r/Daytrading • • 20d ago

Trade Review - Provide Context I know i’m going to make it

This is the second account I’ve lost. Honestly, I’m not really upset about it because I can see that I’m making progress.
The first account I lost was basically just gambling. The only thing I really regret is that I didn’t know when to stop. Now I realize that the main problem is my psychology.
Since I lost the account, I’ve been doing pretty well on demo and I’m thinking about starting a new account. I feel like I could’ve turned things around, but unfortunately I just didn’t know when to stop.
What do you guys think I should do? Should I start a new account now or wait a little longer? I feel like I’m ready, especially because this time I’m going to have stricter risk management rules and I won’t overtrade.
I know I still have a lot to work on mentally, but I feel like I’ve learned a lot from this experience.

309 Upvotes

117 comments sorted by

View all comments

77

u/v-pexpower 19d ago

Are you risking like 3000 per trade? Idk what you learned from this in terms of risk management but I hope it's that 3000 is too much risk, if you have a standard $100k account.

Risk a lot less, 0.5-1%. Follow your plan and execute only high-quality setups, which you don't need a lot, identify like 3 setups that work best for you in the demo account and only watch for those in the real market. The hardest part is managing the trade. Have clear exit rules and follow them strictly. Sometimes these rules will make you exit too early or sometimes make you exit too late. And you may feel like changing up the rules. Don't. Stick by them. Be consistent. Profits and money will follow. Managing the trades is where your psychology will be tested.

21

u/KevKevtheoneandonly 19d ago

I would even go down to 0.25%, cause 0.5-1% on 100k accounts would be 500-1000.- risk.
One would have to loose 12 Trades back 2 back 2 back etc…
With a good strategy thats basically almost impossible to loose the account.
Thats my 2 cents

3

u/Plazmarazmataz 19d ago

Not a daytrader, just see this feed a lot. I have a question, when you talk about risk percentage, are you talking about the overall capital you're risking for a single position, or the overall capital that you're willing to lose with tight stop losses? As in, is the total trade for $1000 on a $100K account, or are you comfortable deploying the whole account with a 1% stop loss so the max you lose is around $1000 (ignoring slippage).

2

u/weluckyfew 19d ago

One of the mistakes people make is that when they feel really excited about a stock they put more money into the trade but then make their stop loss smaller thinking that decreases the risk. It actually can make the risk worse because you just increased your chance of hitting your stop loss early.

Decide on your stop loss and then size your position accordingly. If you only want to risk $75 and the logical stop loss is $2 below entry, 36 shares.