What's the hardest thing to do?

What is the rule of trading that you find the hardest to follow?

Taking trades you shouldn't?
Not sticking to the 2% rule?
Not averaging down?
Not doing trades for small stakes just to keep you entertained?
Walking away after a win/loss streak?

Any others?

That is is a very good question! I'll give you a scenario what led me to lose quite a bit of money well to me anyway. 1st I ignored the 2% rule went big lost and then thought I better try something else. Here comes number 2. Took a trade I shouldn't have then when it went against me guess what ? Yes thats right rules No 3 I averaged down. Rule no 4 I should have walked away to regroup my thoughts but oh no I had to do small trades to keep me entertained rule No 5! Overall a loss of 75% of my starting capital but the most annoying this is every single one of my trades would of paid of if I stuck to my plan i.e exit and entry timing. I think you should also add Not sticking to the plan! Now I'm using my remaining capital to recover but now I try to stick to the rules 99% of the time !

the hardest aspect to trading in my opinion is understanding your flaws and limitations.

My hardest thing was to totally separating one trade from another. if i lost my first trade of the day,i would generally be looking to get straight back in to get my money back.i dont follow many of the money management rules that the books tell us to do,but I always try and stick to my staking rules

Oh and I dont believe in stop losses every time I used one it has f++kd me over hard! Instead I set alerts get a text on my phone and as I have mobile trading I can choose whether to close or not!

ldk22233 said:

Oh and I dont believe in stop losses every time I used one it has f++kd me over hard! Instead I set alerts get a text on my phone and as I have mobile trading I can choose whether to close or not!

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so in that case when do you consider a trade a loss

I find it tough running profitable trades. It can lead to second guessing where you never win. You either close too early or hold and watch it go into a loss.

I agree with ldk about stop losses too. Evil things, at least the tight ones are.

Emotional management, probably. It's the one thing that's the least in my control right now.

The best I can do when feeling excited/down after win/loss streaks is step away from the screen, but it can take hours to subside and there's nothing I can do to squash it other than let it run its course.

Experience and frequency of such episodes should make it more manageable, though, until each trade feels as focused as pondering my next chess move.

Some good answers here.

For me, the easiest thing to do is to walk away. There have been many times I've just shut everything down and it is such a relief to let everything go and not care where the market goes. If I was doing this for a living and actually had to make money I'm sure it would be very different.

The hardest thing I find is I sometimes take "gambling" trades at minimum stakes while waiting for the main setups. I've always been a gambler and getting away from trying to get the next big win (I've had some £100+ wins at 10p per point with some adding in) is hard to do. Although I can't really do that much damage in terms of money with those it's still something I need to stop doing.

As for stops, I always have one and I never move it.

For me the hardest thing to do is to keep up the consistency. Day after day. Sometimes ill, sometimes stressed from outside things, tired, distracted etc, and still managing to stay sharp and stick to the rules. It's very hard. One bad day where you break your rules can be so costly.

"Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon.
I found it one of the hardest things to learn."
^^^That's me.
And waiting around for a setup, when I know the time would be better spent in bed.
(I trade the FTSE from Australia)

All of the ones in the OP, if i didn't break my rules i'd be a rich man... i'm at a level in my trading where i see that i have talent but i need to get over this hurdle of breaking rules, breaking rules is painful and costs money but why can't i stop it? I may go get hypnotized before the new year

Masquerade said:

I find it tough running profitable trades. It can lead to second guessing where you never win. You either close too early or hold and watch it go into a loss.

I agree with ldk about stop losses too. Evil things, at least the tight ones are.

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Says the masochist who lost 30% of his account in one trade...

Masquerade said:

I find it tough running profitable trades. It can lead to second guessing where you never win. You either close too early or hold and watch it go into a loss.

I agree with ldk about stop losses too. Evil things, at least the tight ones are.

Click to expand...

