1. Trading Without a Stop Loss
"I'll just watch it and close manually if it goes wrong" is one of the most common last words before an account gets wiped out. The market can move hundreds of pips in seconds around a major news release — faster than a human can react. A stop loss set before you enter isn't optional caution, it's the difference between a bad trade and a blown account. Covered in full in our risk management guide.
2. Risking Too Much Per Trade
Risking 10-20% of an account on a single "high confidence" trade feels justified in the moment and ends careers. At 10% risk per trade, ten losses in a row — which happens to every trader eventually — wipes the account completely. At 1-2% risk, the same losing streak leaves 80%+ of the account intact. The math is the whole argument here, not opinion.
3. Revenge Trading
Taking an oversized, poorly-planned trade immediately after a loss to "win it back" is one of the most reliable ways to turn one loss into two. A loss is data, not an insult that needs immediate correcting. The trades that come from frustration are almost never the same quality as the trades that come from a plan.
4. Chasing Price Instead of Waiting for Entry
Jumping into a trade because price is "already moving" — after missing the actual setup — usually means entering at a worse price with a wider effective stop. Good setups involve waiting for price to come back to a sensible entry level, not sprinting after a move that's already happened.
5. Overtrading
Not every hour needs a trade. Forcing setups on quiet days or low-quality signals just to "stay active" adds risk without adding edge. Quality and patience beat frequency — this is exactly why we only fire signals when all of our confirmation rules genuinely agree, instead of trying to always have something live.
6. Ignoring Correlation
Opening the same directional bet across multiple correlated pairs (EURUSD and GBPUSD often move together) isn't diversification — it's the same risk twice, dressed up as two trades. If both go wrong, you've doubled your loss without realizing you doubled your exposure.
7. Not Verifying Before Depositing More
Increasing account size before proving you can follow your own rules with a smaller amount just increases the size of the same mistakes. Prove the process works — stop loss discipline, position sizing, patience — before scaling capital, not after.