We All Mistakes, Here are Mine. Read, Learn, Avoid!

If by some unexplainable means you could go back and change one thing related to your trading, what would that be? Wait, lets make it even better: if you could undo three mistakes, which ones will you choose? Come on, dont be shy, we all go wrong sometimes. Of course, that unexplainable way of traveling through time is not available to us so we cannot fix our mistakes but maybe this article will help the newbies avoid making the same ones all over. Well, I made so many that its pretty hard to choose the biggest three, but here goes:

1. The 60 Seconds Fallacy

Im actually writing this during night time… I couldn’t sleep so I figured its better to get up and do something useful than just lie in bed thinking about trading (yea, thats what I do when I cant sleep). A cup of coffee to my right, ashtray to my left (smoking is bad, I know, but Im wearing a nicotine patch trying to kick that habit) and my cat eating my house plants (I wish there were a patch for that…) so everything is within normal parameters except the lack of sleep. But even without enough rest, its easy to see what a big mistake I made jumping into 60 second trading. Its true that I dont trade that way anymore but I must admit I was tempted at first by the opportunity of such quick profits and I tried it. I even had some success… of course it wasn’t because of my analytical skills, but rather due to a combination of luck and some strong movement of the market. The moment I realized I cannot consistently predict the outcome of the next one minute candle was also the last time I placed a 60 seconds binary option trade. The thing is that making money with this type of trading is perfectly viable and achievable (thats what attracts us), but the main problem is consistency. Making some money today doesn’t help me if Im gonna give it all back tomorrow. Everything that lacks consistency in trading is bound to fail sooner or later so yea, its possible to make money with 60 seconds… keeping them is the challenge.

2. The Excel Spreadsheet

Metaphorically speaking, the spreadsheet is the thing that makes us push on and keeps the dream alive. On a more down-to-Earth note, its just… an Excel spreadsheet containing a calculation of how our account will look if we keep making a certain percentage every week, month or year and compounding our winnings. With just 15% added to your account every month you will make a million bucks in a few years and the Excel spreadsheet makes it look easy, but it doesn’t consider any other factors such as the psychological aspect. Fear, greed, doubt, losing streaks, broker interference, none of these are accounted for in the sheet so the goal of achieving your dream becomes somewhat closer but do not fall for it as I did. Trading with all its aspects is so much different than an Excel worksheet makes you believe and I learned it the hard and disappointing way; years passed and my account wasn’t where my spreadsheet said it would be. The thing is that you have to treat each trade as if your entire account depends on it and not think about how much money an Excel spreadsheet says youre gonna have in a year or 5.

3. Broker Madness

We all know that scammers plague the Binary Options industry and give it a bad name. Well, I didn’t know it when I started trading and I deposited with the first broker I came in contact with. Sites like binaryoptionsthatsuck.com were almost non-existent back then and I didn’t bother to read the Terms and Conditions of the broker … it was too much work and I was too busy getting rich to pay attention to signs of a potential scam or bad broker. I thought the Bonus is a welcome gift. not that it will tie my money to their platform; I thought the account manager is actually a good trader who wants me to get rich. Big mistake, but one I never made again.

Mistake Made, Lesson Learned