2. How to handle a losing trade?

How to handle a losing trade?
Let’s face it we all know that every now and then we have to deal with a losing trade.
And this is not bad at all and this is completely part of it.
And if you have good risk management, it doesn’t have to hurt at all.

I think every trader can identify with blowing up your trading account.
This often happens when you have just started trading and you think you are all there with just a good trading strategy.
Then your trade goes into the min and you stick to your strategy and you move your stop loss more and more or you remove it completely.
Eventually the trade keeps going the other way and you get that annoying message from a margin call.
I bet almost all novice traders have had to deal with this at some point.

How to handle a losing trade?

Or simply the fact that you trade too large a lotize on your account that is too small.
This one will also be familiar to many traders, I think especially in the beginning of the trading career.
How painful is it if you lose your entire account with just 1 losing trade that you may have spent months trading it together? ouch!

But how do experienced traders do this, how do they deal with a loss?
It is actually very simple use strict risk management!
Perhaps this is also one of the most important parts that you should learn before you start trading.
Only risk a small percentage of your account at a time!

Give your trade room to move and don’t worry too much.
And if a trade takes too much time to gain profits, you take the loss and cut the trade lose earlier and than you can look for other trades!

How to handle a losing trade?

Just remember that you are going to lose money. This is going to happen, and it cannot be avoided in the long term no matter what you do.
There are factors outside of your control, and this means that you can prepare as much as you like, something will still go wrong.
Keeping that in mind, remember also that this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
If you lose money, so be it.
The fact of trading is that things move very fast.
If you actually expect to lose some of the time, but make larger winning trades when you do win compared to when you lose, then you are making progress and profit.

Everyone knows it gets rough, and you can’t just ‘win’ because of luck, or even your skills.
Sitting back and cutting your losses is actually part of a successful trader mindset.
Ignoring this makes no sense.

Set a reasonable loss limit and leave it there. Then get on with your trading.
This way, no matter what happens, you’re not going to lose everything even if you have a bad day.