I have analyzed thousands of traders on Trading View.
Almost NONE of you perform better than a coin flip by a significant margin over the long term. Quite a lot of you perform worse than a coin flip by a significant margin over the long term. Even traders who have been at it for *years* are barely breaking even at best. If you are reading this, you probably suck at trading. But what are you doing wrong? There's a long list of things.
You use retail indicators & strategies that are too popular & don't actually work
There are lots of indicators and patterns that are constantly shilled to retail traders by trading gurus. Head and shoulders. RSI. Double top. Stochastic. Support and resistance. None of them are usually ideal for use in actual trading, because they are too popular and they cause you to side with the majority of traders that lose. If you do the same things that the majority does, you will lose along with them! If 100 other retail traders are taking the same trade as you (because they see the same setup that you do), the market manipulators will see this and will gladly give you all a big L. There is no substitute for finding your own unique or at least lesser-know edge in markets.
You failed to backtest your strategy, or your backtesting sucks
You likely either didn't backtest your strategy at all, or you did a terrible job of it. Most "discretionary traders" think they are too smart for backtesting. They think they are smarter than everyone, and they can use their mind to easily take money out of the market. They are clearly wrong about this. Even if you are a discretionary trader, every strategy that you deploy MUST be tested properly. A backtest should contain multiple market conditions and should have hundreds of samples. Only then is a strategy worth risking money on. If you are backtesting your own intuition in markets, go back to past data you have never seen before, and put on a trade when you feel that it's the right trade to make. You will probably lose money because your "intuition" probably isn't actually as good as you think it is.
Your trade management sucks
When you have a trade that's in profit, you take a partial TP (against your rules) because you think it won't hurt to lock in some money. You also move your stop to break even. This leads to getting stopped out way more. Additionally, did your backtest actually include these rules? Doubtful! You need to do a SEPERATE BACKTEST to see if your exit strategy of moving a stop to break even or taking partial profit is actually helpful. Odds are it isn't!!
You are following the wrong people
Humans have a tendency to mimic other humans, biologically. In trading, we see that traders learn from and copy the traders that they interact most with. Because of the surplus of losing traders, most traders that you interact with will be losers. Considering this, you cannot copy everyone. You also cannot fade everyone either though. You should be running a backtest on any trader that you follow, and see if they are really worth their salt in the first place. If someone does not know how to fish, they cannot teach you how to fish. If someone does not know how to trade profitably, they cannot teach you how to trade profitably. Judge the fisher by his catches and the trader by his returns. If you cannot find a way of compiling the returns of a trader confidently, they should be ignored, as you can't prove one way or the other whether they are any good at this game. Find the winners, and learn from them. Find the losers, and do the opposite.
Your trades are all positively correlated
If you go long on Ethereum and then go long on Bitcoin, you are NOT in two trades. You are in ONE trade. Bitcoin and Ethereum are almost 100% correlated. There is absolutely no logical reason to go long on both. Double the size and go long on one of them to get the same exposure with less complication! People take multiple trades in almost identical markets because they want to cheat their own risk management system and count them as separate trades to risk let's say 1% each. So that means if you wanted to be extra long on crypto, you might long both ETH and BTC with that system, and your actual exposure would be *twice* what your risk management was meant to allow for.
If you are in concurrent trades, they should mostly be on assets with low correlation. Otherwise, they should all be consolidated into a single trade. Most markets have a high correlation, and there is no reason to be in 10 identical trades. It creates confusion and allows you to mismanage risk more easily.
You didn't really put in the work
How many books have you actually read about markets? How deeply do you actually understand options pricing math? You likely assumed that you will just instantly be good at this game, but that is a terrible assumption to make. Trading takes a far greater commitment than most other ways to make money. If you are not in LOVE with MARKETS, this is not a game for you. The only thing that will get you through hard times without quitting is a genuine PASSION for the SKILL of trading. Not a love of money, which you can easily lose by being incompetent.
You believe in common delusions
"Trading is a good way to make passive income"
"Cryptocurrency is a good investment"
"My trading guru wants what's best for me"
"I am way smarter than the market because I am special"
These are lots of delusions that retail traders have. These delusions are dangerous because they create false expectations that will be crushed by reality sooner or later.
