If you’re reading this then you already possess an open mind. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to find the best and the major traders all made mistakes and they only succeeded as they learned from their mistakes. Forex is not only about analysis but is also about maintaining self-discipline and taking the right actions, even if they can sometimes seem counter-intuitive.

Not Learning From Your Mistakes

Possibly the most commonplace mistake committed by forex traders who are still honing their game is to not learn from their mistakes in the beginning.

For each and every trade that you place, you should go back and review it at some point. If you lost money, why?

You can’t win at every trade so your logic might have been sound but you simply risked too much money. Or your logic can have been flawed but you never realised it at the time. Without reviewing your trades after the occasion then you can never truly learn from your mistakes so that you never repeat them again.

Trading On Instinct

Too many traders trade on gut feeling or instinct. A friend of mine did this and racked up several thousand dollars worth of profit in very little while. His wife was extremely happy.

I asked him if he had a reason for placing each trade. His answer was “no” and that he trusted his instincts.

Two months later he lost it all and even more. Plus, his wife had already spent the cash that he had gifted her.

Always have a reason to place every single trade.

You Don’t Need To Trade Every Day

This follows on from the last point of always having an excuse to trade.

A lot of traders will feel the itch to trade even if there are no opportunities. For instance, unless you are aware how to buy within a range then you shouldn't place a trade unless you have enough reason to feel that you will have an imminent breakout from this range.

Never trade out of boredom. Never trade since you are getting annoyed at the absence of opportunities. Only trade if you have benefits to do so.

One way to get more opportunities to trade is to find out about an assortment of currency pairs. So if you only really follow EURUSD currently then maybe you ought to find out about the Japanese economy so that you are able to trade USDJPY too.