If you know the pitfalls of trading, you can easily avoid them. Small mistakes are inevitable, such as entering the wrong stock symbol or incorrectly setting a buy level. But these are forgivable, and, with luck, even profitable. What you have to avoid, however, are the mistakes due to bad judgment rather than simple errors. These are the deadly mistakes which ruin entire trading careers instead of just one or two trades. To avoid these pitfalls, you have to watch yourself closely and stay diligent.
Think of trading mistakes like driving a car on icy roads: if you know that driving on ice is dangerous, you can avoid traveling in a sleet storm. But if you dont know about the dangers of ice, you might drive as if there were no threat, only realizing your mistake once youre already off the road.
Too many traders are fixed on only one market. They may trade only the forex USD/EUR, or the E-mini Russell, or the E-mini DOW, or just certain stocks, etc. While they may feel a certain sense of expertise or mastery over this one market, no one, no matter how experienced they are, can predict what will happen all the time. These people are setting themselves up for...