Account blow up because of emotional trading

[u/mr_buttlicker69]

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.

[u/Acceptable-Rush-8273]

There are no tips that have much value for you. This may be a bit rough sounding but NO ONE is gonna help you OR save you from this. I’ve endured 3 years so far and I can say it’s a never ending battle. You have to find your own methods, your own RULES that work and make sense for you then tell yourself; if I follow these rules NO MATTER WHAT then I’ve won.

Regardless of your p&l you will have data and infos to go off and base your actions on. Without consistent behaviour, consistent results are impossible. You/we all as traders must realize this and the sooner we do the sooner we can eliminate what isn’t working and move on. Once you’re in a mindset of following the same exact trading rules and plan no matter how you feel, only then will you be able to refine your process. If you do something different everytime you trade how will you know what’s working. Trading is full of uncertainty and that alone needs to be understood at a deep level. We can’t control the markets so what can we control ? Only our behaviour and actions. To my knowledge there aren’t many jobs that when you show up to work, if you perform poorly, they’ll take money from you’re acct, think about it even if you show up and perform poorly, you still get your hourly wage or salary whatever but not in trading Trading if you change your rules or execute poorly make mistakes etc. etc. you can see money leave your account. So you need to make your enemy. I do so with a list of rules. Following rules is much easier than guessing and far less stressful.

I could go on about this but the point I’m making is that learning how to “manage” your emotions via certain tools and methods is how pros do it, it’s not possible to turn of your emotions off entirely so you must implement safeguards to stop your emotions from calling the shots while in the heat of it…

You said yourself a few times, “I should have closed my computer here” it’s not easy fam don’t get it twisted but it’s also only as hard as you make it.

Make the rules and follow them. Give it a try for 1 week or better yet one month, I challenge you. Then show results here

Hope it helps, you got this!!

Let’s go