Is trading difficult?
Yes, trading is difficult. But not for the reason you might think. The problem is not learning technical analysis or reading charts. You can learn those skills relatively quickly. The real problem? Emotions.
The harmful impact of emotions
When you start trading, you often make your first profits. We call this beginner's luck. You think: “This is easy!”. Overconfidence after a few good trades makes you take large positions.
But then reality hits. You make a bad trade, then another, and another. A losing streak. Suddenly everything changes. Frustration kicks in. You want to earn your losses back, so you force trades that aren't really there. Fear makes you exit winning trades too early, or losing trades too late. Greed makes you hold on to winners until they turn into losers.
The problem? You’re not trading your strategy, you’re trading your emotions. And emotion is a terrible advisor in trading.
The hard numbers
There is an unwritten rule in trading that 90% of all traders lose 90% of their account within 90 days. The vast majority of traders have blown up an account at least once. That’s no coincidence. It’s the result of emotional trading without structure.
Why does this happen? Because most traders don’t apply proper money management. They risk too much per trade, take positions that are too large, and let losses run in the hope that things will turn around. But with this approach, it almost never does.
Money management
Money management is, simply put, taking a realistic amount of risk per trade. A good rule is to risk a maximum of 1–2% of your account per trade. If your account is $1,000, you risk a maximum of $10–20 per trade.
Why is this so important? Imagine you lose 5 trades in a row while risking 20% of your original account each time (so $200 per trade on that $1,000 account). After those 5 losses, your account is completely blown up. Even the best traders lose 5 trades in a row sometimes, so the chance that you will blow up your account sooner or later with this level of risk is basically 100% — a very expensive mistake.
But if you only risk 2% per trade ($20 on that $1,000 account), you can have 50 losing trades before your account is gone. Even if you tried, you would almost never manage to take 50 losses in a row. A risk unit of 1–2% gives you room to learn and prevents you from making irreversible losses.
Pitfalls
Trading has many emotional pitfalls, and even the best traders are not 100% immune to them. They also learned the hard way. Below are a few examples of emotional mistakes.
Revenge trading: You lose a trade and want your money back immediately. You open a new trade without a good reason, purely out of frustration. This almost always ends in even more losses.
Chasing: You see a stock shooting up and jump in because you’re afraid to miss the move. You buy at the top and lose immediately. FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is a dangerous emotion.
Oversizing: After a few wins you start to feel invincible. You take a position that is far too big. You take one loss and that loss is huge.
No stop-loss: You let losses run in the hope that the price will come back. Together with oversizing, this is the fastest route to a blown-up account.
The good news
Trading is difficult, but not impossible. The traders who are successful have one thing in common: they trade with discipline and based on data. They control their emotions and follow a plan.
With the right strategy, money management, and tools like TradeLogger, you can learn to become consistently profitable. It takes time, patience, and discipline. But it’s achievable. Start small, build data, test your strategies, and allow yourself to grow. Success doesn’t come overnight, but with the right mindset and tools, you can get there.
How TradeLogger helps
TradeLogger helps you make your numbers and emotions visible. You see exactly where your strengths and weaknesses are. Which trades work and which don’t? At what times of the trading day do you perform best — or lose the most? Which emotions are leading to bad decisions? What can you improve in your strategies?
By logging and analysing your trades in TradeLogger, you start trading based on facts instead of gut feeling. You’ll see patterns you would otherwise miss. Without data, you’re blind. With the data TradeLogger gives you, you can learn, adjust, and improve.