Never Take Trading Losses Personally and Don’t Increase Lot Sizes After a Few Losses (2024)

June 18, 2020 | 11:26 am | Forex Blog

June 18, 2020 | 11:26 am
Forex Blog

For swing trading style watch the market 4-6 times a day that is good enough and follow this routine that’s Satya Advice.

Satya.A, 44 years old, United States.

“Never Take Trading Losses Personally”.

Satya has just successfully passed our evaluation programwith a great trading plan and has become aforex funded trader.

He is now one of our funded traders and is trading with a 40K forex funded accounton our platform.

His next mission is to reach 10% of profit and double his funds to 80K.

We spoke with Satya about his trading plan, insights, and lessons gained while trading in the Forex market and on our platform as a funded trader.

Click herefor more Inspirations lessons and interviews from ourprofessional funded traders

• How were you introduced to the Forex market?
  My educational background is Biology and I have been doing cancer research for the past 20 years. Until the middle of 2017, other than a little bit about the stock market, I absolutely don’t know anything about financial markets or finance-related terms. Some time in the middle of 2017, when I was watching the news, one of the guests mentioned about Forex market while talking about the stock market. I was just curious to know what Forex is. So, I googled it, read a few Forex articles, and came to know that it is possible to trade Forex on a Demo account. Just for fun, I opened a demo account and without knowing anything, I randomly placed buys and sells on different pairs and almost always lost my trades. After playing with it like a game for a couple of months I lost interest and stopped it.In 2018, my wife got very busy with her medical residency and working long hours including weekends. So, I started getting bored at home, and one day suddenly, Forex came to my mind. Then, I started watching Forex-related videos on YouTube and beginning to learn more about indicators, technical analysis, strategies/systems, risk management, trading psychology, discipline, patience, etc. I watched hundreds of videos. Especially, I was extremely fascinated and shocked to know that more than 90% of traders lose money in Forex markets. So, I took it as a challenge and started spending more time analyzing the charts, watching more Forex YouTube videos, and preparing and testing strategies on a very small live account. This is how I slowly got into Forex, and now, it has become an integral part of my life.

• Do you have a specific trading plan?
  I analyze the market at the beginning and end of each session, Asian, London, and US. I look for trend-continuation trades or strong reversals. I recognize these patterns by simultaneously analyzing 3 different higher time-frame charts. I look at price action and use two different moving averages to clearly identify these patterns. If any of the currency pairs fall within my trading set up, I take the trade by risking only 0.1 to 0.3% per trade.

• Tell us about your trading routine.
  I look at the market about 4-6 times a day which covers the beginning and end of each session. If I find new trading opportunities, I place trades. At the same time, I manage existing trades by moving stop losses forward if they made move in the right direction. Since I am in the US time zone, one of the toughest things is catching good trades at the beginning of the London session. For this, I set an alarm and get up at 2.30 AM, watch the market for an hour until 3.30 AM, place any good trades if they develop and then I go back to bed. I have been doing this for the past couple of years, so it became so routine that nowadays I don’t even need an alarm, I automatically get up at 2.30 AM (smile).

• Do you have any risk management techniques? If so, please, elaborate?
  Once a trade falls within my trading set up, I place a trade by risking only 0.1 to 0.3% per trade. I place a trade only if the R:R is at least 1:1.5. Almost all of my trades have an R: R of 1:1.5 to 1:3. I don’t take a trade if the R: R is less than 1:1. I generally target about 80-150 pips per trade depending on the trade setup and currency pair.

• What was your biggest challenge in trading, and how did you overcome it?
  I am generally calm, very patient, and don’t force things to happen quickly. Perhaps, because of this, I learned trading discipline, patience, and psychology relatively quickly. However, I had to overcome one big hurdle to become profitable. After developing a good trading strategy/plan I was comfortable trading higher time charts as a swing trader. After achieving some success as a swing trader, I thought I would be equally or more successful if I trade lower time charts with the same strategy. I tried to trade lower time charts a few times and every time I did, I was beaten up very badly and lost 10-15 trades in a row. Then, I realized that day trading requires a different kind of skill set which I don’t have. Day trading is more like “Boxing” which requires quick thinking and rapid responses, whereas swing trading is more like “Chess” where we have enough time to think, analyze and take our next step. So, once I fully convinced myself that I am a chess player, not a boxer (smile), and completely killed my temptation to trade lower time charts, I became a much better and consistent swing trader.

