GREAT!
I think thats a general problem with discretionary trading-i experienced that as well: you are doing fine, enter one profitable trade after the other during the day, you think you are unvulnerable and suddenly enter a trade which you would not enter at the beginning of the day and you loose all the profit.
My solution was, that when i came in this kind of “trading mood”-i said to me “STOP” and did nothing. And it was allways a great relief to see how the price mooved in the wrong direction without having opened a position…
1 Like
A warning concerning “sticking to the plan”- it makes no sens to stick to a plan, which is not a good plan:wink:
It makes also no sens to cut number of trades, minimize positions, closer or wider TP and SL and all that stuff if it seems that your plan generally does not work properly
Hi I am also brand new on Forex trading. I would like to encourage you to never give up but please please do learn from your mistakes. Once bitten twice shy. Pray for God to help with spirit of greediness. It helps me a lot.
Not saying that you are wrong, because I understand the point that you are making, but I will say that a losing strategy can become a winning strategy, simply by adjusting the stop-loss. This is why it is important to back-test, fine-tune and improve your strategy as you are developing it.
No doubt, you are also right that these activities (adjusting everything or new parameters with the samre strategy) can improve your overall results, but I think if this doesnt make it better, there will come a point at which someone has to ask himself if theres something wrong with the strategy
Learn, learn, and learn. Find someone, whose experience you can follow and learn from. Also build a plan and work out on your strategy. It should be carefully thought through. Make daily and weekly reports to understand your gaps and areas for improvements.
I have only one pattern that I look for… keeping it simple seems to work better for me
Link please?
Hello JoaoAndre001, just trying to share my experience so far, which is not a lot, but it is a bit similar to your issue. I have started trading live since June of last year, so not a big sample set yet.
I have 2 strategies I use (strictly technical, one of which I backtested with a good sample set, the other one a little bit discretionary and not fully tested) and had 4 winning months straight since I started trading live. By the end of the 4th month, I was up 20% on my account and was more confident than ever, and told my self that I should increase my position size from 2% to 3-5% next month, so I can grow faster (which was not part of my plan). I then had 2 straight losing months after that and gave back everything I have made and some.
Looking at my journal (which I should have caught earlier), I was trying to chase trades, making an excuse that I was following my other more discretionary strategy, although the setups were not really optimal. And the biggest factor was I increased my trade size. I then slowed down on trading and returned my position size to 1-2% in December and came out break even last year.
Summary of my story was when I broke away from my trading plan, and followed a not so clearly defined trading strategy got me in trouble. It seems that you are doing okay until you get into a trade that is not part of your plan. I am going through this myself and have stopped trading the other method since the beginning of the year (back to backtesting mode on that stategy, then demo account). I now believe that the hardest part of trading is the psychology aspect of it. Greed will always creep in when we are riding high on winners. I will keep working on it until my trading becomes almost robotic (no emotions and sticking to the rules within the trading plan, on EVERY trade).
I am not sure if you have read Trading in the zone by Mark Douglas, that book has helped me a lot on this aspect.
Wish you well on your trading journey. Don’t quit! It’s just a swing low on your trading 
We’ll get through this!
4 Likes
People will encourage you to keep trying over and over and learn from your mistakes. The fact is that maybe you are just not cut out for this. Its ok to say “This is not for me” and move on to other types of investing strategies. A lot of people are just not cut out for this and should realize that fact and move on. Just don’t want you to keep loosing money like so many traders do thinking that it will be better next time.
Hi Kevefx, I had the same experience last year, patiently building it up, then gaining confidence in the edge, rising position size and losing all the profits and some. I guess it is part of the game of growing, not a linear path Thanks for sharing your experience.
1 Like
Hi JoaoAndre001
I see some answers are more on the discipline side of things, and it is true that your position size should be part of your trading plan.
It is different from your strategy itself - you know it because you read trade your way to financial freedom. The position sizing strategy should tell you how much you will lose at max, on a single trade, per day, week and month. This can be a percent of your equity or an amount in dollar. For the records, a lot of professional traders out there allow themselves to lose 1 to 1.5% of their equity on a single trade, no more. Peter Brant is at 0.6% per trade, yet he has years at +50%, +60%…
Why is that? because when you are down 25%, you need a +33% to get back to break even (and you psychology is likely messed up by the big loss, so that bigger gain is even harder to make!).
There is an excellent book from Tharp, the Guide to position sizing strategies that is also good read. Of course you can only position size accurately if you have a stop, so the rule "no stop entered exactly at the same time of the position - no trade’’ seem extremely mandatory. (and I know apparently a few very successful traders never use stops… but some of them blow out, still). My experience is also that varying bets size depending on our guts is usually resulting in bigger losses. Unless of course you have 3 strategies tested on various and large samples and the expectancy of one is stellar and not the others.
