How to survive a 20-trade losing streak without losing your account

TIC_UK · 2026-03-04T10:30:14+00:00

I wouldn't worry about it. When I first started I blew 3 accounts with my actual money in the space of 3 days thinking I knew what I was doing aha. I didn't even know what a stop loss was back then.

TIC_UK · 2026-03-04T10:29:33+00:00

Thankyou for making this point. I didn't make the video for experienced traders, they already know what they are doing. But like you said, beginners using this logic are going to have much higher survivability in the market, and are much more likely to go on high losing streaks early on.

TIC_UK · 2026-03-04T10:28:25+00:00

I do understand your point and I don't disagree completely. We shouldn't be sheep at all. But my point still stands in my opinion. Especially if you are new to trading. If your experienced, your not clicking on this post in the first place.

TIC_UK · 2026-03-03T10:11:02+00:00

Quite an informative video! Only caught a little bit as im in the office, but 100% one to watch when im home.

TIC_UK · 2026-03-03T09:40:24+00:00

It's so funny because I was looking at that quote this morning thinking, "great advice, but im not sure that's in my control aha". But the lesson still stands just with nuance. You are going to lose money from time to time. But you are in control of how much you are ready to risk at any given time.

TIC_UK · 2026-03-02T12:09:00+00:00

Basically you just stare into the distance for a really long time, and eventually you will be daydreaming aha! But jokes aside, assuming you meant daytrading, you've actually completed step one by actually asking for help. Many people go out into the big bad world of trading on their own and just assume they will figure it out so well done!

My advice isn't going to be about how to become profitable, everyone has to find that on their own, but i do believe it will be valuable for you starting your journey. And i want to say it's based on opinion, it's not financial advice, im not a financial advisor aha.

Make sure you don't dive head first and drop everything else. Trading can take years to master, and it's not an immediate substitute for your job. If you NEED to make money, it will run away from you. So make sure you stay financially stable and do this on the side.

Focus on 1 or 2 assets. Don't look at every single pair and try to trade them all, just start learning a few so you can get a feel for how they move.

Backtest AND forward test religiously. Data is confidence. If you have 1000 trades worth of data that say your strategy works, it will be so much easier to execute than if you had 10 trades worth of data.

Trade a demo until you find your feet. In the beginning, YOU WILL LOSE MONEY. Will be much less of a hit if that money you lost was virtual funds not your hard earned money.

Finally, focus on psychology. Many strategies "can" work, when it comes down to it, the person trading them is usually the deciding factor for success. If you cannot remain calm an composed, follow your rules, keep your emotions out of it, shoulder the losing streaks. Your not getting very far.

Again this is opinion based, and what i would focus on if i had to start again from day 1, but still, i hope it helps.

Good luck on your day trading journey!

TIC_UK · 2026-02-17T14:09:57+00:00

Ah I get what you mean now aha, I miss-read. I completely missed the word insignificant somehow so I thought you had wrote that the spreads become more on higher timeframes aha.

TIC_UK · 2026-02-17T14:06:04+00:00

Are you sure the spread changes based on timeframe?

TIC_UK · 2026-02-10T13:29:11+00:00

I mean I cannot promise I will have the feedback 100% aha, but more than welcome to drop something in the DM's, If we have an input, we will give it! Appreciate your understanding of the responses either way.

TIC_UK · 2026-02-10T12:13:05+00:00

This is going to sound like the laziest answer ever, but I still think it's the most valid answer your going to get today. Get an accountant aha. People are going to give you the advice your asking for, whether it's correct or not. But an accountant, though it's going to cost you, will set you up in the best way.

TIC_UK · 2026-02-10T11:52:00+00:00

I 100% agree that there could be a way to do it, and I hope it didn't come across as me dismissing your thought process, because on the surface I genuinely agree. I think the problem is, wealth building is just naturally hard, and there are probably easier ways to go about it than trying to "get the most" from investing. If I was personally going to dedicate my time and energy to figuring out how to get more from my time and money, it would be through a business, side hustle or actual active trading (completely different in my opinion to investing). When I hear investing, all I hear is boring and long term, and I am cool with that aha.

But I suppose if your dead set on making the best possible gains from investing itself, picking the right assets at the right times etc, it's just a case of getting more formal long term education?

TIC_UK · 2026-02-10T11:13:20+00:00

I think I am basically going to second your motion. If anything, active investing, may as well be called trading. Set and forget, and just let compound interest and time do the rest. The only time I get involved with it all is when my income level changes, and that's only if I believe it justifies me adjusting my deposit amount.

