19, trading for 8 months. Learned an expensive lesson about greed this week.

I started with intraday trading first. Had a good run for a while, but I wasn’t disciplined about stop losses, and eventually gave a lot of that profit back. Switched to swing trading about 3 months ago, thinking a slower pace would suit me better.

For a while, it worked. I was recovering at a solid pace, felt like I’d actually learned something from the intraday phase.

Then three days ago, one greedy decision wiped out 15% of my capital again. Same mistake, same cycle, just a different strategy this time. No stop loss discipline, held on longer than I should have, convinced myself “it’ll come back.”

It didn’t.

What gets me is that I know the rule. Set a stop loss, respect it, don’t let one trade decide your month. I just didn’t follow my own rule when it actually mattered, again.

I’m not looking for stock tips. I’m trying to understand the psychology side of this, because clearly the technical knowledge isn’t the problem, my execution and discipline is.

For those who’ve traded longer than me, how did you actually fix this in yourself? Was it a system, a rule you forced on yourself, or did something just click after enough losses?

Genuinely trying to learn from this instead of just moving on and repeating it a third time.

  • Ostrakon@lemmy.world
    2·
    6 days ago

    If you are genuinely trying to learn a lesson here, what do you think that lesson should be?

    Technical knowledge is not the problem. Expecting to profit with no work or risk is something you need to let go of. Cryptocurrency is a racket, it is a purely speculative market with no actual value with the obvious but limited exceptions of places that actually take them for tender.

    There are real things you can invest in that are safer. There is nothing wrong with investing in the hopes of making a profit, but good investments are grounded in securities backed by solid business plans, actual underlying assets, and a focus on long term growth over cynical market manipulation to pump and dump.

    Your 15% loss is not because you lacked disciplined. YOU are rhe product crypto is selling. You were duped by bullshit. The entire crypto currency market is designed to separate dupes from their money, and if you genuinely want a lesson to learn, stop ignoring the signs in front of you.

    I do recognize that a LOT of what I just said also applies to real securities as well. But do you think you’re going to beat people who do this for a living backed by big money? Give up the fantasy of hitting the lottery and make sensible, boring, statistically safe investments.