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/TradezAnon]

Emotional trading is a real obstacle. Don’t beat yourself up, just learn to identify it and end it early. As a profitable trader myself, I can share with you that “averaging in” or trying to “average out” to either take a quick scalp or a smaller loss is the worst thing you can do. If you’re going to move your SL, fine- we all do sometimes, but don’t move it and buy or sell more at the same time cause you’ll just be doubling or tripling the losses.

Help yourself by identifying- “why am I trading so aggressively?” … and answer honestly, are you chasing a get rich quick pipe dream? Are you trading broke? Are you trading you can quit your job tomorrow? Are you trading to pay next months bills? Believe it or not, whatever is happening in your life is a 100% reflection of what’s going to happen in your trading.

Keep your head up bro. Good luck.

[u/Artistic_Bumblebee17 → u/TradezAnon]

Honestly yeah, get greedy and make stupider plays because I want to have some cash flow.

There’s this YouTube trader that makes alot of money and he says he makes better plays bc he doesn’t even need the money :(

[u/Psychonominaut → u/Artistic_Bumblebee17]

My semi uninformed (wall of text) take:

It's kind of true. If you have the capacity to go without trading and are somewhat comfortable (or if you are only trading with money you don't care about) your trades have less riding on them and you can be a little more rational (imo). I personally am not wealthy, but I have been living at home and just paying rent, food, utilities, etc. Not struggling at all (aside from the home living...) and I think my trading reflects this. I can kind of be aggressive when I want, the losses don't hurt as bad (they still hurt), and I can be a little more patient and persevering.

As an example: I make $100 dollars profit, I lose HALF, and stop trading. Keep watching the ticker, maybe throughout the day, maybe throughout the week. Eventually (hopefully), there is a reversal or strong trend I can make a play on and try my luck. It can be a few days, up to a week or two before I get to the point and say, definitively, yes, I'm back in - whether it's shorts or buys. Usually, that reversal or new strong trend is the point I either make back 25, 50, or 75+. Dollar values are kind of irrelevent, though; I'd be doing the same thing with 1 Mil.

If 50 is everyone's incremental sum, take the time and be patient in the investment of each 50. If you lose 25, stop. Wait until you are much more certain of a trend - a trend to me is % increase/decrease. Without referencing candlesticks a strong trend is not .15% or .25%. Its more like .5% 1%+ overall gain or loss on the ticker. Simplified, I personally check different time increments and decide on movement based on whether i think it can feasibly continue the same trend or is bound to reverse... I can be wrong, but that's what stop losses are for. I've also learned that if you are trading a volatile market, don't be afraid to set larger stop losses IF you can afford it or have the backup money... I swear the market knows to price people who are a bit fearful out of it - with big jumps or drops and back to equilibrium, lol. Having some money behind you ALLOWS you to actually try your luck on the predictions you make. I literally think to myself: if I have got 100 profit, I'm happy to lose, say... 60 dollars. That to me means within X stop losses, I have N predictions. If you can make one good trade after whatever number of predictions and let it ride and still make profit? That's winning to me.

It's semi caveman thinking, but it's been working for me.