Need help with recovery

Hey guys, been visiting Babypips for 3 years now.
Actually finished all the classes from School of Pipsology.
So for this 3 years I’ve been trading, trying this and that.
First took it as gambling and tried to flip 50$ to 5,000$.
As time passed, I actually learned little by little.
And in August 2020 I actually flipped 96$ to 4,500$, but lost it all on a few trades.
After that I made decisions to follow the Risk management and Money management rules strictly.
But somehow even though I am aware of all these management strategies, I kept somehow breaking them.
And after all these little deposits to my trading account I lost almost 30,000$ in total.
After finding that out, actually calculated it for the first time, I decided to follow everything according to my plan to manage all the risk and the money.
And last time I deposited 690$ to my account and actually turned it into 5,000$ in 6 trading days.
I felt really good about it and 100$ started to seem very little, I started looking at luxury brand products to buy it for my wife, toys for my boy and girl, but today on 4th of February, I lost everything on XAUUSD. According to my analyses, I was confident that Gold will recover back up and started stacking by positions as it was going down. And eventually during NY sessions I lost it all to 20$. In the morning I had 5,000$ and was thinking about making 500$ more today but I lost it all for god’s sake.
I was very confident and sure about my strategy and analyses as it made me to reach 5,000$ from 700$s.
And right now I have nothing and the thoughts what could bring me these 5,000$s is haunting me.
I could have withdraw it and spend it fro my family, I could have withdraw it and save it for my boy’s tuition fee.
And most importantly I could have start trading with at least 0.3 lot size keeping all money and risk management under control.
Now I am in misery, regretting everything, wishing I cold go back in time, trying to get everything out of my head.
I know my wife is aware of my trading and making quite a few dollars and now i have nothing.
I don’t know what to do next, I can’t look at the charts, I can’t start everything from 100$s. The loss is just killing me.
If there is anyone who experienced anything like me or been in same situation like me please advice me.
Any advice would be really helpful.
What should I do now?
I really love charts and all the idea of trading, but right now I’m really close to giving up.
Please help. Thank you in advance

2 Likes

You’re trading too big.

You had a successful strategy to make this money, so, you can make it back OVER TIME. Key is to stay small.

Again- you’re trading too big if you were able to do that.

Ask yourself- is it reasonable to expect to make 10% in one day?

THEME: STAY SMALL OR DIE.

2 Likes

This is unbelievable how you coud make such an amazing profits, your story is great, take it as a lesson. I have recently read Disciplined Trader and Trading in the Zone by M. Douglas and I recommend it to you, I have never managed to make such great profits like you but I had huge money management and greed problem. I found many answers in those books. Anyway to keep it simple you need to realize that you should focus on profit accumulation over time, you traded too big and this is what happens. Don’t worry man, pick yourself up.
In my opinion you will not be able to repeat simmilar run from such a small deposit it just doesn’t work with risk management. You gambled the money and the house took it back. With larger deposit and good risk management I think you can be awesome and profitable trader.

Never go against the market. Market trends should follow. If you trade against the trend, you are more likely to lose. Do not trade on counter-trends. Should be with the trend.

Need to have an idea about market momentum. And you have to control your emotions and trade with a positive mindset. Money management and risk management should be followed in every trade. After opening a trade, you have to manage it.

1 Like

Thank you for sharing your unfortunate story, I feel for you, and it shows that the Holy Grail is to manage risk properly. Aim to keep each trade no more than 1.5% risk, don’t run multiple trades, and only have two correlated pairs running at any one time. Also, set a daily risk limit and DO NOT exceed that, EVER.

Tattoo that on your forehead.

Forex is best traded as a slow and steady accumulation. As posters have said your profitable strategy is working to an extent. This can be enhanced by compounding your capital by increasing lot size gradually when you make profits and reduce it when you make losses. Never chase losses.

Also, what is your leverage? You could reduce 1:500 to 1:100, which is my maximum trading leverage. And you should manage each trade to NOT TO LOSE MONEY. CUT losing trades quick. I hate losing money as does everybody, but I hate losing big, more so.

As an aside, gold moves in steady trends, which makes it easy to follow, despite small retractments, so never oppose the trend until it fizzles out.

Right now, do not trade until your mindset has recovered. Disaster has happened, and you have learnt a massive lesson that not only affects you but your family as well. Keep that in mind all the time.

I think all posters on here will be feeling your hurt and will support you to find your feet again. Best of luck and good wishes for the future. As a parting advice - Bulletproof Trader : Evidence-based strategies for overcoming setbacks and sustaining high performance in the markets by Steve Ward. It’s mainly psychological mentoring and you can watch it on YouTube free.

3 Likes

I’ve been there as have many others.

I’d like to point out though that winning big can be just as bad as losing big

Winning big can lead to emotional imbalances just as much as losing can.

The other thing I want to say, and I don’t mean to sound harsh is, no one is going to really care for your story.

This is the business we chose, and most are led to the slaughter in one way or other.

It’s a tough business, which is why the old joke how to make a small fortune in commodities? Start with a large one - is so true

I once ran up an account by 800% in one year took on other people’s money and then gave all my profits up not too mention their money too.

It took me a year mentally to recover from that, and there was no one I could talk to about it.

I was decimated.

What I did do though was carry on trading, albeit much smaller.

Right now things are bad for you, which is the perfect time to dig deep and find out who you really are as an individual.

We are all here to be tested in life and this is yours - try to relish it

Reinvent who you are, become a better stronger more stoic person.

The other option is to let it beat you first financially and second spiritually.

As for trading nothing wrong with going onto demo for an extended time - for me it helped me wonders.

Some of the best traders all started off by blowing up big, and often with more than you lost.

You WILL come through this eventually but you can speed up the recovery by becoming a much better version of who you currently are.

4 Likes

Bottom line is that you are gambling with your money. When you understand the difference between gambling and actual Forex trading, then you will see why you are throwing your money away. Stop gambling, stop being greedy. Set a small salary for yourself from trading and accumulate it to buy luxury items.

I also feel the same way after reading this story. It seems like gambling and it’s never gonna help in the long run.

You’ve gotten some excellent advice here. I think the number one lesson you can take from all of this is how important consistent money management is. I took a few good blows as well before I really started to put this into practice.

I second this sentence.

My own personal rule is to never have my account exposed to more than 6% of my balance at any given time. Plus I limit myself to 3 open trades. The exception to this is if 1 or 2 of my trades are running in profit, and I’ve moved my SL up into profit so that my risk is then turned off on those positions.

These rules work well for me because they force me to choose only the best trades that match my strategy.

Good luck

Hey! First of all be relaxed and patient. Take time to improve your knowledge and don’t rush to earn quick profits. You need to realise that trading is not a gambling, you should make a proper analysis of the market, plan strategy and then place trades according to it.

Wow. Definitely curious as to how you’re doing this? I think if you’re able to turn things around fairly quickly and seems easily too, I don’t think you have anything to be worried about. Just do it all over again! :slight_smile:

Which country are you from btw?

There will be losses in trading, but to cover this loss, you have to create a trading strategy with positive emotions. It is never possible to make a trading profit without the ability to cover losses.

I think you should focus on perfecting your strategy and trades instead of just giving up. Keep working hard and you will get there eventually.

If you want to make a consistent profit in Forex trading, you must first learn. If we start trading without learning anything, we will lose. However, if I acquire the ability to recover losses through education, then trading will bring many benefits for me. I think the 1: 2 ratio plays a big role in recovering losses.