How do you react to a trading loss?

When you take a position and it slips into a loss, what is your first reaction and how do you manage your position after that?

Has a loss position turned into a profit position? If yes, what did you do to make this happen?

OR

Has your loss position led to further losses? If yes, when does this happen?

@iSTFF @portfolioplus911 @Sanket @saiography @harshendrasingh @Spaceship @vijender88 @akshatc24 @SurajM @Rajiv1 @Swapnil_Chaure @Sandeep7 @Dhruv_JC @btr @vvn2023 @gopchem @billions @TraderVenk @Vigneshwaran_Vick @Lets_Invest @vicky_kothari @VelmuruganSengottai @pravesh @zy9599 @mexpress @Neeluru_Anji @sid @raheel265 @Tah_Original @umabathy @Lakshmikanth_Jadhav @Siddharth_Dharod @ktm @samarth_bajaj @mac76 @roopansh @Vishnu_Venugopal @Pawan_Singh @Venkateshwaran_Murug and other day/positional traders I’ve missed mentioning.

Please do shares your learnings. Hopefully we can all learn to manage a loss position better after this discussion.

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Hi @Tintin
What I learnt first to make you accuracy more than 80% by paper trading and keeping 2% profit or loss on my total investment.if i make 2%+ profit in intraday then I do stop trading for day but I take paper trades and keep learning and behaviour of the market.
If i booked loss of 2% then i do stop trading for that day and start doing paper trades. end of the day some analysis of next day market and do the same.

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If My 1st Trade of the Day Goes Wrong and Face Any Loss I Take One More Trade to Cover That Loss.
This is what I do And 90% of Time I cover that Loss on Same Day.

For Me I want My 1st Trade of the Day to Be Profitable it Boost My confidence.

Loss is a Part of Intraday Trading.
You can’t make money in Intraday Trading without losing.
Accept the loss and Move on to Next Opportunity.
Don’t make this Loss turn into Fear in your Mind.

My First reaction is Like what just happened?
What mistake I made?

Yes, See No one can capture the Lowest price for Buy and Highest price for Sell.
In Trades what happen when we take a Buy position at any price Stock price come Below buy price But I don’t panic I know it will move up as per my analysis and vice versa for Sell Position.

There is no possibility of further Loss.
I keep a Stop-loss not very tight and Give room to swing the stock price So, that it not get Triggered frequently.

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First I am no day trader. I specifically avoid it coz it unsettles my focus on my primary swing trades/price action.
Second, I started with Futures and now have moved on to option strategies mainly vertical spreads, some calendar spreads. Since the maximum loss is known before entering the trade, I can wait little longer for markets to turn in my direction.
Third, loss freaks me out, even a small loss. I totally hate it, Sometime I get off my trading desk and go watch an English movie if one is being telecast.

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I feel more exited if my position slips into loss due to swing in price movement. I just love the feeling , maybe I get adrenaline rush through it! :smile:
No I m serious. I ain’t joking.

Usually we need to give room to price swing after entering into a trade. The price movement may surprise us & thats what markets are all about.

But there’s definitely is a limit to this flexibility & that is what defines our stop loss.

If the SL gets triggered, trade is ended in loss & you can’t do much. Move on to next opportunity.

If the SL doesn’t gets hit, you are still in trade. And your chances are bright that price may move in your favor after minor swing is over.

But if the SL gets triggered, I m sharing what happens with me. I am able to recover my entire loss from other stock. And my accuracy increases upto 90% where I m able to successfully make profit in my next trade which is meant for recovering my loss.

It maynot be a good strategy. But I have been successful with it.

My loss is restricted to the SL value. That’s the maximum loss which can occur if my loss position goes into further loss.

This does happens due to wrong trade based on overconfidence trusting too much technicals n being obsessed with chart patterns which are only good for theoretical purposes.

But few times, after triggering SL , the stock moves in profit position!! That’s the worst of all. These cases happens during high volatility & you have to be quick about reading the pulse of movement. I can now judge the movement during these cases quite correctly with above 70% success rate.

In short, profits n losses are 2 sides of a same coin. Its impossible for anyone to not make losses in trades. We have to work upon minimizing our losses & maximizing our profits.

Losses make you stronger & bring out patience, stability & discipline within us whereas Profits bring us pride & arrogance.

The aim is to come out as a successful profitable trader being fully grounded.

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@Tintin

hi,
if my taken trade goes to loses i simply wait for my stop-loss, and i cut it there, no trade further.

as my rule : one opportunity one day, never enter again.

and as per my past trades, after hitting my stop-loss, loses always increases.

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@Tintin Loss would be more in intraday trading. Holding stocks for the long or Short term is best choise. I have lost 6K in intraday during intial stages of trading. However, It taught a good lesson, recovered from it. Fundamentals definitely do work here. Most probably go along with the trend. Keep in touch with market related news, it helps.

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I have strict stop losses . My risk to reward is 1:2 . Trading stops once either of them is hit . Over around 10 trades you definitely make a profit even if you loose 50 % of the time

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@Tintin In my case, i find it really hard cutting position when i am in loss, I am working on it :slight_smile:

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It happened on Friday itself. As soon as I shorted Nifty at 10273, immediately my position went in to negative to an extent of 25 pts of loss per lot. However, I clearly knew where my stops were in this trade and I held on the trade for 1 hour and it turned positive.

My key learning that will help you to deal with trading loss.

Always protect yourself first -

Before entering a trade, I decide two things my where I am going to enter and where my stop is going to be and once my stop is fixed in very rare occasions do I change my stop. Once you have imagined and fixed that this is a amount you are willing to lose and are mentally prepared to face it then there will not be much emotional turbulence. Furthermore, once my SL is hit, I also see if I can reverse my trade. (I’m not pro in that yet, but always asking what is market trying to say? where is it heading?)

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apart frm qstn i really admire effort u took to mention dat many users…grt attention.

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You’re making fun of me. Well, I’ve certainly added you to the list now:)

Hey @Lets_Invest, do you keep screenshot of everydays trade?

I used to log my Trades in my diary manually old fashioned.
Now, Recently started taking screenshot of my Trades. Screenshot have Right entry time and Exit time and also Date I Traded. It gives quick visual effects while i go back in time to find pattern in stocks.
Zerodha screenshot folder having 2 GB of data. :joy:

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I don’t manage a trade once I have entered the position. It either hits the target or the Stop Loss. If it’s a positional trade and the price gaps up or down beyond the target or SL then I exit immediately.

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Cool! Looks like you have been a very active intraday trader.

Hi. I am kind of novice here regarding trading with real money. But before that i have been doing a lot of mock trading in various apps.
When i was doing mock trading i felt that this is so much fun to do but later on when your own hard earned money is on bets, you realise that something’s serious.
Recently on friday i incurred a some huge loss not that huge but it was heavier for me as it was my 2nd day as intraday trader.
In morning market went up and seeing the trend that it is going up i felt that it is covering previous 450 points snap. But the trend reversed significantly. And all the intraday buys turned out to be in red.
In that case i do two things short sell a share when trend reversal is happening.
Second to convert MIS to CNC.

@raheel265

don’t talk about the news

news plays most dangerous role for a retailer.

because retailers are the last in the chain to get the news.

big players make it, and fool retailers follow it.

most trusted indicator is price only

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@Lets_Invest

bro’ you can take screenshots in mobile app and keep it in your pc.
if you want…

@iSTFF

very realistic and best approach for running any business.