It’s Not You, It’s the Market (Or Is It?)

Have you ever seen price move against you as soon as you enter a trade?

How about price hitting your stop loss levels before bouncing back up or down to your original profit targets?

If you have, then congratulations! You’re just like every other trader out there.

But what if these things keep happening to you?

If you’ve done your homework and followed your trading plan and you STILL lose your trades, can you then say that the market is against you?

Can the market really trade against you?

Remember that price action is the sum of the decisions of thousands of traders – both institutional and retail – who don’t even know you.

They may know something you don’t, or they may need to place or remove positions that have nothing to do with what’s going on in the charts.

These guys don’t care about your credentials, your biases, how fancy your indicators are, or that you lost your wedding budget betting on EUR/USD flying by 300 pips (your bride will DEFINITELY care though!).

So, no, the market isn’t trolling you. In all your trades, the market is Mariah Carey and you’re JLo.

She don’t know you.

If it’s not the market, then it’s you.

More likely than not, you losing a trade has something to do with how you handled it.

Maybe you’re not as prepared or as focused as you thought and you missed a key catalyst that moved the asset against your trade.

Maybe you failed to hit your stops when called for, or you ignored signals that went against your trading bias.

Or maybe the environment has simply changed and is no longer favorable to your existing strategies.

In any case, the market is ALWAYS boss and it’s your job as a trader to adapt to what it’s saying.

What can you do?

If you’re sticking to your trading plan and you’re still losing trades, you can:

Lower your risk exposure

If there’s a disconnect between the market and your trading plan, then you should lower your risk exposure until you figure out what’s going on.

Leverage and position sizes are the easiest to adjust if you’re not ready to change your biases or your trading system.

Re-read the markets

If the market isn’t acting like the way you think it should, then you might need to step back and understand what it’s now saying.

Use multiple time frame analysis. Check charts across different time frames in case you missed a technical support or resistance level.

Get on board with the current market sentiment before you put on any more trades.

Adjust your strategies

If your research leads you to the same biases, then you probably need to change your strategies.

Are you using stops that are too tight?

Are the indicators you’re using still fit for the current trading environment?

For example, are you using a trend-following indicator when the price action is in a range or in a sideways market?

Are market biases changing too quickly for the time frame you’re using? Are your profit targets realistic given the asset’s average volatility?

At the end of the day, we are TRADERS and not investors.

It’s not our job to be right.

There will be plenty of other trading opportunities coming your way.

Make sure you’re prepared with research, focused on your mindset, and flexible in your execution so you’ll have better odds in winning your next trades.