed and fear. So you have to manage these two, before step forward. For example, treat trading as a challange to improve your discipline, by trading with a very small account. We have cent account. Trade for 1 year with the account, don’t bother the profit. Fight your greed.

While you are trading with your tiny account, try to learn technical analysis and stick to it.

Don’t bother to move forward, if you can’t be consistent in at least 6 months.

As for now, you have no confidence to start again. My advice is you need to calm down. Find out what do you enjoy the most in trading. If you are looking for profit / cash only. Please give up now. You need to really love / enjoy trading. If you love trading, find a way to learn it without hurting youself. Such as, trading in cent account, an amount you won’t feel sick when you loss, or even a demo account.

Only trade with your spared pocket money. I did it before since 2009 to 2012, after I got a shock from my big loses. I started again from very small account 100 USD, I added few dollars every month from my pocket money. I used to watched movie twice a week, for the sake of trading, I only watched once every 2 months. I also cut my snacks to save money. I maintained a healthy and economic life style.

I hope it is helpful.

[clubbhopp]

OK, I will start maybe small but in the next 1-2 months. As I work full time on my other businesses. Trading is a good business model because you can work from anywhere you want only 1-2 h a day and make a living. Thats the beauty of it. The rest are not easy as in any business ( news, indicators, emotions etc )

[Dollar_McGavin]

@clubbhopp

You hit me in the spot
That’s exactly what happened to me

@clubbhopp

Greed and big size trading.
Not cutting loses.
(Hoping it will reverse.) 8 out 10 worked but the other 2 blowed up my accounts.

First of all you have a false understanding of what profitable trading really looks and feels like.

There is a degree of uncertainty and randomness in market movements which is reflected in virtually all trading systems. Even a coin flip random entry with 1:1 risk-to-reward will give a string of winners and a string of losers. Making several wins in a row with a coin flip doesn’t make you a genius and getting several losses in a row doesn’t make you an idiot. This is just how the probabilities play out.

Virtually all trading systems are also like a coin flip, but the coin is weighted to one side so that it gives more and/or bigger wins than losses over a long period of time, but there is still a string of losers. Your job as a trader is to expect, be ready for and to react to a string of losers. This is a skill that needs to be learned, losing traders don’t bother learning this skill, instead they hope that some “trading system” will do it for them, so they continue to lose.

You are also not going to make a living from this until you are well capitalized, my guess is $250k USD for low cost locations up to $1M USD to live comfortably in high cost locations. Inexperienced traders are often way too undercapitalized and then take on very large position sizes and too much risk in order to squeeze more out of the markets than could be safely expected from their account size. The trader’s #1 priority is to stay in the game over the long term especially during the losing streaks so that his/her system can take advantage of the winning streaks. But if the position sizes and risks are too large, the losing streaks will wipe you out before you can take advantage of the winning streaks.

If you still want to be a good trader then your focus for the next year needs to move away from trying to make money from the markets and towards learning and developing trading skills, e.g demo accounts / paper trading first then tiny position sizes, it needs to feel boring so that you can focus on learning without the emotional fog.

Rather than me repeat myself, here are links to some of my “greatest hits” where I go a bit deeper into this with other traders that had similar issues. Recommend you read the whole thread as there are multiple replies or not, up to you:

What profitable trading looks and feels like:

Profitable trading: Reality vs YouTube fantasy

The following is from an interaction I had with a friend who was a losing trader and wanted some help. He had memorized every bit of “trading knowledge” and could name just about every single YouTube “trading guru” but still wasn’t profitable. Hopefully it helps some of you still struggling, it’s simple but probably not what you were lead to believe. Friend: Dude, what the hell is going on? Feels like the markets are manipulated, why does price always hit my stop loss and then reverse and take…

Reduce position sizes until winning / losing feels boring, then focus on learning:

This Week's Question: How Do You Stay Motivated to Keep Getting Better as a Trader, Even When Things Don't Go Well?

@Love88, I felt compelled to reply after reading your post. You’re much closer to becoming a good trader than you realize. The root cause of your problems is obvious and there’s an easy fix, but it’s not what inexperienced traders want to hear. Trading is actually quite easy (you can be profitable with sloppy random coin flip entries) and VERY boring, feeling excitement or depression from wins/losses is a clear sign that the trader is gambling. This usually happens to inexperienced traders who…

Managing the downside:

When to Exit a Profitable Trade?

Yes, the rule of thumb is you exit the trade when the price chart signals a trend reversal. It’s difficult for you because your exit decisions are based on the open profit/loss and your feelings of fear (of winner turning into a loser) and greed (not wanting to exit too early) instead of what the chart is telling you. Yes there is a right answer: Ignore the open profit/loss and your feelings, focus on what the chart is telling you. The whole point of having a system, doing TA, using indica…

Illusion of “trading knowledge”:

Knowing how to trade isn’t enough!

Sorry, but trading “knowledge” does not equal profitable trading. Profitable trading requires another way of thinking that is counterintuitive and no where near as fun as gambling (what most new traders do). I wonder how to go from not being profitable to being profitable. The traders that have been in my shoes, how did you overcome this What was the thing(s) that you added or removed that changed the game for you? The simple answer is that profitable trader brains are wired backwards vs mo…

[Clear_Trades]

Nice to meet you. You might not succeed until you have addressed the emotional and ego part.

The markets move up and down. They have no regard for anyone. The only thing that gets us triggered are our own insecurities and projections.

I highly recommend doing some kind of meditation and mindfulness practice, it can help lay a good foundation for trading and deeper work.

As you might know, Tom Hougaard failed until he confronted himself. So maybe there is some wisdom in finding ways to deal with our own stuff.

[peterma]

We are what we think we are.

If I say’ knowing my bad luck’ then bad luck will follow.

If I say I’m a loser … well then guess…

By sheer chance (is there such a thing?) just now as as I was typing someone showed me a pic of Robt Bosch - that’s a winner & not a loser thinking.

[clubbhopp]

I tried hard really, I started in the pandemic. Then I always risked more than necessary, I always tried to fight the market , not flee.
Emotions and ego and so much more, I learned a lot really in the past 4 yrs, but still not sure i wanna experience same pain again .

[angelika13]

For me, things started to turn around when I started to read Jared Tendler’s “The Mental Game of Trading”. It’s that trading triggers many elements of a person’s emotional baggage (which originates in other areas). And those emotions have the power to kick you sideways. There is nothing you can do, unless you uncover what it is. Learning new setups, etc., won’t to the trick. He also has a blog and you can find videos of him on youtube if you want to have a look before you order the book.

[baemax023]

Hello and welcome back to the community! I hope all goes well for you this time. Good luck!

[chimmyfx]

Hi there! It’s nice to meet you. It’s okay to feel uncertain about starting over; many traders go through similar struggles. Let us know if you decide to jump back in, and we’ll be here to support you!