How do you treat a losing trade?

[Samuel]

The worst thing you can do about a losing trade is treat it as it's not a loss. The big mistake many novices to is run the loss till the position goes in profit. Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't work and they lose everything.

Unfortunately that's what happened to me yesterday, I was going down on stocks looking at all the climate and the disagreement between the ministers in their meeting and the markets going just a little bit up the previous day, the Asian markets going down just that early morning, all these conditions were signals of bear markets. Then ****!!! The markets went against me as the chinese decide to cut the reserve ratio, I moved my stop loss a bit further then wholly ****, the markets went up 80 points, not just I lost my position, but I had to use my card to pay for exceeding the margin

[candle]

We all learn from our mistakes people. I thinks it happend to me quite often, that is the main reason for not trading a lot lately, I only trade when the opportunity presents itself. I stopped actually believing in Spread Betting for a living!!!

[Goner]

The best way to defense is to attack. So, the best way to treat a losing trade is to make up for it with a winning one!!!

[Ben]

The worst thing you can do about a losing trade is treat it as it's not a loss. The big mistake many novices to is run the loss till the position goes in profit. Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't work and they lose everything.

Well said Lucky. Some people just can't stand a losing trade and wait forever till it goes into positive territory.
Sometimes it works out. but the main thing is that when they are finally in plus they close the position right away (with a sigh of relief) and miss on the profits.

[Zara123]

For me having a losing trade is all part of the process, having more wins and than losses is the answer especially if the losses are little towards the profits. I struggle with my stop loss to be honest in the beginning so my losses were big and my profit was small but been workings on turning this around.x

[Mason]

I know that we all should take loss as a part of our trading. But how much people can do it? Very few. The fact is that taking loss as a lesson and leaning from it usually takes lots of time. many people want to become rich quickly and dont have patience to learn from losses.

[cindy]

I still struggle with losing trades and get very tempted to chase my losses

[Ben]

I still struggle with losing trades and get very tempted to chase my losses

Everybody does when they start out... it's one of the most common mistakes.

[Eddie Z]

A losing trade is a trade that went beyond your Risk tolerance. We all know that all our trades wont be winning trades, so having a stop loss gives you that sense of reality and prevents you from causing a disaster. If your trade doesnt go your way then you are out and you move on..You take a small break and put yourself together before moving on to the second trade. The worst you can do is revenge trade. Accepting this in a calm and disciplined manner will make you a successful trader. I know it is easy to be said..but not impossible.
Great question!

Morning forumers

The pain of a losing trade is equal to twice the satisfaction of a winning trade.
The reason behind some traders struggling with a trade to make It a winning one, is that the loss has distabilised them and they kept increasing the stop loss. As a trader, you need to have a trading edge for you to be a successful trader and a successful investor tries to identify his or her trading edge and ensure it has a positive expectancy and optimise the risk to it accordingly.


So do you have a trading edge???

[Messi]

A losing trade is a trade that went beyond your Risk tolerance. We all know that all our trades wont be winning trades, so having a stop loss gives you that sense of reality and prevents you from causing a disaster. If your trade doesnt go your way then you are out and you move on..You take a small break and put yourself together before moving on to the second trade. The worst you can do is revenge trade. Accepting this in a calm and disciplined manner will make you a successful trader. I know it is easy to be said..but not impossible.
Great question!

I agree with all what you said Eddie, but the problem is that, most of the time, as soon as a losing trade hits the stop loss, it starts going the other way, hence people want to chase the trade and remove the stop loss to another level. Sometimes you get lucky and you break even or even make a profit, otherwise you will need a lot of tissue to wipe down your tears