1 Rushing into a trade

If you make many trades one after another, you may see that your entries were not well thought out. 

In retrospect, it may be easy to see you were not acting rationally. 

You were gripped by negative or positive emotions, which made you act before thinking. Therefore, many report their biggest losses after their biggest wins.

Usually, after rushing into a trade, you may notice that a better opportunity comes along. You may feel worse since you realize you could have waited and had enough time. 

This is not to say that better entry points won't come along after making a thought-out trade. However, your transactions will come from a deeper place, not influenced by emotions and aligned with your strategy.


"Be audacious, but not too audacious."


2 Delaying taking action

Waiting too long can also be a bad thing. You may be well acquainted with the feeling of being frozen as the ticker moves away, unable to make a move. At the time, you may excuse it as not wanting to make a hasty decision and needing "time to think." However, in retrospect, you may see it for what it was: indecision that came from being overwhelmed by emotions.

In the last article, we talked about confidence. Does the speed of your decision-making make a difference in that confidence? The answer is no.

The research shows that you can be equally confident whether you are slow or fast in making a decision. That is to say, you can be slow and still be uncertain (or certain). You can also be fast in making decisions and be uncertain (or certain). Although rushing or going slowly is not a factor, timing is one of the most important things in trading.


3 Bad entry points

Rushing or delaying the actions relates to bad entry points. This can also be tied to the last article about the crowds.

If you tune into the fears, you will start running on energy with the crowd, making one unwise decision after another. And even if it won’t be visible as crowd misconduct or vandalism, it may very well be. You are on the way towards the destruction of your positions and the demolition of your account.


4 Bad exit points

By faulty exit point, similar to the entry point, I don’t mean the exit at the perfect time, targeting the top or the bottom. I mean the entry point that is in alignment with your strategy.

Two common scenarios are:

A) Exiting too soon in a "good trade," that is, a trade in which market goes your way.

B) Exiting too late in a "bad trade," that is, a trade in which the market goes against you.


5 No knowledge of self or the market

Traders tend to separate into two groups. 

Those that emphasize the importance of technical analysis (TA) or fundamentals and those that emphasize the mastery of oneself. 

Going into extremes on either side is not optimal. To make the right trading decision, you need both these components: knowing the market and knowing yourself.

If you are more focused on TA or fundamentals, you still need will to execute it. Contrary to popular belief, not all decisions can be successfully automated. If your focus is self-mastery, there won't be a clear "hunch" or a feeling you get when the conditions are right to exit or enter the trade since you are disconnected from the market's underlying structure.


Other components

Some of the other components, which are closely related to the ones mentioned, include:

6 No patience, resulting in exiting the "good trades" early

7 No stop loss or the strength of will to execute the stop loss, resulting in a delay in exiting "bad trades"

8 Thinking "What will others think"

9 Mixing swing and daily trading, with the entry and exit points not matching

10 Indecision and a lack of clarity about your strategy




To your trading success,