Things I Hate And Their Actual Loss Value

There are many things we probably hate about day trading. Things that stand in our way of successful trades.

It’s just the nature of the beast.

If day trading were so easy, everyone would be highly profitable by now.

But if I were to really analyze it objectively, there are things I hate which don’t actually result in any losses, and things I hate which result in HUGE losses.

It ranges across a spectrum.

And the trick is to avoid the things which result in huge losses.

	Things I Hate	Actual Loss
1	Seeing a stock shoot up but not having a position in it as it did not fit my criteria.	ZERO
2	Not finding any good trades to trade in a day, because none of them fit my criteria.	ZERO
3	Jumping into a trade just to make a quick buck even though it did not fit my criteria, only to lose the trade.	MODERATE
4	Entering into a trade because I tried to anticipate a perfect setup, but losing the trade because the perfect setup did not materialise.	MODERATE
5	Not stopping after making multiple losing trades, i.e. not setting a cap on daily losses.	HIGH
6	Revenge trading – Getting over emotional over losing, and continuing to trade until I get to breakeven, but eventually blowing up half my account.	HIGH

When you look at it this way, items 1 and 2 don’t seem that bad after all.

Sure, it doesn’t feel good to see a stock shoot up when I decided not to trade it. And it doesn’t feel good when I wait a whole day but can’t find any good trades to get into.

But you actually lose NOTHING if you don’t trade. And that is any time better than losing hundreds or thousands of dollars on trades you could have avoided.