What to Do When a Trade Turns Against You
It is time to wake up to the reality of losing in forex. In fact the statistics show that you will lose close to 40% of the time. That is considering the fact that you are a good trader! For an average trader you can expect losing rates of between 60% to 90% and very soon you are kicked out of the game! But then how come some traders still manage to make millions of dollars a year in trading profits? Well the answer is actually very simple. And you can find it in the title of this article. “What to do when a trade turns against you.” This is all about trading psychology.
The unexpected will always happen in the world of investments. You can pray or plan, you can even guess and hope but at the end of the day you know that there is no certainty of profits in the world of trading. But because of this risk element, you also have the higher chance of earning much more.
When you enter into a trade and the trade goes against you, what do you normally do? Well if you have good money management procedures in place then this is redundant question. Unfortunately most traders don’t even know how to apply the most basic of money management rules to their trading plans!
A rule of thumb for new traders out there. When you are faced with a series of losing trades the only thing you can do is to “get the hell out of there!” Stop trading if you lose more than 3 times consecutively. Should you stay on then I assure you that you will be faced with the unhappy prospect of seeing your account dwindle away to nothing as one trade after another result in losses.
When a trade turns against you, the first thing is to stay calm and collected. Do not mess with your stop loss (assuming if you have one) if you do not have a stop loss then the only thing to be done is to immediately exit the trade and take the loss. Remember the chance of wining is 50/50. So if the trade is moving against you and you got no protection then it is a death knell.
Next thing is to look at the market trend on whole. Did you take a counter trend trade? If you did then it shows that the market is merely following the general trend and you are in a losing trade. So exit early and you may still make some pips.
Lastly determine if your set up was fulfilled 100% when you entered. A lot of new traders took trades when their set-ups are not 100% fulfilled and that makes it very hard to be disciplined and stay in a trade. Thus when the trade turns against them, they panic and make a lot of silly decisions.
In conclusion, what to do when a trade turns against you is to stay calm and evaluate the situation first before attempting to do anything. While this may seem to be common sense and simple, I challenge you to do it. Humans are creatures of emotions and when there is our money on the table at risk, we take all these emotions out to play! So remember a good trader must always have money management rules in place. Should the trade turn against you, you will have no worries as you have already planed for it anyway!
Dr. Joshua Geralds is a successful Investment Specialist with over twenty years experience increasing the income of people world wide. Visit http://www.pipsalot.com to learn how to make steady profits through safe trading and down load your FREE e-book “Money Management” for a limited time only!







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