Mistakes Traders Make

 

4/27/2026 - I've consistently found that the majority of directional traders make their living from managing risk well (not having large losing trades) and from having (often only a handful) of large winning trades during a year.  They make their money when they are *really* right and they take advantage of that.

The big mistake that traders make, leaving them as good traders but not great ones, is that they have a clearly defined criteria for finding opportunity and identifying entries and exits.  They *don't* have a clear process, however, for taking full advantage of those situations when they are *really* right.  In other words, they don't have a clear process for getting big in the right trades.

This is partly a trading psychology issue.  Traders clearly visualize being wrong but not being amazingly right.  They have a process for limiting losses, but not maximizing gains.

They think cautiously and prudently, but don't think greatly when the proper time comes.

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4/26/2026 - What makes our trading psychology is not whether we make mistakes, but what we do with those mistakes.  In the coming series of posts, we'll take a look at common mistakes traders make and how they can use those mistakes to improve their trading.

An unfortunate number of traders have missed the bulk of the large upside move in stocks since the lows late in March.  Out of a sense of prudence, they didn't want to "chase" the rebound and so waited for a pullback.  The anticipated pullback simply hasn't occurred.

As the late Ayn Rand taught, when things don't make sense, it's worthwhile to check our premises.  What's the premise that traders are relying upon that is leading them to miss opportunity?

Quite simply, traders are assuming that pullbacks are measured in price action alone.  If we don't see a correction in price, traders assume we haven't seen a correction.

But suppose we measure correction in other ways.  For example, off the late March lows, we subsequently saw breadth--as measured by the percentage of stocks trading above their three-day moving averages--pull back to 47.47 on April 7th and then back to 32.39 on April 10th and then back to 49.39 on April 15th.  All of these pullbacks occurred at higher price levels, because a few groups of stocks kept the averages higher even as the bulk of stocks retreated from their recent highs.  From a breadth perspective, the powerful rally offered *many* opportunities to get into the rally.  

Price alone does not define the market. 

What we look at determines how we trade.