• What was the key moment of your trading career?
  As I mentioned above, initially, I tried to trade both lower time charts and higher time charts. Once I recognized that my trading skills are better suited for higher time charts, and I am a swing trader, I became a more consistent and profitable trader. Recognizing what kind of trader am I is perhaps the key moment of my trading career.

• In your opinion, what are the most important characteristics for maintaining a steady trading career?
  In my very short 2 years of experience, I learned that the Forex market is very cruel. Whenever I even slightly deviated from my strategy, I was severely punished by the market with a lot of losing trades. In my life, so far, I never encountered anything that is crueler than the Forex market (smile). I think it is extremely important to adhere to our strategy, trading plan, patience, discipline, and risk management not for days, weeks, months, or even years but for decades if we want to maintain a stable Forex trading career.

• Do you apply any mental/psychological routines while trading? Please elaborate.
  In the past, the more closely I watched the market the more mistakes I made, like getting into wrong trades and closing good trades too early. With experience, I learned that I don’t need to watch the market every minute or even every hour. For my swing trading style, if I watch the market 4-6 times a day that is good enough and I follow this routine.Another thing is, I never take losses personally and I don’t revenge trade or increase lot sizes after a few losses. I knew that losses are part and parcel of this business and we must deal with them the right way.

• What was your strategy for successfully passing The 5%ers’ Evaluation Program?
  To pass 5%ers evaluation, I didn’t make any big changes to my trading strategy or trading routine, but I had to make some adjustments to my risk management. I generally take about 0.5 to 1% risk per trade, but since 5%ers allow only 4% drawdown I reduced my risk from 0.5% to only 0.1 to 0.3% per trade. Except for this, I didn’t make any other changes to my overall trading strategy/plan. I think risk management is the most important factor that helped me to pass the evaluation program. Although I had few bad trading days and a series of losses, I know that if I effectively manage risk, I always have a chance to stay in the game, catch good trades, and hit the profit target.

• Please share your recommendations for online resources that were/are significant in your trading development. Name and links are appreciated.
  UKspreadbetting: https://www.youtube.com/user/ukspreadbetting Karen Foo :
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcUOqJd-eRI3iVOBnPFpNdw Etienne Crete: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFuAUJU4xDLBbztemX9Qu7A Rayner Teo:
  https://www.youtube.com/user/tradingwithrayner Trader Nick:
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPCPE5MoI7DS1WiVB_-mzNw
  

• How long did it take you to become a consistent trader?
  It was in my third year that I started to see more consistency in my results and I can say it was essentially changed in behavioral aspects that helped me to become a better Trader, such as “disconnecting” somehow from the market.

• Would you like to share anything else with us?
  About a year ago, when I was searching for some Forex-related stuff, unexpectedly, I stumbled on to Gil Ben Hur’s YouTube presentation on 5%ers funding and growth program. Before that, I didn’t know that such programs exist. After watching his presentation, I was even more determined to become a good trader and get a funded account which has huge growth potential.I would like to thank all the people in the above Youtube channels for providing valuable content on Forex markets. Their advice is priceless, and I learned so many good things from them which made me a better trader. I never read any Forex books or never bought any Forex courses, I educated myself watching their videos. A BIG THANK YOU!!
  
  
• After how much time did you become a consistent trader? What aspects changed that helped you to become consistent?
  I became more consistent after about one and a half years of trading. When I just started, I didn’t want to miss any trades (smile). So, I tried to trade different price patterns on both lower and higher time charts by implementing different strategies. I was like the “Jack of all trades and master of none” which caused a lot of confusion and more losing trades than winners. With experience, I learned that I should stick to trading just one or two price patterns which have a higher probability of winning. So, I started patiently waiting for these price patterns to develop and then I entered my trades. This really helped me to become more consistent and profitable.
  

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