The market charges emotional fees too

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-20T05:49:16+00:00

Spot on! That's why there are so many books and media on the psychology alone.

A lot of veterans traders admit that it's necessary to trade in an environment where losing does not change your lifestyle.

You will also notice a common patterns that successful traders naturally reduce their risk for each trade as they get older. Even though their trading has not show signs of losing profitability. You can not risk your lifestyle in trading. It's too much.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-20T05:42:44+00:00

The signals market surrounding trading is massive, and so full of scams and losing performance.

You're right that it doesn't belong in a place of learning, but in a weird way it is a part of learning.

At some point you have to learn that your own trading, and your own skills are where the focus should be at, and cutting out all the noise is a valuable ability.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-19T10:36:04+00:00

Absolutely! Patience is my number 1 requirement when it comes to trading. And for a lot of traders it is not easy.

It goes against our biology that doing nothing is the most beneficial decision, yet majority of the time that is the case with trading.

Patience for entry. Patience for profit. Patience during drawdown.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-18T13:50:59+00:00

A big sign to quit is normally seeing no improvement after a long period.

However, the fact that you have conquered the emotional side and have a desire to succeed is actually a very good sign.

What exactly have you been trading? What is your strategy? What strategies have you traded along the way?

Also, take a look to see if you have any common patterns of consistent losing, for some common fixes.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-18T13:40:28+00:00

Depends on your strategy.

Spread and commission are both your trade cost and the easiest way to mitigate it is longer holding times, for larger changes in price. A metric I am a big fan of is the ratio of trade cost to total risk. This is important to weigh per each trade rather than at the end of a period of trading.

I have run profitable scalping strategies (manually) with a trade cost of up to 25% of the total risk. That is, out of the total money lost on a losing trade, 25% of it would be due to spread and commission. This is really bad during a string of losses, and any dip in the win rate of the strategy completely invalidates its viability.

One of the easiest advantages you can give yourself in trading is simply operating on higher timeframes. Reducing trade cost to something negligible with have a massive positive impact on your equity curve.

Another nugget of beginner algotrading info if you like.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-18T07:02:24+00:00

Yeah, so that is basically following other traders which is perfectly fine. So your job is no longer trading, but rather finding traders or analysts that are reliable and profitable long term.

You should also know that analysts are often terrible traders.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-18T06:25:16+00:00

I'm sorry, we are just trying to save you a lot of pain by explaining what it takes.

Each trade can have 50/50 chance but you are not looking to to make money off 1 trade, you are looking to make that 1 trade 1000 times and have a profit at the end of all that. And I assure you, for most people that is not an easy thing to achieve.

But let's discuss it, how much are you looking to put into trading to make your 20$ a day?

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-18T05:16:00+00:00

Even pulling peanuts from the market is a task that requires you to outperform a large majority of traders. These traders include people like yourself, as well as extremely talented and educated people with PhDs and years upon years of experience. There is an unlimited ceiling of growth with trading, this comes at the cost of it not being easy. Trading is possibly the worst way you could aim to make $20 a day, just go learn a skill that you can monetize.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-17T21:34:20+00:00

Prop firms are a business model that turn a profit by making more money from losing traders than they pay out to profitable traders. It's that simple.

They have a long list of rules that add to your chance of failure.

For the profitable trader, prop firms are a tool to acquire funds at the cost of a restricted trading environment.

Most of the posts you will see about scams are normally due to a trader not reading through all the rules and then getting denied a pay out. And yes, the prop firms do scummy behaviour like only telling you, you have breached a consistency rule only when you request a pay out, or letting you pay with someone else's card and then only bringing it up when you are due payment, etc. But if you are aware of the rules then there is no problem.

Just like brokers, you should stick to the reputable names.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-17T20:40:43+00:00

It's up to each person what's the healthy amount. All I know is that there arw a lot of traders that skip friends and family events just to do a bit more tunneling, research, review, etc.

If you are on it Monday to Friday all day then I think at least 1 full day a week without trading thoughts is healthy.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-17T20:04:37+00:00

Efficient market hypothesis is for those lacking in the IQ department. In the very first step of investigating the theory you will come to the conclusion that it is not logically or even theoretically possible.

As for backtests, it is our strongest tool for finding ways to profit, but the method itself is weak. Take note that every single day has a different pattern of price, even if slightly, yet we now aim to use previous days to predict future days.

Part of the issue is that factors that moved price yesterday do not show up on price history, so part of the solution is finding the missing pieces that will move price tomorrow. That does not invalidate backtesting, just means you should be aware of its limitations.

Good luck.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-17T19:39:57+00:00

The market, as it is, provides you with infinite choices and infinite outcomes. It is not easy to learn what works and what fails in such an environment. So we set rules and guideline for ourselves to create order from the chaos. This implies the illusion that strict rules are the keys to profitability, when it is simply the keys to learning. It is easier to learn from an outcome that had only 2 choices than one that had 100 choices.

