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Common trading mistakes and how to avoid them

By Saad El Soussi, UAE-authorized finfluencer · Updated 2026-11-08

The lesson lists the mistakes its author made himself and sees in almost every beginner: trading without a strategy, overtrading (too many trades or too much risk for the account), letting greed and fear decide, revenge trading after a loss, trading without a stop loss, trading without knowing the market, no mental discipline, no journal, and too much screen time. The fixes are the same for everyone: a written plan, at most 1% of the account at risk per day, a stop loss on every position, a journal reviewed every weekend, and a set time at the screen. Mistakes are normal; repeating them is the problem. Nobody makes it in a day or a month, and most who quit do so because they expected gains in the first six months.

First: mistakes are part of the job

The lesson opens with a point most courses skip: experienced traders make mistakes too. What separates them from beginners is that they recognise their own faults and learn from them, instead of repeating them. Nobody makes it in a day or in a month; the lesson's author says he is still learning every day after years of trading. A lot of beginners quit because they do not see gains within the first six months or the first year. That timeline is normal, which is why the beginners' roadmap treats the first year as training.

The nine mistakes, and what to do instead

1. Trading without a strategy

No defined style, no rules for entering and exiting, no goals. The fix is a written plan: which market, which timeframe, what a valid setup looks like, where the stop goes, how much is risked, and what the daily goals are. The lesson suggests setting daily goals that fit your style; we would add that for a beginner the most useful daily goal is a process goal (followed the plan on every trade) rather than a money goal, because money goals push you into mistakes 2 and 3.

2. Overtrading

Too many trades in a day, or too much risk compared with the capital. The lesson's rule: do not risk more than you can afford to lose, and keep the maximum at 1% of total capital per day. With $10,000 that is $100 a day. If one trade uses the whole 1%, that was the day's trading. The lot size calculator turns 1% and your stop into a position size; most overtrading starts with a position that was too big for the stop.

3. Greed and fear

Greed keeps a position open in the hope of more: you are up $100, you wait for $150, then $200, and the trade comes back to zero or hits the stop. Fear does the opposite and closes good trades early. The fix is to set the stop loss and the take profit when you open the trade and then leave it. Decide once, with a clear head, not every minute with a phone in your hand.

4. Revenge trading

After a loss, trading more and more to win the money back, until the account is gone. It usually follows mistake 3. The rule is mechanical: a loss that hits the 1% daily limit closes the platform for the day. Tomorrow is another day; the market will still be there.

5. No risk management, no stop loss

Opening a position and "leaving it as it is" with no stop is, in the lesson's words, a no-go, because it leaves the possibility of losing everything. Every position gets a stop loss in the platform, placed where the idea is proven wrong, not where the loss feels comfortable. Gold moved $95.90 between high and low on a typical day in the year to 2 November 2026 (our measurement, COMEX futures daily bars), so a position without a stop can lose a month of planned risk in an afternoon.

6. Trading without knowledge of the market

Fundamentals, technical analysis, what moves the market you trade. Staying up to date is part of the work, and the lesson treats learning as a daily habit rather than a stage you finish. Start with what is forex, how to trade gold and the session data: knowing that the busiest gold hour moves three times as much as the quietest one is knowledge that changes your stops.

7. No mental discipline

Developing a strategy and sticking to it under pressure and in difficult markets. The lesson's advice is to make trading mechanical: the weekly fundamental review, which pair to trade, which timeframe, how many trades per day, all decided in advance. The fewer decisions you make while a trade is open, the fewer mistakes you make.

8. No trading journal

Write every trade down: the date and time, the timeframe, the risk, the analysis behind it, and what happened. Review it at the weekend: what went well, what did not, where and why. The journal is how mistakes become lessons instead of habits. After 50 trades it also tells you whether the plan works at all. A written trading plan gives the journal something to check against, and backtesting fills the same journal from past charts before you risk money.

9. Too much screen time

Watching a trade all day invites mistakes 3 and 4. The lesson's point is that trading is supposed to give freedom, not take it: put the stop loss and the take profit in, and leave it. If you have control of the emotional and mental side, decision-making improves, mistakes fall and results follow over the long term.

The numbers behind the advice

Why 1%: ten losing trades in a row at 1% each cost 1 − 0.99¹⁰ = 9.6% of the account; at 10% each they cost 1 − 0.9¹⁰ = 65%. The first is a bad fortnight; the second needs a +186% gain to recover.
Why a stop: at 0.10 lots of gold (10 ounces) every $1 is $10. Without a stop, a typical day's range of $95.90 is a swing of about $959 on that one position.
Why most lose: EU regulators found that 74 to 89% of retail CFD accounts lose money (ESMA, 27 March 2018). The nine mistakes above are most of the reason.
Why the journal: a plan that wins 40% of its trades at 2R has an expectancy of 0.4 × 2 − 0.6 = +0.2R per trade; one that wins 40% at 1R has −0.2R. You cannot tell them apart without writing the trades down.

Key points from the lesson

Mistakes are normal; recognising and learning from them is the skill. Nobody makes it in a day or a month.
Have a defined strategy and daily goals before you trade.
Risk at most 1% of total capital per day ($100 on $10,000). Overtrading is too many trades or too much risk.
Greed keeps winners open too long; fear and revenge trading follow. Set stop and target at entry and leave them.
A stop loss on every position. No exceptions.
Keep learning the market: fundamentals and technicals, every day.
Make trading mechanical: weekly review, pair, timeframe, trades per day decided in advance.
Keep a journal and review it every weekend.
Keep screen time to a minimum; that is the freedom trading is supposed to give.

Previous lessons in the module: forex trading sessions, market structure and trading timeframes; from Module 2, candlestick patterns. The tools that make the advice practical: lot size, profit and R and margin calculators.

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Questions people ask

What is the most common trading mistake?

Trading without a stop loss and risking too much per trade. The two together turn a normal losing streak into a lost account. The lesson's rule is a stop on every position and at most 1% of capital at risk per day.

What is revenge trading?

Trading again and again after a loss to win the money back, usually with bigger size and no plan. It is driven by emotion and ends accounts. The fix is a hard daily loss limit that closes the platform for the day.

How long does it take to become profitable?

The lesson says plainly: not in a day and not in a month, and many quit because they expected gains in the first six months or year. Treat the first year as training, trade small, keep a journal and judge yourself on following the plan.

Should I watch my trades all day?

No. Set the stop loss and take profit when you open the trade and leave it. Watching invites greed, fear and revenge trading, and it takes away the freedom trading is supposed to give.

Is this the full lesson?

No. This is a written summary with the key points and the numbers behind them. The course has 87 video lessons in three modules; the bot can tell you about it.

Authorized in the UAESaad Nizar El Soussi, founder of SesTrading, is listed by the UAE Capital Market Authority as an authorized finfluencer (entry 193, added 24 September 2026). Check the official list.