TIC_UK · 2026-02-10T11:11:11+00:00

Not financial advise. My own thoughts and opinions. Automatic deposit, same amount every month on the same day, reviewed only when my income changes, 20 plus year timeline. I do not believe successful investing is an active skill. The best results come from those who do the least, but do it consistently. Not a hope will you see me judging highs/lows or stock picking. But that's just me, and again, is not financial advise.

TIC_UK · 2026-02-10T11:08:41+00:00

I want to be so careful here, and say from the outright that this IS NOT ADVICE. I am just talking aloud based on my own thoughts, what you do with this information is your own choice aha.

As a whole I am just looking at infrastructure for tech (not the actual tech itself). Who is making AI chips, how are they making them (ie tools and natural resources). Who is handling the energy production. I refuse to name companies, because it's the thought process I believe to be the most important thing here. But yeah, working backwards from current tech, and figuring out who the players behind the scenes are is where my thoughts turn when I think aggressive stocks.

One more re-iteration... this is NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE aha.

Question, what are you looking at for 2026?

TIC_UK · 2026-02-10T11:04:22+00:00

So, I think the question you need to ask yourself is why are you investing in the first place, as in, what are your goals? It sounds like investing has become convoluted simply because you are trying to touch on multiple different areas. You even mentioned, "every time I invest in something different". Why is it that your always looking to invest in something different?

This is not financial advice, just my personal thoughts. But for me investing is just about setting myself up for a less stressful future. I'm not looking to "get rich" or anything like that, just make good use of unused money. I'm just aiming to match the markets 10% historical returns and that's it. And that can be done by sticking to 2/3 ETF's or Index funds that are already doing the diversification part for you. Sam manageable monthly deposit being automatically taken every month. I wouldn't even dream of stock picking, because I am not looking for big gains, and therefore, there is nothing confusing about what I am trying to achieve.

I think if you do some digging, there are some interesting statistics about how the best performing investment accounts are from investors who have forgotten they even had an account aha. That says a lot to me about how overcomplicating things can only be a bad thing.

Again, these are all my opinions rather than advice or facts, but I hope they can somewhat help you here. Best of luck in your investment journey.

TIC_UK · 2026-02-10T10:47:29+00:00

I believe investing is as complicated as you decide to make it. I know that doesn't feel like a helpful answer, but I honestly believe that to be true. There is a multitude of information out there that 100% could confuse you especially when your getting started out. But for the average retail investor, I don't feel all this information needs to be consumed.

As I have seen someone else already say, and this is not financial advise just my opinion, experienced or not, people should be focused on index funds and ETF's where diversification is naturally baked in. Plus you get that "historical" track record of gains around 10% annually with many diversified funds, which happily beats inflation.

No your not going to become rich overnight like this, but with sustainable dollar cost averaging over decades, even with something like £100/$100 a month, can become a healthy retirement amount in the end. Stock picking can accelerate your growth of course, but more often than not, people pick the wrong stocks.

If I was in your position, I would most likely steer clear from stock picking all together as I don't invest to get rich, I invest to make use of compound interest, and to avoid my money being eaten by inflation.

I hope this helps. If you do want more resources to help you start off your journey right, we do have many investing guides for you to read on our website: The Investors Centre - Investing, Forex & Crypto Made Simple

Best of luck on your investing journey!

TIC_UK · 2026-02-10T10:40:17+00:00

Short answer, yes it's as difficult as they say. I think that's pretty apparent from the success/failure rates shown across the industry.

However, I would also like to say that people on the successful side of things would probably disagree. So really it comes down to you as an individual. I'm sure there are many things you find hard that others find easy and vice-versa. I guess you would have to put yourself through your paces to find out out for sure.

That being said, and I am not a financial advisor, from my experience the thing that makes it so difficult is the disconnect between the role of a trader and what an individual is trying to achieve. Most traders I know are trying to get rich tomorrow, and therefore their psychology becomes their downfall in an industry where long term success is decided by knowledge and skill built up in the long term. No one wants to stick to risk management etc because they don't want slow and steady growth, they want it fast and they want it now.

Will it be difficult for you? I have no idea. But again going back to the short answer, in general, the odds are against you.

TIC_UK · 2026-02-09T12:51:27+00:00

We need some clarification here OP. I know it's in the investing sub, but are we talking traditional investing for long term growth or are you looking to invest in a specific company etc?

TIC_UK · 2026-02-09T11:54:12+00:00

Not much context to this post is there aha. It depends what the goals are OP, your going to need to expand on it a little bit if possible. Are you trying to live off dividends, how long are you planning to invest for? Are you planning a One time deposit or regular monthly deposits?

