My Emotional Mistake | What to Do When You LOSE

It’s not unusual for people to accuse me of sharing a biased opinion when it comes to sports trading. 

But what about your losses Caan?

So after a painful mistake today, I thought I’d give you a quick trading update.

Where Did It Go Wrong?

I experienced a losing day. There I said it…

For me, this is extremely rare being rather risk-averse. However, these blips do occasionally happen. Rarely are they as painful as today -£370 in one go, followed by a few smaller losses (£20-£50). In the scheme of things, it means nothing, although it was enough to put a serious downer on the session.

But why did this happen and how will I be dealing with it?

I’ve blogged about it many times before, but emotions can be dangerous for traders. When it comes to sports trading, you need to be on top of how you feel. It’s part and parcel of the game. It doesn’t matter how good your strategy is if you can’t control your trigger finger.

Today I lost control of that trigger finger for a few moments, giving me a sharp sting. On reflection, it was obvious that this was destined to happen, although hindsight is a great thing. We’re only human and occasionally mistakes will be made. It’s how we respond that matters.

I won’t be beating myself up too much about it, although I’ll share my thoughts on the remedy in a second.

Avoidable…

With the recent news about Afghanistan this week I’ve been quite sensitive (although maybe I didn’t realise). It’s strange and I don’t really understand why as it’s not as if one particular event has ever hit me that hard. However, it is fair to say I’ve been feeling a mixture of frustration, upset, anger and disappointment. I can only imagine how those who experienced far worse than me are feeling. I’ve spoken to a couple of old friends, and I think no matter the past experiences, just about everyone is feeling it. I can only imagine how those stranded in Kabul right now or the families of those who didn’t return are bearing up.

It’s extremely sad and in many ways, was inevitable to some degree. I posted a thread about it here. My main anger is for the world governments and military hierarchy. Thinking back, I recall several instances where they grossly mishandled situations, only pleading ignorance after. One was close to the bone for me, culminating with two high ranking offices having a physical scuffle.

What’s The Remedy?

That was a different life, so right now I have to focus on the present, which means keeping my emotions out of my trading. I’m sure that’s completely possible so for the remainder of this week I’ve decided to spend less time in the markets. When I do, I’ll be using reduced stakes.

There’s no golden bullet to resolving a blip like this, we just have to move on and avoid it happening again. It’s the best course of action I know.

In the meantime, while I reduce my activity, I hope the UK and American governments stop jacking on all the people that have supported operations over the previous 20 years. It’s shameful.

Cheers,
Caan

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