Fear of loosing

Hi guys

can somebody tell me how to get rid of fear of loosing.. i close my positions too early and take little profit... in all those trades i see after i close my positions run in for more then 50 pips.. and i close it for mere 2-3 pips. that's what happening with me , after blowing two live accounts..this is my third account and now i have good win rate but i am not able to leave my trade open for more pips... may be there's fear that i dont want to blow third account.. but how to get rid of this... without this i dont think that i can ever be successful in trading..

any help from members who have been through this and how they tackle this problem will be highly helpful.

From what I gather, you place a trade & you are in profit initially, then price retraces back to your open price and you panic as you see profit vanishing.

Maybe you are either trading with a lot size larger than your account can handle and/or with a stoploss too close to the price and not allowing the trade to breathe.

It also sounds like you are trading with scared money. Money that you can't afford to lose and psychologically because of the past blown accounts it hurts you.

Solution, give the trade more stoploss space and accordingly, drop your position size down, maybe to half what you would normally expect to place. This way you have the same amount of money at risk but giving the trade more room.

If your trading method allows you, Set a Profit target and walk away. Smothering the trade will damage confidence, especially when if you had let it run would have produced a decent profit.

When the method then starts paying back, increase the lot size gradually.

There are a lot of great threads here in FF about trading psychology & trade management. Read books by Mark Douglas & others they will help also

(First post so apologies for any wrongdoings, I'll do my best =p)


I very much agree with the above, and I'm fairly sure almost all traders have been in your situation (or a similar one) at some or several points in their career, so this is completely natural =]

However, that doesn't mean to say that you SHOULD feel like this.

Blowing an account is a pretty common thing, it happens.

Losing trades is also common. It's Natural. It Happens, and it happens to EVERYONE.

Perfection is non-existent and pursuing it is very foolish.

It is written in many places that a mechanical trading system helps in removing all forms of emotion from trading, I can assure you this is true.

I can tell you from experience that it is very important to find a system that works, and works for YOU - no matter what else is thrown in your face, focus on what works for you.

Once you have a system that you are comfortable with, and it yields NET profits, STICK WITH IT.

MAKE it a mechanical system.

Take EVERY signal, if it fails, it fails. If it wins, it wins.
End.Of

Once you take every signal (and i mean EVERY signal) and you start seeing that even though you may have a run of 5 losers in a row, yet your system pulls you through and at the end of the week you end up with a nice chunk of profit, suddenly, losing isn't so bad, trust me.

The problem i think many face is that they experience the losers and become subjective. Or in other words, start using their emotions and opinions to enter and exit trades.

Once you become subjective, you fail. STAY MECHANICAL.

You DO NOT know for fact what will happen in the FX market, if you did, you'd be rich. Therefore, take your signals without opinion etc.


Through law of averages, if your system is a profitable one, if you take every trade despite the losing every here and now, you never turn down an opportunity for a winner =]

Final note, i have foudn that implementing a dynamic, moving stop loss strategy can be very helpful as your simply number crunching.

If your interested in my stop system or profit targeting, feel free too contact me =]

Hope this has helped

Shabs19-

You are 100% true that i am trading with the scared money ... and i cant afford to loose that.Its the money drawn from my credit card which i will have to pay back to my bank sooner or later ( hopefully sooner ). I will implement your suggestion regarding my position size and stop loss.. i need to lower my position size and widen my stop loss.. thanks for this.

Xivali-

I will find out mechanical system that will take my emotions out of my trading.. thanks.

frankly you are destined to fail. who wants to take the bet and basically give me their money?

also, loose = your butt each time you open a trade and your pants go a little more brown. lose = what you are going to do because you have all the odds stacked against you :/

nubcake-

Hello sir,

Please do give me some suggestions about how can i change my destiny... i wont give up so easily in this forex trading endeavor. Your suggestions would definitely help me.

remove all money from your trading account... pay back your debt... all other debts.... and start investing some serious time in front of the computer running vhands or visually/mentally taking trades from the past to see if you have any idea at all what universe you are in and which way is up down left and right. read, explore, experiment, and try to find something that works... and works for a long time not just a handful of times.

you don't throw a baby in a pool expecting it to learn to swim before drowning. this is what you have done to yourself. once all your debts are free and clear then feel free to knock yourself out blowing small trading accounts with throw-away money, but at least you won't be digging your own grave.

Wow, thats true sir... you are right.. i will do the same thanks.

erm, i forgot to add... remember that there is a lot of information out there. most of it is probably complete bs or misguided (he says after posting thoughts on a forum).

First, read this post, and decide whether you really have what it takes, and whether you're willing to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to become profitable. Brutal honesty is called for: the harsh reality is that the markets are unforgiving, and you're up against experts from day one. The good news is that the poster, and others, are trading profitably for a living.

