What’s Your Most Embarrassing Trading Mistake?

Okay I’ll go first: Once set a limit order at 1.1050 on EUR/USD… but forgot to change it from ‘Buy’ to ‘Sell’ after my analysis flipped :melting_face: Watched in horror as my ‘genius reversal trade’ became the worst-timed long in history. What’s your cringiest facepalm moment?

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I changed the instrument a particular chart displayed, as I wanted to, and then much later opened a trade from that chart with ten times the position size I had intended to use, as I’d forgotten to change that too.

Fortunately I noticed very quickly from the open-trade-value ticker what had happened, and actually ended up not losing anything, but it was a moment of real panic realising that I’d actually opened a single trade risking 5% of my account rather than 0.5%. :confounded:

Welcome to Babypips Forum, @Olliegrace and @KLAshburton . :slight_smile:

The most embarrassing mistake I made (and I made it over a long period of time, which makes it even worse :blush: ) was imagining that “trading systems” and “trade entry methods” are broadly similar things. :blush:

It’s quite a common mistake. It’s just particularly embarrassing to me because I’m a statistician and “should know better”.

This is one of the unfortunate realities of statistics, though: your analysis can be delightfully accurate, but if you didn’t identify the relevant factors correctly before starting, your findings will still be rubbish.

It’s easy to imagine, if you’re not very experienced, that “when/how you enter” is one of the most important features of a trading system.

It’s typically one of the LEAST important, and almost all experienced, successful traders will tell you so. Even here.

But when you’re neither experienced nor successful yourself, even identifying who the experienced, successful traders are can be pretty difficult! And of course the web’s full of trading service-providers and information-providers and education-providers (marketers, in other words!) whose aim is to make sure that beginners believe the opposite. :grimacing:

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When I first started, I tried three times over to trade with $100 accounts, trading 0.01 lots all the time.

It cost me almost $300, of course.

I didn’t know that there are brokers where you can trade much smaller lot sizes than that.

I didn’t know that you need more like $250-$300 to trade 0.01 lots safely.

I hadn’t read any of this very helpful stuff ………

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I once went long on GBP/USD thinking I spotted a strong uptrend and felt super confident about it. But turns out I was looking at the 5-minute chart instead of the 1-hour. By the time I realized, the price had already dropped hard and I was just sitting there wondering what went wrong :joy: Total rookie moment!

For me, it was going live without realizing I was on 1 lot size instead of 0.1.
Wiped out 20% of my account in one trade before I even knew what hit me. Learned real quick to triple-check position size

Thank God it’s not just me! We’ve all had those ‘facepalm’ trading moments that keep us humble. Your 1-lot surprise is the trading equivalent of accidentally sending a text to the wrong person - pure panic followed by life-long caution!

These embarrassing wipeouts are like trading hazing rituals - painful in the moment, but the lessons stick forever. Welcome to the club where we all learn the hard way!

I once planned a sell trade and accidentally placed a buy order because I was in a rush. Watched the trade go in the complete opposite direction before I realized the mistake. It was a simple error, but it taught me to always take a few extra seconds to double-check everything before confirming a trade.

I got two.

Fat fingered a buy market order on mobile while I already had a short order in play. That cost me a couple hundred bucks.

Missed a planned margin call by my broker on my account. I got the times mixed up. Thought I had another 2 hours to close a position or add more funds. Well, it wasn’t at market close. It was an hour and 15 min earlier.

You live you learn.

Whoa, that’s rough! :flushed: A fat finger and a misjudged margin call? Double gut punch. Happens to the best of us though, those mobile misclicks are sneaky. But hey, you’re still standing. Every scar’s a lesson.

Hi, thanks for the welcome. That was my experience, when I started.

I downloaded lost of free PDF’s. Some were free on websites. Some were free when you “opted in” (given in exchange for your email address).

All, with hindsight, were pretty useless, but at the time they looked good, of course.

They were almost all about mostly how/when you enter.

Most forum “system threads” are, too. Even here.

I kind of know, now. But it’s REALLY hard to learn this because all your intuitions tell you the opposite.

Even here.

Exactly! :slight_smile:

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That’s how you need to think about them. Lessons paid for with your hard earned money. Do better next time. Don’t make the same mistakes. Sounds basic. It is. But in the money you forget sometimes.

Just last week, I got long EUR/USD after a clean break completely ignoring the ECB press conference later that day. The pair reversed violently after some adamantly hawkish comments, and down I went, stopped out. I got the technicals right but ignored fundamentals. That was a big mistake, a really big one; reminds me how just a few news words the other way can send a strong setup into the gutter within seconds.

One time I was super happy with my trade, thought let’s add more and make it big! But like a genius, I hit the wrong button and closed the whole thing :sob: Sat there like, where did it go?! Felt like a trading champ for 2 seconds, then back to rookie mode :joy:

I got one…
November 9, 2022, I’ve put pending order on EUR/USD for long at price 1.00.
Platform was cTrader, and I got used to check only percetage when I enter sl and tp. I still think I entered long, but, as it turns out, it was short :man_facepalming:

And, since I usually swing trader, and I don’t have any notifications - mobile app, email, whatever… Entire time I was having some strange feeling, but didn’t want to check it.
I was like - what can happen? I put everything in order bla bla…

But I didn’t… for some reason I didn’t put sl.

I checked it 3 days later, it was Saturday… I opened it… I was stop out in Friday…
I went in pull power, max available leverage… 1:30…

When I saw it, immediately vomited!

Luckily this was my smaller account, “smaller”. It was for trading, not investing…
My equity was 32k euros.
In Saturday that account was stopped out smth above 15k.

Even now I feel issues in my stomack XD

Oof. That moment when you realize your ‘long’ was actually a max-leverage short with no stop loss… and your account is now half its former self. Been there, vomited that.

Nothing teaches risk management like accidentally setting $17k on fire. Welcome to the club where we all have that one trade that still gives us stomach cramps years later. The good news? You’ll never make THAT mistake again!

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well it could always get worse. At least there was a stop out :smiley:

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Once ignored my stop-loss because I was ‘sure’ the market would reverse. A small loss turned into a margin call when the Fed surprise-announced rate hikes. Wiped out 3 months of profits in 3 hours. The hardest lesson? Stops exist for a reason… even when your ego says otherwise. :skull_and_crossbones:

Held a GBP/USD short over a weekend, convinced Brexit headlines would sink it. Instead, a surprise political U-turn sent it gapping 200 pips against me at open. But my real mistake? Forgetting I’d set a ‘take profit’ from an old trade at 1.2500… which hit instantly on the spike, locking in a profit on what should’ve been a disaster.

My shameful secret? I’ve never told anyone this ‘win’ was actually pure luck. The market humbled me that day.

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