When embarking upon our journey into the wonderful world of financial markets, regardless of the age at which those first steps are taken, we are generally all consumed by the excitement of it all.
Anticipation of profits are palpable, we will make money, we will beat the market. Statistics around the number of successful (and more importantly unsuccessful) Traders mean nothing to us (“It is estimated that more than 80% of traders fail and quit.” Investopedia). We won’t be in that group, we’re different, we’ll continue to be different, because we’re smarter than the average bear and we’ll learn how to do this properly so we can flourish.
And off we go, often with life savings (please don’t do this) or a set in stone timeframe we have to be successful by (don’t do this either!), speculating our way into an unforgiving, unfriendly, ultra-competitive environment which we don’t understand anywhere near enough about. Certainly not enough, yet, to appreciate that it’s entire premise for existence is to transfer money from the inexperienced to the experienced.
It is, in the timeless words of Admiral Akbar, “A Trap”.
Those “influencers” (I hate that word) you see flaunting a lavish lifestyle of private jets, fancy cars, holidays every other week and all through working about 2 hours, or whatever else you can think of, are fake. They make more money “helping” their followers, in many cases setting them up to be exit liquidity so they can take their money from the market, than they do IN the market.
Trading isn’t easy, nothing in markets is, you certainly won’t be working for 2 hours per week and spending millions per day unless you hit the lottery, figuratively speaking. This image, for the most part, like everything there are exceptions, is a fallacy and trying to sell it to you are lying, likely for their own ends. This approach has one simple goal, to exploit the subjects base emotions in favour of the faker, namely “Fear” & “Greed”.
It’s no coincidence that these same emotions are what markets are fuelled by. Fear & Greed. Your mastery of these emotions over time, understanding when to be appropriately fearful and appropriately greedy, alongside a fundamental understanding of how markets and market participants operate, is what will see you here for the long term. Not a fake goal with an unreasonable timescale and an over exposure to risk chasing both.
Its not all bad though. It is a hugely enjoyable experience, with lots to learn and lots of great people to meet along the way. So don’t be discouraged by this, it’s just a “watch out” message. 🙂
So what is the point of this article you ask? Other than to make clear my love of Star Wars and Yogi bear from my youth!
Well, I thought it was worth writing about some common beginner mistakes, in my mind anyway, to hopefully provide solace to those who have suffered from them (you are not alone) and to help readers to avoid either a repeat, or entirely, any of these “Booboos”.
I’m not talking scams here (for the most part), more experience based mistakes or misunderstandings that can bite you in the ass. This list wont be exhaustive either, just a few things from my experience that I see time and again from the aspiring market participant.
I’ll cover 3 here to begin with, in order to keep this short, but there are more on my list I may add later!
1 – BTFD (Buy the F*cking Dip) & Diamond Hands/Paper Hands & HODL
This is one of my personal favourites. Quite how this “movement” is still a thing in 2022, everywhere on Social Media (in Trading circles) and people still repeat it is just flat out baffling.
But for the new market participant I understand the draw. You hear something repeated enough it takes on the guise of an accepted norm, regardless of the sanity or otherwise behind it. And when these things are repeated over and over to inexperienced listeners they can become “accepted wisdom”, even though they are far from.
This is an easy one to talk to though. Let me ask one simple question, when you are “buying the f*cking dip”, who do you think is selling to you?
And OK, you may be so new that you don’t realise that there’s a counterparty to every trade you place, if you’re a buyer you need a seller and vice versa. So if BTFD is accepted wisdom, who the hell do you think is selling to you when you’re buying?
Penny dropped yet?
It’s the people that are telling you to BTFD and Diamond Hands/HDOL. You are their exit liquidity.
But that’s not “Diamond Hands” or “Paper Hands”? I hear you say. And you are correct, it’s not. So what’s the link? Goes back to that fear and greed conversation earlier. We know from just about every study that has been performed on Trading data that the majority (cough, the 80%, cough) are more likely to add to a losing position through fear, in the hope it will average them down so they “need less to break even”, than they will add to a winner.
“Diamond Hands” = Strong and “Paper Hands” = Weak is a narrative designed to make sure you not only hold an underwater bag, not cut it where you should, but also so that when it continues to drop and those folks are short, they have buyers for the cover “Buying the f*cking dip”.
