Why do traders Fail?

[mlawson71]

Frankly, I doubt that a forex strategy can work 100% even in theory. That’s just not realistic.

[nvp]

The most of the common reasons for fail :

1. They trade with the aim of getting lucky to make money.
2. Their greed exceeds their need.
3. They think trading is a game of chance and luck and do not get the proper education to succeed.
4. They don’t favor to invest enough time and amount for education and mentor-ship.
5. They have Poor focus.
6. They are more emotional than intellectual.
7. After failing, they want to make up their loss; therefore they may further incur loss.

in my experience most traders fail because they cannot bring their game up to the required levels in all areas needed …you need to have everything firing at 100% levels of performance

systems / strategy
execution skills
MM
platform
Broker
Capital base
allocated time and resources
determination , concentration , focus , professionalism, belief , courage, interlect

[B]its not easy to get those plates all spinning at once …day in day out !![/B]

N

[adamcs]

Yes you are right. these are the main reason they fail in trading.

[JohnPtrader0032]

They do not have proper risk management. It’s awful that most of the people doesn’t give much weight to risk management than that of gaining no.of pips…!!!

I Agree with you!!! People want to make money quick and do not focus on their own risk aversion

[mlawson71]

I Agree with you!!! People want to make money quick and do not focus on their own risk aversion

Trying to make money quick is one of the worst things one can do, to be honest. You end up losing a lot more than you profit, most of the time.

[ccoutinho]

People are not willing to sacrifice time and money to learn how to trade. It is hard to become a professional in any field, but in trading being a pro is not enough, you need to be a master to make a great living from it.

[mlawson71]

You need to be a master to make any kind of living off it if Forex is your only source of income.

[babepips]

Would like to chip in here.
Why Traders Fail (WTF) Series… My personal thoughts & experience!!

1. We do not have discipline, we create a plan to trade, that’s good. But:
   1.1) Keeping to the plan after entering the trade is quite a challenge, the longer you are in the trade, the more prone you are changing your initial plan.
   1.2) Keeping to the same plan over and over again is also difficult. If you have executed Plan A over and over again, closing trade after trade in profit or in loss, you will get tired of it over the long run. You will suddenly trade Plan X and Y and that is when you lose all your money.

2. Over-leveraging:
   2.1) We might over-leverage because of mindset. We have a mindset of getting rich quick, we really want to turn $100 to $1000 overnight, we really believe we can do it so when trade turns against us, we quickly lose our money.
   2.2) We might over-leverage because of revenge, we lost trades over and over again, so we need to re-gain all that losses, so we risk more to gain more, and again, when our trade goes against us, we lose our money faster than expected.

3. Instant gratification:
   If we are always right in trading, we might not have this problem, but the thing about trading, you can never be 100% correct, so you are bound to have losing trades. When you have too much of losses, you want to just be right at least once or a bit. So when our trades gets a little bit into profit, we will close it. As such, the profit will be a little bit. We do not do the same with losing trades, we try to wait it out, hoping that price will come back, or giving the trade “some room” before it will move in your direction. Over time, the losses will overcome the tiny profits and we will again lose our money.

4. Impatient:
   It is good to trade according to what we see but we need to have a confirmation. Sometimes we see a seemingly obvious and outrageously big down candle and we jump in a SELL trade, we did not wait for any sort of confirmation like candle close. As such when we enter we are caught at the extreme low point and before the candle closes, it reverse and creates a obvious and outrageously big UP candle. We know we are doomed. We never expected nor could imagine it can ever be a UP candle, our eyes and impatience deceived us.

… more to come …

In the meantime, [B]LIKE[/B], share and subscribe. Even better, write your own reasons you’ve failed before.

[Mohdfx11]

From my experience which is not very big, I can say that fail is consequence of not efficient strategy. And sometimes of attitude to trading as to a game. Excitement can help you to lose all the money

[sebastiano]

There are some points from my side:
1.A low start capital
2.Failure to manage the risk
3.Greed
4.Indecision
5. Trying to catch the reversal of the trend
6. Trading with exotics instruments.

[mlawson71]

Trading exotic instruments isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you know what you’re doing, but if you’re a newbie you should probably not touch them with a ten-foot pole.

[alextrader79]

Trying to make money quick is one of the worst things one can do, to be honest. You end up losing a lot more than you profit, most of the time.

Yeah, it’s a false goal, cause people try to trade when there is no point at all sometimes. There must be confirmations and causes to open orders, not only trader’s will
I don’t think that famous traders had the main goal to earn quick money.

[GerhardtW]

Hello Vincentas,
The number one is that they lack the tools they need to succeed.

1. Education
2. Experience
3. Need to become comfortable with charts
4. Risk management System

[mlawson71]

Yeah, it’s a false goal, cause people try to trade when there is no point at all sometimes. There must be confirmations and causes to open orders, not only trader’s will
I don’t think that famous traders had the main goal to earn quick money.

Indeed. How did the saying go? If wishes were fishes we’d all swim in riches? Obviously that is not the case. One should trade based on facts, not based on hope.

[Jonnie_Kash]

If you have realistic confidence in your trading strategy and your disciplined self, then temporary losses or setbacks don’t matter, because you will come out ahead in the long run.

[mlawson71]

That really depends on the size of those temporary losses, unfortunately. Sometimes a mistake is too large to overcome.

[Jonnie_Kash]

Fear, the fear of loss makes up a chief component why traders fail. Fear will also cause a person to exit a profitable position earlier than would be necessary. This reduces potential gains and makes you unable to absorb inevitable losses longer.

[Narenraj]

most Peoples fail because they lack the knowledge of fx market and discipline to become a trader.
they step into the market & trade with get rich quick attitude.
and mostly they listen to other, rather than doing some homework.

[sinusgamma]

After learning the school in babypips.com, reading a lot of forum topics, and other materials on the net, playing a bit with metatrader, searching for a good broker, studying strategies, trying to know my style, judjing technics to be worth for my attention or thinking them worthless, starting Mankiws basic book of macroeconomics . . . so after 2 months of preparation I launched my first real demo account. (I had two others, but first I had to know metatrder, then I switched from strategy to strategy, so I didn’t have strategy )
I don’t know why you fail, but maybe I start to know why I fail, but it can be helpful to you as well.

This is my month:

Most of the days I win, but when I lose I lose a “lot”. And why? Because I extend stop loss. This is a very stupid thing. Sometimes if the price is against my “calculation” I beleive that after a retracement it will favor me. And I can do it several times. My brain starts to beleive in my first analysis, but the chart already shows something else.

If the original stop loss level is braked the price will go further, and will move more than your spread+comission (most of the time), so the math is against extending stop loss as well.

Conclusion: I am really stupid sometimes.

The other thing: I think as a newbie avoid GBP pairs. Most volatile, most unpredictable and most sensitive currency. The GBP pairs stopped me out most of the time.

I am a beginner, and these I my first experinces. Discipline is very, very important.

[Jonnie_Kash]

The leading causes of their failure are, not cutting your losses short and trading without a stop-loss.