Almost NONE of you perform better than a coin flip by a significant margin over the long term. Quite a lot of you perform worse than a coin flip by a significant margin over the long term. Even traders who have been at it for *years* are barely breaking even at best. If you are reading this, you probably suck at trading. But what are you doing wrong? There's a long list of things.
You use retail indicators & strategies that are too popular & don't actually work
There are lots of indicators and patterns that are constantly shilled to retail traders by trading gurus. Head and shoulders. RSI. Double top. Stochastic. Support and resistance. None of them are usually ideal for use in actual trading, because they are too popular and they cause you to side with the majority of traders that lose. If you do the same things that the majority does, you will lose along with them! If 100 other retail traders are taking the same trade as you (because they see the same setup that you do), the market manipulators will see this and will gladly give you all a big L. There is no substitute for finding your own unique or at least lesser-know edge in markets.
You failed to backtest your strategy, or your backtesting sucks
You likely either didn't backtest your strategy at all, or you did a terrible job of it. Most "discretionary traders" think they are too smart for backtesting. They think they are smarter than everyone, and they can use their mind to easily take money out of the market. They are clearly wrong about this. Even if you are a discretionary trader, every strategy that you deploy MUST be tested properly. A backtest should contain multiple market conditions and should have hundreds of samples. Only then is a strategy worth risking money on. If you are backtesting your own intuition in markets, go back to past data you have never seen before, and put on a trade when you feel that it's the right trade to make. You will probably lose money because your "intuition" probably isn't actually as good as you think it is.
Your trade management sucks
When you have a trade that's in profit, you take a partial TP (against your rules) because you think it won't hurt to lock in some money. You also move your stop to break even. This leads to getting stopped out way more. Additionally, did your backtest actually include these rules? Doubtful! You need to do a SEPERATE BACKTEST to see if your exit strategy of moving a stop to break even or taking partial profit is actually helpful. Odds are it isn't!!
You are following the wrong people
Humans have a tendency to mimic other humans, biologically. In trading, we see that traders learn from and copy the traders that they interact most with. Because of the surplus of losing traders, most traders that you interact with will be losers. Considering this, you cannot copy everyone. You also cannot fade everyone either though. You should be running a backtest on any trader that you follow, and see if they are really worth their salt in the first place. If someone does not know how to fish, they cannot teach you how to fish. If someone does not know how to trade profitably, they cannot teach you how to trade profitably. Judge the fisher by his catches and the trader by his returns. If you cannot find a way of compiling the returns of a trader confidently, they should be ignored, as you can't prove one way or the other whether they are any good at this game. Find the winners, and learn from them. Find the losers, and do the opposite.
Your trades are all positively correlated
If you go long on Ethereum and then go long on Bitcoin, you are NOT in two trades. You are in ONE trade. Bitcoin and Ethereum are almost 100% correlated. There is absolutely no logical reason to go long on both. Double the size and go long on one of them to get the same exposure with less complication! People take multiple trades in almost identical markets because they want to cheat their own risk management system and count them as separate trades to risk let's say 1% each. So that means if you wanted to be extra long on crypto, you might long both ETH and BTC with that system, and your actual exposure would be *twice* what your risk management was meant to allow for.
If you are in concurrent trades, they should mostly be on assets with low correlation. Otherwise, they should all be consolidated into a single trade. Most markets have a high correlation, and there is no reason to be in 10 identical trades. It creates confusion and allows you to mismanage risk more easily.
You didn't really put in the work
How many books have you actually read about markets? How deeply do you actually understand options pricing math? You likely assumed that you will just instantly be good at this game, but that is a terrible assumption to make. Trading takes a far greater commitment than most other ways to make money. If you are not in LOVE with MARKETS, this is not a game for you. The only thing that will get you through hard times without quitting is a genuine PASSION for the SKILL of trading. Not a love of money, which you can easily lose by being incompetent.
You believe in common delusions
"Trading is a good way to make passive income"
"Cryptocurrency is a good investment"
"My trading guru wants what's best for me"
"I am way smarter than the market because I am special"
These are lots of delusions that retail traders have. These delusions are dangerous because they create false expectations that will be crushed by reality sooner or later.