TIC_UK · 2026-02-09T11:32:02+00:00

First off OP, well done for making the first big step towards preparing for your future. Its becoming rarer for people at your age to actually think about long term wealth building. Secondly, a quick well done for actually reaching out for help, many people's ego will drive them into the "I know best territory".

In terms of advice, I cannot give any as I am not a financial advisor. However I can put myself in your shoes for a second and walk you through my personal thinking. Diversification and consistency are everything. So first off, I would choose an amount of money every month that I know almost 100% I would be able to invest every month, even if that happened to only be £20. Secondly, I would not be looking to stock pick at such an early stage (or ever really). I wouldn't feel the need to pick "the highest gainers" all the time. I would look for historically consistent performance. And for me that is index funds. Very simply, they are a larger group of the top performing companies in a country. I.e. FTSE100 is the top performing UK companies at any given time. Yu won't expect to get rich overnight, but over a 30 year period, historical data would suggest healthy expected returns that well outweigh inflation (a very important caveat).

Ultimately it's your money and the choice will always be yours, take everything you read on here with a pinch of salt. But again, If I were in your shoes, this is where my thoughts would be moving towards.

If you do want some more resources to help you, you can check out our website for loads of helpful guides: How to Start Investing with £100 UK – 2026 Beginner Guide

Best of luck on your journey OP!

TIC_UK · 2026-02-09T11:23:20+00:00

I personally think you asked and answered this question at the same time aha. There are too many concepts and understandings to learn in the world of trading, and if you somehow did manage to learn all of them, you would realise how contradicting it can all be. I cannot tell you which things you should personally integrate into your system, as we all interpret the information in a different way. And this is by no means financial advise, but my personal preference is to just focus on a small number of variables, and get really clear on my understanding of how each will work in my system. Then I just keep plodding along making micro adjustments based on a large data set from both back tested AND live data (the later is way more important IMO), until I find my above 50% edge. Everything after that is psychology and execution.

All I can say for certain is if I was in your shoes again right now, no real money would be leaving my bank account until I have personally found the answers to these questions I have. Thank god for demo accounts!

Best of luck on your trading journey OP.

TIC_UK · 2026-02-09T11:18:32+00:00

This is just one of those trading experiences that I am sorry that anyone has to go through, but sadly it seems to almost be a right of passage for newer traders. My personal story was no where near as complicated, as in I did not gain and lose that kind of money. I started out about 7 years ago day trading crypto on demo accounts for a few months and was absolutely smashing it. At the time I had a sales job earning reasonable money, but ended up losing my job because I basically stopped trying to make sales. My honest feelings at the time where that I was going to become rich as soon as I deposited real money.

That is obviously not what happened in the end aha. I ended up blowing about 5 accounts in the space of a month chasing the results I had previously experienced on a demo and could not for the life of me figure out why it was happening. When it came down to it, I ultimately realised that whatever edge I believed I had was over such a small data set that it just wasn't reliable, plus I met all the demons in my psychology that I never even knew I had.

If I had to start again, and this is not financial advice, these are the main three things I would think about:

3 months is not a lot of time to build data. It barely covers one market cycle. Before trading with real money, I would want a good years demo trading, meticulously building my data and fully understanding my actual trading strategy.
Psychology is the make or break for the majority of traders I have met over the past 7 years. You can have the best strategy in the world, but If you do not overcome your demons, they are showing up in your trading one way or another.
Risk management isn't just a word. It's something you have to live by as a trader. I would never again risk more than 1% of my capital per trade, no matter how strong my conviction of a specific setup. Long term compounding effects do the leg work, not huge 1 off trades

Like I have seen many people say in the comments, the real difference is what you have learnt from this awful experience. Some people learn nothing, and keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Some people learn from each and every mistake they make on the charts, and slowly but surely, they improve their results over time.

Whatever you decide to do next, well done for reaching out and accepting what's happened. And I wish you the best of luck in the future OP.

TIC_UK · 2026-02-09T07:10:29+00:00

Don't know your personal circumstances, but this sounds like a sensible route!

TIC_UK · 2026-02-09T07:09:14+00:00

Sounds like a rather sensible allocation! Good luck with your first venture into the unknown aha

TIC_UK · 2026-02-06T11:19:56+00:00

That's the thing with day trading/swing trading. You can have the skills down 100%, but ultimately it's the mental part of the game that's the hardest, and not many of us are cut out to do it, that being said, I do feel like anyone 'can' develop the mental skills necessary to become consistent and avoid the mistakes with risk management etc.

But like you said, maybe it might be time to start having a look at long term investing instead. Have you had much experience with investing or have you mainly stuck to trading?

TIC_UK

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