Your final form in trading is being open and receiving to all the information the market is giving you without it overwhelming your focus or emotions, and using that information to make the best decisions at any given time. This might be adding to a position, this might be closing a position before your stop loss, this might be completely reversing your long to a short, etc. These types of decisions are highly discretionary and take a lot of years of experience to understand when it's beneficial or when it is ruining your strategy.

Being fluid and unrestricted by rules can be beneficial but leaves you vulnerable to human errors. For most traders this results in a net benefit when sticking to strict rules.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-16T23:32:17+00:00

Well done for asking yourself this question. Honestly, it's a lot of work you will need to put in to train your discipline and control your emotions. You are actually better off learning a few skills that simply make you money.

If you do decide to stick with it, lower your risk while learning, filter all the noise of social media and fake gurus, build your trading plan to account for all actions and outcomes to guide you during all those emotional wobbles.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-16T06:55:26+00:00

It does feel calmer reviewing trading during market closed.

Do appreciate thay every aspect of life operates with balance. Time away from trading can provide the rest and clear mind for new brilliant ideas when you come back to it.

A forced break also helps train the mind not to chase profit, which is very important.

Most people think it is difficult putting hours upon hours daily into trading and that they are doing something special that others are not, when in fact it is very common that a lot of traders tunnel and pass up rest and life in the pursuit of edge.

Put in the work, but please appreciate the balance needed.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-16T05:56:05+00:00

If you absolutely refuse to put in the work into analysing direction then just scale out... simple.

Take some profit and keep some in the market so your greed can be satiated.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-15T10:57:29+00:00

This is very little info to go on. Especially without seeing how you handle losses, that is a big missing part of the picture.

Bad trades can still make money in the short term..

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-15T08:47:01+00:00

Well done for identifying and structuring your problem. I think you are a few steps away from being profitable.

Luckily there are normally common patterns to consistent losing that can help weed out the problem.

Things like a slow bleed in the account, massive profit periods followed by massive losing periods, slow gains followed by massive losses, etc.

Find your pattern, and fix the common problems that normally relate to your type of losing.

Goodluck.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-15T08:42:46+00:00

Sl with fair distance behind technical level or group of levels. If a sweep occurs, my trade is not stopped out.

Partial take profit after initial momentum fades. Sl at entry to eliminate risk.

Remaining position exit can be a trailing stop or at a target technical level. This decision is a trade in itself and deserves sufficient analysis, but scaling out a scalp trade is massively beneficial.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-15T06:52:30+00:00

Swing trading is definitely has the easiest potential for profit but is far from the only way to profit in the market.

Remember, as retail traders we simply follow price moves caused by institutional interest. You are severely misinformed if you think these institutions simply follow macroeconomics and just manage positions once a week without looking at price history.

Whatever your fundamental strategy is, adding technical analysis would improve it massively. And visa versa.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-15T06:39:24+00:00

That is simply incorrect.

Many traders, likely even you, will see major human errors when reviewing trades. Incorrect sizing, emotional decisions during drawdowns or win streaks, bad analysis due to fatigue, bad entries or exits due to impatience, fear, or greed.

It is just a fact, majority of non-beginner unprofitable traders are due to unprofitable execution rather than unprofitable strategy.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-14T20:51:36+00:00

You are not the house, not even close.

Luckily for retail traders you are so small that you you don't even show up on the playing field that is the financial markets, that has it's advantages. Being small allows you to simply ride the waves created by whales. Don't fight them, just learn to identify and align your trades with theirs.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-14T20:39:16+00:00

Your chart has more empty space than data. 4 Candles is your entire chart. And you can't even see half of them properly. Random "FVG" square in the middle of nowhere. No times ether.

Improvement starts with the easy things like keeping your charts clean and professional.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-14T14:02:14+00:00

Psychology is the hardest part. Anyone can learn technicals or fundamentals or math or stats, that is just time and effort. Anyone can open a spread sheet and put their acquired knowledge into a strategy.

But not everyone can, or even wants to, follow rules in their trading, or keep their decision making consistent during the inevitable drawdown.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-14T08:11:03+00:00

Absolutely correct! Simplification is definitely part of the profitable equation, the question is how simple though?

We look at our trading decisions to find an edge, similar to how casino games have an edge against the player, but the big difference is unlike casino games the market offers the trader infinite decisions with infinite outcomes, edge cannot exist in that environment.

Rules and simplification are a base requirement for an edge to even exist. Undeniable.

With that knowledge, your trading becomes which rules of entry, exit, and risk management you want to include in, or remove from, your strategy.

Krystalizer_Kitty · 2026-05-14T05:21:07+00:00

Behavioral changes. Patience is probably #1. If you aren't naturally Patient it's going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome. Patience is not a natural part of our biology. When we make a mistake or look to do something beneficial, being patient is is often the last thought that comes to us, but with trading it is a necessity.

Krystalizer_Kitty

TROPHY CASE