New member - Lost money trading but haven't given up hope

[Jaswinder Singh 0]

Hello everyone,

 

I am new here. Joined this community after reading Andrew's book from Amazon and he really inspired me. I have lost quite a lot of my hard earned money trading but i still have my hopes up. I would feel better if someone can share their experience where they have lost money but kept at it and recovered their losses. Would be nice if you give some tips. Appreciate it!

 

Thanks,

JS

[Carlos M. 232]

Hey JS!

I cannot name one good trader that is still trading, that has not lost money starting out. Is what makes trading so difficult to continue. Nobody in their right mind wants to lose money or continue doing something that they see their money diminish.

After a serious of bad losses is good to take a step back and review what is not working and why. Review your journal and see why trades are not working. You will find that some trades are perfect, all signals were present and you took the trade just right. Those traders are just part of the losers we will have in trading. With those trades just make sure that you did stick to your stop loss. Nothing  you can do about a trade that did not work out but make sure you kept your stop loss and risk management. 

Now there will be another batch of trades were they were not great, maybe you chased, entry signals were not clear, or risk to reward was not in your favor. These are the trades you want to understand what you did wrong and put those top 3 things you find on an improvement list for the next trading days to come. Make it your job to make sure that these mistakes you will be on the look at for and avoid them as much as possible.

While doing this reduce your risk and number of shares. The idea is now to start building up your confidence in trading again. It helped me in the past to know that the money that was lost in gone and there is no getting it back. The recovering thought process should be focused completely on trading well and following your rules. Make it your business and #1 duty to just trade well, that's how you recover. The actual money recover will come later. 

To keep at it you must trade very small and forget about the money. I can keep going on but will leave room for others to also join in on what has worked for them. Take care man and you got this!

 

 

[Brendon 146]

Hi Jas, 

I can easily say that I blew up a couple small accounts when I first started trading a few years ago. Still less than post graduate education tuition though 😄 I love trading because you can be wrong more times than you are right and still make money. Tell me another profession or activity that you can win by losing? 

Yesterday for example, I took 2 trades on EXPE, got stopped out on the first trade, but the 2nd trade I let my trade ride to get 3+ Risk Reward. I left a small fraction of shares to test my break-even point after I partialed out a few times. Even if I was wrong 2/3 times I still probably would of made money or been flat for the day. That's how I renew my vows with trading. Just respect your stops and if the trade is breaking down, please stop out early, but whatever you do, do not increase your risk (you can tweak your stop a very small bit though). I take a less initial risk to give that wiggle room. 

I just watched Ford vs. Ferrari and not to get cheesy but the race driver said he was chasing the perfect lap his entire life. Trading is similar, you are chasing that perfect trade and most of the time, they are not perfect but you can still win the race (make money) just don't chase the stock lol.

 

[Vitaliy G 2]

Hi JS!

Just want to share my experience. I was live trading twice, first time I lost 10% of my account and I took some time off.  I knew I didn't learn enough so I came back and started with SIM. Had some consistency, but after going live again for the second time, in few months I lost 50% of my account. I was trying to recover previous losses but as Carlos said "the money that was lost in gone and there is no getting it back". Now, I am back to SIM for the third time trying to setup a system that works. Be persistent, make adjustments to your system and you will find consistency. 

[Brendon 146]

4 hours ago, Vitaliy G said:

Hi JS!

Just want to share my experience. I was live trading twice, first time I lost 10% of my account and I took some time off.  I knew I didn't learn enough so I came back and started with SIM. Had some consistency, but after going live again for the second time, in few months I lost 50% of my account. I was trying to recover previous losses but as Carlos said "the money that was lost in gone and there is no getting it back". Now, I am back to SIM for the third time trying to setup a system that works. Be persistent, make adjustments to your system and you will find consistency. 

Yup that's when I lowered my risk, I made over 10x my account value in a matter of a couple months, then 2 bad trades brought me back to below my initial deposit...annnnd that's when you learn to manage risk 😄 now it's impossible to lose more than 0.5% per trade with my approach. 

[nicolas 5]

Hi JS, the only thing you can control 100% in trading is your losses .... you can't place how much you want to earn. What you can do is say how much you want to lose.
Please place the automatic loss stop at an acceptable level for you and you will have forgotten about that issue. At that time you can concentrate on looking for the best setups with the peace of mind that the system (DAS) will be protecting you…. I have been trading for 2 years and my total losses never exceeded -900 dollars on those first months ... every time I reached my maximum the system would not allow me to operate until the next day and could only continue in the simulator ... All the best!

[Brendon 146]

4 hours ago, nicolas said:

Hi JS, the only thing you can control 100% in trading is your losses .... you can't place how much you want to earn. What you can do is say how much you want to lose.
Please place the automatic loss stop at an acceptable level for you and you will have forgotten about that issue. At that time you can concentrate on looking for the best setups with the peace of mind that the system (DAS) will be protecting you…. I have been trading for 2 years and my total losses never exceeded -900 dollars on those first months ... every time I reached my maximum the system would not allow me to operate until the next day and could only continue in the simulator ... All the best!

Yup hard stops are a must, the only disadvantage is that a setup/price action can change on the fly, and that is when have soft stops and your experience come into play, like Andrew, he can 'adjust' his stop out process on the fly, (and leave out emotion) which is the next step in developing your trading skills.