Concerning self sabotage, it is a very good question - and by reading you, it seems to be a self sabotage issue: you do well, with a strategy and product you know, having your risks controlled, and all of a sudden you trade something else, without stops and too big a size. That sound very much like gambling (I am bored and want some fun, I want to make a big win) or self destruction so my recommendation:
1 / stop trading any money for a while - you can still work on your edge/strategies with a demo or simulator
2 / maybe go and take one of van tharp workshop. If too pricey (I cannot afford it) some of his books deal with these, of you can get the sedona method supercourse and deal with self sabotage that way (using it for the last 20 months and lots of non useful feelings can be let go with it)
3 / when you have done enough self work try again real money trading with less size and see how it goes
One saying is that traders pay their education to the market, by losing or taking courses/coaching/mentoring… the later is likely less romantic/exciting/manly than the first but it looks to me more interesting, cheaper and faster.
Good search and self exploration - and don’t be too harsh on yourself, it is not deserved and does not help anyway.
4 Likes
Hi JoaoAndre001 ,
have you ever thought About that you maybe really Sabotage yourself? Maybe you dont have a problem wit trading discipline - but more a problem with winning? Beside of all the technics and Signals and so on, have you ever asked yourself what you think About Money? Every time you are in “danger” to run into success your subconscious sabotages yourself immediately. Maybe it helps if you deeply Analyse your beliefs? Eg if one has the strong believe that Money doesn’t make happy, he never will be a succsessful = rich Trader. This guy should either stop trading because of his beliefs or maybe he can ask himself why he has this conviction and change his thinking About that. Since earliest stone age it is Always the same … love it - leave it or Change it.
Hope that helps and sorry for my bloody english : )
…. sorry, because of my other language-setup my pc does some words put in uppercase.
Hello JoaoAndre001
This is Greed. You make 2.5% for a month. Your brain likes it and thinks it will make 5 times that if the positions were 5 times bigger. You also have memory issues. You keep forgetting how bad it is to trade this way. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” - G. Santayana
Trading with big positions is not only bad when you lose. It’s bad when you win, too. The results of it can lead to outsized outcomes. This creates moderate traumatic stresses that, over time, disrupt your ability to follow trading plans and be disciplined. Check Dr. Brett Steenbarger’s “Enhancing Trader Performance”. It might give you some answers.
There are a few ways to try to fix this issue.
One way is to trade in a group or with a mentor. This will help you become more responsible for your actions, because you’ll have to explain you actions to other people. You’ll be really ashamed to repeat such a mistake if others will look at you as a complete idiot.
If you can’t find a group or a mentor, you can try this way: Write down something like “Every time I take a large position I lose extremely big. This is not who I am”, Write it on a few pieces of paper. Always put one in your pocket. (it’s good to be laminated), tape one on your monitor, tape one near your bed, tape one in the restroom. You need to remind yourself a few times a day that this is just wrong and you don’t do it anymore. Sooner or later, your brain will remember.
There’re more ways, but they are more complex so I’ll leave it here.
And BTW. Use red color when you write the note down.
I hope I helped.
Happy Trading
Ivan
3 Likes
In my mind thats also absolutely correct- i realy was surprised after i went through the forum the first time last year, how many people talk about their strategies and losses and why they lost and how long they are loosing and so on-one aspect realy should also be, that this kind of activity maybe is not good for everybody
1 Like
I think if you make your average small with fundmental and chart analysis and Follow the momentum you will be good for long time in the forex its easy and simple
Hi Joao,
Though I have not blown my accounts, I realized that I need much personal improvement. I realized that you read Van Tharp “Trade Your Way To …". One of his other books, “Super Trader” has a chapter “Make Friends with Your Inner Interpreter” which have you solve entangled problems which are much psychology oriented.
It leads you to ask yourself (your internal interpreter) what caused the problem, why the problem occurred, can it be changed… repeat this once a week to question yourself about your recent problem(s). This enables you to realize other better way to act, e.g. instead of emotionally taking larger position size which will expose you much higher risk, it will have you think alternative such as reduced position size or even not taking position.
Good luck.
1 Like
You’ve just answered you’re own question three times in the same post, you just need to have a stop loss on every trade! I risk only 1% or less of my account every trade I do.
1 Like
Sure, I agree with you on this issue of self discipline. A trader can have a very good trading plan and a lot of knowledge of technical and fundamental analysis. in Forex trading but still fail. But why? Because of lack of discipline. Ensure you also have stop loss whenever you trade