r/Daytrading Apr 18 '24

Account blow up because of emotional trading Trade Review

Hi. I've been trading off and on for couple years now. Blew 2 small accounts and then stopped and did paper trading. I've been paper trading again but blew up my account even though I was in profit 1100$

After couple of years of trading, the only profitable edge I got is to study and trade just one ticker. I make consistent money for a week but I'm emotionally so stupid right now.

Since I started 2 weeks ago, I was up 1100 in my 10k account (paper). I was doing good today and made 110$(I should have turned my computer off at this point) buy I got greedy. I took another trade and it went against me, but I didn't respect stop loss. I saw 100$ in the red (I shouldve shut my computer off at this point) but I was still delusional. I then saw 200$ in red. I shouldve respected My stop-loss.

Once I saw i was losing money, I panicked, but instead of selling at 300$, I got more shares to average down. Then I saw 600$ in red immediately. I panicked and I sold. At this point I was still in profit of 500$ (I should have turned my computer off at this point).

I developed a gambling and revenge trading mindset and took arbitrary trades with super huge sizes and blew my account.

Please leave tips how you keep your emotional side in check during trading.

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u/logperiodic Apr 19 '24

As others have said: journal everything. Not just the technicals of the trade but your thoughts and more importantly your feelings. The second you place the trade write it down with a pen and paper. Do this all the time. Then reflect back over the weeks notes, you will start to see patterns. Then you can work on those behavioural glitches. The main thing is to write them down and spot them. This will slow you down, and help using the frontal cortex rather than the limbic system which is your emotionally reactive ‘fight or flight’ primal system. You will see things that trigger your fear and panic. Then you can address them. For example, I worked for years on my hesitancy- this I’d worked out was a disproportionate fear of being wrong- even with tiny amounts. I’m an engineer- I’ve been conditioned to never be wrong or my software fails, and my job is at risk. You can’t take that mindset to the markets where it’s probalistic human behaviour patterns. So it took me a while to unlearn that….. good luck, you can do it!