If you decide to continue, go back to demo trading. Prove to YOURSELF beyond all doubt that your trading strategy is profitable, that you really do have a winning edge, without the added pressure of having real money on the line. If possible, back-test your entries and exits, and/or run trading simulators like those here and here. Your next step must be to restore your CONFIDENCE in both your strategy, and your ability to implement it. The only real antidote to fear is confidence, and confidence can come only from the experience of placing hundreds of trades over many months, and watching the wins outnumber and/or outsize the losses. The bottom line is this: until you can trade profitably and confidently, you'll continue to donate your hard earned money to the market.

A couple of other possible benefits of demo trading:

1. From what I've read, there are two major fears: fear of being wrong, and fear of losing money. Since there's no money on the line in demo, it can help you discover where your problem lies.

2. Some folk believe that there's less noise involved in trading the longer timeframes. With demo, you can practise this kind of trading without having to front up with whatever additional money might be required to accommodate the wider stoplosses. Longer timeframes could also be a way of helping to motivate you to keep your trades open longer.


If you've been trading profitably in demo, but not live, then start smaller. There are plenty of brokers who allow microlot sizes. As the saying goes, scared money never wins. Don't over-leverage yourself; you must be patient enough to walk before you try to run. Trading is NOT a get rich quick scheme.

Xivali points out that a mechanical approach allows a greater objectivity. If your problem lies with your exits, you might consider walking away from the computer after entering a trade, and allowing a robot to manage the exit. I haven't tried these, but here and here are links to a couple of trade management EAs.

Fud's post is worth reading (as are most things Hanover posts).

My only addition/contradiction to it would be don't waste time personalising the market. It's not out to get you when you're up or give you a hug when you're down; as far as you're concerned, the market merely exists to allow you to buy from or sell to (it).

All you have to figure out then is whether your end of the transaction has value.

Oh, and change your signature underneath your username please; the sooner you stop characterising yourself as a victim, the quicker you'll learn the reality.

try this :
Use the smallest trade volume until you comfort with it, if your platform not small enough, try another broker who has small trade volume.

it works for me

Dow trading method

Sounds to me that you are risking too much on your account and/or you don't have a trading plan.

1. Start with small account until you are comfortable, then you're ready for the bigger lots. Everyday, before my trading starts, I always say to myself "If I can't make it with small lots, how am I going to make it with big lots?". This logical chanting helps me get into the market without fear even if I get stopped out.

2. Trade Plan, write up a trading plan and read it everyday before you trade:

Here's some of mine:


•Always read this plan before trading

•Breathe, relax and be patient for a setup

•If you can’t make it with a small account, you’ll never make it with a big account

•Killer instinct – you see a setup, enter otherwise what’s the point of trading

•Second guessing will kill you – don’t do it!

•Once you enter, you have no control over the trade – either it win or lose – be the robot

•Trade only GU for now

•Trade in the direction of the trend

•Calc position size due to last pivot and from entry

•Risk is 2% per trade

•Watch the ABC pattern – stepping up and stepping down

On going process so I've still need to add more

Hope I can help

thank you very much guys... so nice of you that you all gave me your nice suggestions ... it will certainly help me .. thanks again.

I also think you are under capitalised, your trading capital may be too small to start with and what it is, killing your account may be Leverage.

You may also be very unrealistic with your trading profit expectations on the small trading capital and put on too high a lot size for your account.
You may even have a decent strategy, and even a decent ratio of winning trades, but with all your eggs in one basket, it will take only a small move against you to have you fighting for your account life (margin call).

This makes your "scared-money" (especially borrowed at high extortionate interest rates) "totally freaked out money".

A ready rule of thumb, is a $1 per pip trade for every $1000 you have in your account. (this is at 100:1 leverage with a USD based currency)

To trade 1 Lot (100,000 units of currency) you should have at least $10,000 in your account. ( at 100:1)

Trade in a micro account, or keep demoing until you save enough money to trade at the right levels.

This topic has been discussed before on FF. Read up on this:

http://www.babypips.com/school/leverage_the_killer.html

Look at it like a business you have to pay employ's when you own a business. Fear of losing is what I think every one has to deal with hen first starting out. Fear will cause you to hesitate and look for reasons why you should not take the trade, all the while the prices goes in the direction you where hoping for. I have been working on the fact that if I see a signal that goes with my trading method I take it and forget it, I lose some and win some but my money management takes care of my account in a positive way ... You must learn to trust what you see and the phrase " if it does this it should do that " I hope that helps a little.....

Closing too early should results in total loss.
The more important resistance/support, the more profit is expected.

I see this over and over and over again ... and it bugs me ... it's LOSING, not loosing ...

I know what you mean. But I also know what the writer means and that's enough for me.

English is an international language now and we are priveledged that people who's first language is not English choose to post here on Forex Factory. Some don't even have our script. How many languages do I speak or write? Well French and German, badly. American, fluently. I can also say please and thank you and a few other words in a few other languages. Not bad for an Englishman.

If you look at spellings and accents in England it varies from county to county. Some dialects sound like a foreign language. Now we have texting. A new form of the language I'll talk about on a nu thread l8tr m8.

Anyway. Sorry for the rant but I think we have to let it go unless someone asks specifically "Is this correct?"

By the way, it's colour, not color...

That is putting yourself under too much pressure.