Revising my recent trades which were made during the last month I still find myself making the same mistakes I’ve been doing as a newbie trader. The amount of these mistakes lowered, but sometimes emotions overcome the mind and the strategy and as a result — pips are lost. Here is the list of most devastating and stupid things you can make in Forex trading:
Don’t place stop-loss — sometimes I just forget to place, sometimes I hope for the price to eventually go in the right way and think that stop-loss will be an obstacle. This is wrong! Always place a stop loss — it’s good to have it significantly lower than your targeted profit.
Trade in lots too big — even if you are100% sure that this position will be profitable, don’t make it too large — 1%-5% is more than enough. Losing 20% of your deposit will require much more risk to recover.
Overtrade — everyone says that it is bad to overtrade, but for a trader it is always hard to stay away from market when there is “so many opportunities”. Just try to set a limit of daily/weekly trades for yourself. Overtrading is a result of the mindless emotions, not your mind, so avoid it.
Closing the winning positions too early — it seems OK to get some guaranteed profit against risking to wait even more. But trading experience proves that early closing for winning positions and waiting for losing positions to go green — is completely wrong. Let your winning positions run and cut your losing ones early!
Following forecasts and signals — for some traders it’s hard to avoid this, especially when there is some Forex guru they respect. Trading with your own strategy and full responsibility is the only way that can make you a professional and successful Forex trader.
I am quite sure that you’ve already read such advices a dozen of times, but they are always good to remember, so consider it just as a helpful memo.
