Never Run When Profitable, Hold Through Losses, and Revenge Trade: A Full-Time Trader’s Self-Examination
The following article is a summary of all the fatal mistakes I encountered in trading over the past few years. I hope everyone can take this to heart, avoid detours, and achieve stable profits as soon as possible!
That 15-minute candlestick chart on my screen is slowly eating away at the last bit of luck I have left. My unrealized profit slips from +200 points back to +80 points. I keep telling myself, “It’s just a pullback—the trend hasn’t changed,” and even unconsciously I adjust my stop-loss line—moving it to an even lower level.
I know what I’m doing, but my hands somehow already feel like they’re no longer under my control. In my mind, a clear voice is shouting, “Close the position to lock in profits,” but another, stronger voice whispers: “What if this time is different? What if this time it really can run out a big move?”
In the end, when the price—like a dull knife—slowly slices through the stop-loss level I’ve been dragging downward, the whole room falls into an emptiness deeper than the night. Seeing that glaring negative number in my account balance, I slump against the chair back. What surges through my body isn’t anger, but a strange kind of relief—like I’ve finally been freed.
That feeling—everyone who has stared at the market late at night will understand it. It isn’t the pain of losing money. It’s the numb exhaustion after a long fight with the inner demon.
I started trading full-time five years ago. On that day, I sat at this professional trading desk that cost 3,000 yuan. Two high-definition monitors faced me, and in my account was the sum of all my savings from eight years of working. Before I pressed the first order button, I sat down with the pride of “I’ve finally become free.”
I naively believed that trading is the monetization of knowledge. As long as I studied technical analysis, fundamentals, and market sentiment thoroughly, profit would be just a matter of course.
No one told me that the real battlefield is never on the chart—it’s in that moment right after you place your order, when your breathing starts to become uneven. Next, let’s talk together about the fatal problems that show up in trading, and hope everyone learns from them!
1. Never run when profitable—That thing called “self-destruction” (the ghost)
That moment has a specific name: “floating profit.” It’s like a mirage—seeming close enough to reach, yet when you truly extend your hand, it vanishes without a trace.
That time was a long position on Ethereum. The non-farm payroll data came in far below expectations, and gold prices surged exactly as I’d predicted. In less than half an hour, my floating profit exceeded 150 points. I stared at the account net value, thrilled as it kept jumping. At the same time, I quickly calculated mentally how long this profit would be equivalent to the income I used to earn from working, and I also planned to replace that old laptop that kept freezing.
Reason told me: once you reach the target, you should exit.
But a voice murmured in my ear: “Think bigger. This is just the beginning. There’s a bigger opportunity ahead.”
I hesitated. In those minutes of hesitation, the price started to fall back. From +150 points to +100 points, my inner greed and luck began to talk to each other:
“Don’t close yet. Wait for it to make another push higher.”
“What if it drops back to the cost price?”
“It won’t. The fundamentals are so strong—this is just normal profit-taking.”
When the floating profit shrank to +30 points, I wasn’t trading anymore—I was praying. When the price finally broke through my cost line, which should have been the last chance to close, I did something even more foolish: I moved the stop-loss line down by 50 points.
In that moment, I realized my reluctance to close wasn’t the result of rational analysis. It was my inability to accept the frustration caused by “giving back profits.” I’d rather take on a bigger loss than admit I’d been wrong. This wasn’t trading anymore—it had become a battle to defend my pride.
In the end, this position was closed out with a stop-loss loss of 120 points. From a profit of 150 points to a loss of 120 points—total time, less than two hours. That night I didn’t sleep at all. Not because I’d lost that money, but because I suddenly felt utterly unfamiliar with myself—the calm, self-disciplined version of me that was invincible on a demo account, now so fragile it was utterly defenseless in the face of real money.
2. Consecutive losses—A spiral plunging into the abyss
If it were only once or twice losing control, you might still be able to persuade yourself: “Next time, I’ll be careful.” But when losses become a continuous series, when they turn into an inescapable daily routine, that’s when the soul faces its true test.