I found that it helps to NEVER EVER let a winning trade turn into a losing trade, generally if I am 30 points up I am not going to watch the trade come back. There is a lot of flawed thinking around RR out there. Also I found it helps to have a plan in advance for each price eventuality.

new_trader said:

Says the masochist who lost 30% of his account in one trade...

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Never lost 30% and you can't jump to conclusions without knowing how much the account was up to start with. If a strategy is fairly high risk enabling the user to make big returns and have 100%+ ROI within a few months and every few months the person loses 20% of their account, are they still not making money?

Masquerade said:

Never lost 30% and you can't jump to conclusions without knowing how much the account was up to start with.

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Losing or dropping, either way you are in no position to advise people about stops, that is for sure!

Masquerade said:

[edit]

My most recent example being after taking a sizeable hit when euro plummeted a few weeks ago I was re-building my account after dropping close to 30% of my account in one trade. Which of course was a consequence of me averaging + no stop and just running it.

[edit]

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Masquerade said:

If a strategy is fairly high risk enabling the user to make big returns and have 100%+ ROI within a few months and every few months the person loses 20% of their account, are they still not making money?

Click to expand...

What do you mean fairly high risk? Trading is risky, get that into your head. "If this, if" that etc....Fancy magic number talk aren't going to help you.

Get this into your head:

You joined in November 2007, I joined in January 2006.
Based on that, you've been trading for just over 4 years, I've been trading almost 6 years.
You think tight stops are a hazard, I say tight stops are crucial
You still post soul searching threads about your pathetic trading, I don't.

THE END.

brewski1984 said:

What is the rule of trading that you find the hardest to follow?

Taking trades you shouldn't?
Not sticking to the 2% rule?
Not averaging down?
Not doing trades for small stakes just to keep you entertained?
Walking away after a win/loss streak?

Any others?

Click to expand...

....making through the initial learning curve with both your sanity and capital intact, then having the courage to push on to the next learning curve, and make it through that one with your sanity and capital in tact (repeat several times)...then starting to make some money...then the next learning curve...

new_trader said:

Losing or dropping, either way you are in no position to advise people about stops, that is for sure!





What do you mean fairly high risk? Trading is risky, get that into your head. "If this, if" that etc....Fancy magic number talk aren't going to help you.

Get this into your head:

You joined in November 2007, I joined in January 2006.
Based on that, you've been trading for just over 4 years, I've been trading almost 6 years.
You think tight stops are a hazard, I say tight stops are crucial
You still post soul searching threads about your pathetic trading, I don't.

THE END.

Click to expand...

"close to" - you said I lost 30% and I said I hadn't which is true. I'm not giving advice, i'm giving my opinion and if someone wants to stick a 20pt stop and risk 2% of their account on every trade they're more than welcome to. After losing a lot doing that, I turned my back on that way of trading. I believe it's dangerous - if you want to go ahead and trade like that, be my guest.

Trading actually isn't that risky, it's only when people leverage up to the eyeballs that it becomes that way. Markets generally don't move very far over short periods of time. It's the tight stops which get you in and out of the market repeatedly losing you more points than the market's actually moved in that time frame. If you even look at the beginning of the year and compare it to the end, see how much the market's actually moved. I think you'll find it's not actually a substantial amount.

Finally, your logic is frankly ****.

You joined in November 2007, I joined in January 2006.
Based on that, you've been trading for just over 4 years, I've been trading almost 6 years.

Click to expand...

It's scary you think like that. If I told you I was 19 when I put my first trade on and started getting involved with trading and now i'm past 26 - that would mean i've been trading in some shape or form for the last 7 years to your puny 6 even though I joined in November 2007 and you joined Jan 2006 (la dee daa) so going by your logic my ****'s bigger than yours. You have **** logic and insight. Mind blowing that someone traded before they joined T2W....

As I said, if someone wants to trade that way I don't give a ****, but don't start having a go at me for voicing my opinion based on my experiences.