Lists of "trading mistakes" look alike everywhere, and they rarely come with evidence. Here we read the famous ten in light of our published record: what is published on the performance record page, and what we found by dissecting every closed trade.
What our record says before any advice
Our systematic record at the time of writing this lesson: a win rate below half, a profit factor below one, and a maximum drawdown near half of capital on a compounded curve. We publish it as it is, because a lesson built on a polished record fixes nothing.
Most important: when we dissected every closed trade to learn what drove the result, we found that most were decided by the stock's move, while a sizable group were decided by volatility and time · meaning the view could have been right and the instrument wrong. That distinction alone reorders the list of mistakes.
1 · No written plan
A plan is not a sheet of ambitions. It is four numbers before you enter: entry, stop, target, and size. If any one is missing, every later decision is improvised under pressure.
2 · Risking more than 2% per trade
The rule is not sacred, but the math is simple: risking 10% per trade, a run of five losses in a row · entirely possible in any record · wipes out about 40% of the account. The drawdown we published in our record shows why this breaks your resolve before it breaks your account.
3 · Trading without a stop
A stop is not a forecast of loss. It is a decision made in advance about the most you will pay to test your idea. In our record, trades closed by hitting the stop kept a limited loss · and the alternative is not profit but a loss with no ceiling.
4 · Overtrading
More trades do not add opportunities, they add friction: commissions, price spreads, and more decisions made while tired. Worse, they hide the signal: a record of a hundred random trades teaches you nothing about your method.
5 · Emotional decisions
Emotion is not resisted by intention but by structure: written rules, a position small enough to keep your head clear, and a journal where you write the reason for entry before you know the result.
6 · Chasing the move
Entering after a strong move means buying the premium at its most expensive. With options the problem is doubled: the jump raises implied volatility, so you pay a higher price for the same view, and then a volatility crush hits your position even if your direction was right.
7 · Jumping in before the setup is complete
"The setup is close to confirming" is not confirmation. Entering early makes you pay for a wait the market could have carried for you.
8 · Not keeping a journal
Without a journal there is no record, and without a record there is no improvement · only selective memory that recalls the winning trade and forgets the ones around it. That is exactly why we dissect every closed trade instead of settling for "won" or "lost".
9 · Ignoring the risk/reward ratio (R:R · Risk/Reward)
Win rate alone means nothing. A record with a low win rate can still be profitable if the winners are big enough compared with the losers · and the reverse is also true, which is what the profit factor published in our record measures.
10 · Expecting quick results
Any short record is noise, not signal. That is why the platform shows no performance figure before a disclosed sample is complete, and we print the sample size next to every number.
Summary
The mistake worth your effort first is the one that shows up in your own record, not in a generic list. Start by journaling, then dissect: did the stock's move decide the result, or volatility and time? The answer tells you which of the ten mistakes is really yours.