Again, keeps you their exit liquidity.
Say whaaaa…..!
If you take nothing else from this article, please take that BTFD and Diamond Hands/Paper Hands and HODL are not your friend. The aim of trading is to make money and you only make money when you take profit that is larger than the losses you cut, consistently.
2 – DCA != BTFD
This is another common one. People buy the dip, every dip, even once a downtrend is well established, trying to catch THE bottom, telling themselves their DCA strategy will get them there in the end. What they don’t realise is that they should be DCA short, not long, in an 18 month downtrend!
Classic DCA is a fine strategy that works for many people and my intention isn’t to make light of that here. If you have an ISA (UK) or IRA (US) and you take an amount every month without looking at a chart and put it into that investment pot for the long term, congratulations, you are classic DCA and history shows there aren’t many periods in history this wouldn’t return positive results if your outlook is long enough.
There are even more complex strategies where people DCA on certain days of the month or months of the year based on maths and seasonality. That’s also fine from a DCA perspective.
But if you’re looking at the charts every day and buying every time you think the bottom is in, then buying the next “bottom”, then the next “bottom”, then the next “bottom” all the way from the macro top, that’s not DCA, that’s BTFD and you’re making, short term at least, donations to the the market. In an established trend, if you are active in the market then build a position with the trend. If that trend is short…….
3 – 100x Baby!
Ah leverage. The hangout of the true Degen and a place where Trading Careers go to die, often times a horrible, horrible death.
Now, I am not going to attempt to talk down the power of Leverage where used responsibly. I use Leverage to maintain consistency in both position size and Risk. But there’s a key word in that sentence: “Responsibly”.
In Crypto in particular the Leverage Casinos will offer you truly crazy amounts of buying and selling power in comparison to the capital you actually have. They’re a great bunch of lads, truly on our side and want to see us all get rich…….
Erm, no, no they’re not. 🙂
The reason they offer such ludicrous leverage to inexperienced traders is that they know, eventually, the house always wins. They make their money from liquidations and leverage fees, far more than they ever lose. The odds are not in our favour when it comes to these crazy x multipliers and what’s worse, many new traders (and many experienced ones as well!) have little thought or control around using leverage other than “If I pick 10x I could make y”.
If you go into trades thinking “I could make” rather than “I might lose”, you are, in my humble opinion, looking at things backwards. One of the common traits of the 20% who stick around is that they are money/risk managers first, traders second. Profit is an outcome of process and risk management, not the decision making factor for entering a trade.
If you go into a trade with 50% of your account on a 5% stop on 10x leverage your risk is 25% of YOUR ACCOUNT. Standard practice for good Risk Management is a maximum of 1%-2% account risk per trade. B-onkers.
Sure, there will be a few good wins, but without that level of control the loses will wipe you out quickly, often entirely in a single trade, especially those looking at their liquidation price as something that should EVER matter. If you hit liquidation, you done did leverage wrong. Your stop should be waaaaaaaay before that and your position sizing should have kept you within your max acceptable account risk parameters.
But Position Sizing, Risk Management and longevity aren’t in the mind of the new trader, enticed into the world of crazy leverage by what could be won on the roulette wheel with “just 1 good trade”. And that’s the thing, longevity is never about a single trade, its about the sum of the 1000 trades. Chasing that 1 big win isn’t trading, it’s gambling and leverage makes that all the more possible when used irresponsibly, like most of retail, particularly in the crypto space!
So a word of caution for you if you want to go down this road. Have a solid Risk Management plan, know how to Position Size with and without leverage and stick to it in every single trade to give yourself a chance at surviving!
And thats probably long enough for this one!
Hopefully this has helped or spurred some thoughts, this is genuinely the intention. And why do I sound so passionate about these things: Well, I was new once, I made all of these mistakes. I know the pain they cause. Sharing that pain, hopefully with a bit of humour and self deprecation thrown in, will hopefully save some of you from going through the same or at least prompt you to investigate a few new things away from the charts that are infinitely more important, like Risk Management and Position size maths, Trend analysis and DCA methodology.
Till next time, stay safe……