Risk Management: prevent blowing a trading account

3 feb 2021

Hello everyone:

Today I want to go in depth into this particular topic as many beginner traders will make this similar mistake in trading sometimes in their trading journey.

It's important to understand that it's all part of a learning curve you must endure when it comes to consistency in trading. I myself had done this in the beginning of my trading time, and it ultimately comes down to how you manage your emotion that is going to help you to learn from this mistake and move forward. Some may go ahead and start making the mistakes that I will mention below, and accelerate into blowing their account. Some may acknowledge what's happening, and learn from their mistakes to prevent such things from happening in the future.

There are several key factors on what a trader should do and understand in order to not blow a trading account. I have made several key videos on these different topics which I will include below. I will touch on all these topics to provide a well-rounded suggestion and feedback on this matter. It's very important that you must have a good understanding of each area so it will help you to not only be consistent but to also continue to grow and compound your trading account in the future.

Few key points:

Trading Plan
A trading plan outlines your plan, rules and management for your trades. You must have a good written plan to guide you in situations. We don't make emotional decisions that may lead to many trading errors. Focus on creating one is the start. Have a few go to setups that you always look for in the market. Identify them and screenshot them so you know to take those over and over again.

Backtesting
We backtest so we are familiar with price action and the market’s movement. By backtesting, we train our brain to recognize the same/similar price action that has happened in the past. This allows us to execute without fear, or fear of missing out.

Backtest & Chartwork

Forecasting/Scanning the market:
Forecast the market is how we get a bias with the current live price action of the market. We see setups we like, and have confirmations to enter. If they don't happen or develop, no trade and move on. No need to have “ego” to prove everyone you are right.

How to scan the market

Risk management
Stick to proper risk management. 1% or a set amount is usually the best. Having a 3:1 RR is ideal when trading so even if you are less than 50% strike rate trader, you will see at least BE or small profits. Make sure you understand the exposure you are putting yourself into.

Stop Loss
When it comes to calculating your entries, you must set a Stop less on every trade. Don't just remove it in hope the price will turn around. Many new traders often don't set SL or move them as price gets close. This is how you will lose more money in the long run.

Trading Psychology: (FOMO)
Fear of missing out and fear of losing are the biggest trading psychology trader encounter. However, if you do enough backtesting, and have a plan in place, you can potentially remove these emotions. Understand that you will never capture all the moves that happen in the market, be graceful and positive on the opportunities you get.

Over Leveraged
Most new traders over leveraged their account. Having a small account with huge leverage is why traders blow their account in a short time. Leverage can work for you as well as against you. You must understand properly on leverage, margin and more. This ties you with your risk management and your SL.

Revenge trading
When new traders start losing money, they tend to want to “revenge” their losses by entering random trades, multiple trades and more. This combining with over leverage is how a new trader can blow their account in 1 day.

Journal:
Last but not least, journal down every single trade that you have taken. Whether it resulted in profit or loss. This is how you can learn from your past experiences. Do not deviate from this. Most new traders feel this is unnecessary and choose not to do it. Unfortunately, if you don't do them, your trading journey will not move forward. You will still make the same mistakes over and over again. Blowing an account is something no one wants to go through, but if a trader does not acknowledge his/her mistakes, then it is very likely to happen again and again.

So these are the few key areas where a trader should pay close attention to in order to not blow their trading account. The different strategies you trade aren't the issues why some blow their accounts, rather it's about their plan, management, mindset, emotion, psychology and expectations that ultimately decide the faith of the trading account.

Thank you

Jojo