Why most traders lose

Many traders have the knowledge, skill and technical ability to succeed trading the markets. Most retail traders consider themselves successful if they don't lose.

They have a solid trading plan, but when they go to the live screen, they do nothing close to what their trading plan calls for.

Self-sabotage

Indecision, impatience, uncertainty, FOMO, YOLO mindset — these are all self-sabotaging behaviors every trader has had to overcome to succeed in the markets.

Why then do most traders lose money over time? I can't speak for anyone but myself and my experiences. I believe there are multiple reasons, but one of the main reasons I was inconsistent for so long was what I call "garbage trading."

Garbage trading is why most traders will lose and never be consistently profitable. They think eventually with enough hard work and technical study, they'll figure it out and be able to trade every movement in the markets.

Garbage trading is what gets most traders into emotional, impulsive and irrational trading. Over-trading, over-leveraging, holding onto losers, not taking profits, taking small profits and big losses, "trading to get back to even" trading, revenge trading, "trading to get back to a previous watermark" trading, random, impulsive trading, and the list goes on.

My goal wasn't just to succeed, but to make real money trading the markets. To do that I needed to armor-plate my trading with my setups, my process, my risk and profit management, and my mindset.

My job is to make money, not to be right about a direction in the market. Therefore, I only focus on the setups where the odds are most heavily skewed in my favor.