I remember those days. Five straight days with not a single profitable trade. Every morning I opened the market with full confidence, hunting for opportunities like a hunter. By late night, I fled in panic like prey being chased. Eating was just mechanical swallowing. Even the beef noodles I liked most downstairs tasted like chewing wax.
I remember that period very well. I was unbearably irritable. The sounds of the child running around in the living room, my wife cooking in the kitchen, even the engine noise from the cars passing downstairs—anything could make me explode in an instant. I smashed the keyboard. I threw things. I roared at the screen showing the candlestick chart, like a trapped beast.
During that time, I stopped believing I could make profits, but I was extremely desperate to “get it back.” This contradiction completely distorted my trading: I set stop-losses extremely tight, and I’d be swept out with the slightest fluctuation. Just after getting stopped out, the price would sprint away in the direction I had predicted. The humiliation of being repeatedly played with by the market was more unbearable than the losses themselves.
I started frequently changing my trading systems. Today it was moving averages, tomorrow I looked at the Bollinger Bands, and the day after I heard that some forum “expert” had made a fortune using harmonic patterns—I would then go study Gartley and Bat patterns all night. It was like a drowning person frantically grabbing at every straw that floated by.
But the most terrifying part was—I didn’t know what to do. I reviewed every losing trade and found that each one was a textbook-style mistake: chasing after price strength, holding on to positions, frequent trading, emotional bets. But when the next day’s market opened, you would still commit the same mistakes, as if another person had moved into your body. Once it was trading time, they took over everything. That hopeless feeling of watching yourself slide toward the abyss with no power to stop it is especially clear in the late hours.
I started having insomnia, and began to doubt whether I was even suited for this path. The version of me who once had dreams about trading while working used to be full of anticipation—over these three months, that version was completely shattered.
3. Those trading bad habits—They are your other personality
I spent five years writing down everything in two thick trading journals. When I look back and flip through them, I finally understand: trading bad habits are never “mistakes” that need to be corrected. They are self-protection mechanisms you formed over a long period of time, extensions of your personality.
Bad habit #1: Holding on to losing positions—Replacing judgment with hope
The essence of holding on is putting “not wanting to be wrong” above “not wanting to lose.” Once you start holding on, you’re no longer a trader—you become an ostrich with its head buried in the sand. You shut off the trading software, go do other things, and pretend that if you don’t look, then the losses don’t exist.
But the market never cares whether you face reality. It only uses its merciless hand to deduct your margin trade by trade, until the moment you’re forcibly liquidated. In that moment, there’s no relief—only a tearing sense of “I could have.” That opportunity only went wrong by 2%—but now it has turned into losses of 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 90%…
Bad habit #2: Run when you profit, hold on stubbornly when you lose—A system that will inevitably go bankrupt mathematically
Cut profits short, let losses run. With this approach, you may win 7 out of 10 trades, but your account equity curve is a steady downward slope. Then you start doubting yourself: why is my win rate so high, yet my money keeps getting less?
The answer is simple: because you’re using “accuracy rate” to feed your ego, instead of using “risk-reward ratio” to accumulate wealth. Every small profit is telling you, “I was right in my judgment.” Every large loss is destroying the foundation of you as a trader. You win on correctness but lose on money. This is the most covert self-deception in trading.
Bad habit #3: Trying to win back losses—Poison of revenge trading
This bad habit usually appears after a big loss. Your rationality has already been burned away; only adrenaline is driving you. You increase your position size and lower your entry standards. You’re like a gambler who’s gone red-eyed, only wanting to go all-in to get back everything you just lost.
Every result of revenge trading creates an even bigger hole—one big enough that in the dead of night you’d want to slap yourself. After firing your last bullet, you slump back against the chair back, staring at the account balance that has shrunk by a third since the morning. In your mind, there’s only one thought: “What on earth am I doing?”
4. Clarity, in the late hours—when it’s just you
Everyone addicted to trading has a huge hole in their heart—trying to fill it with money or “freedom.”
I’ve been waking up countless times at 3 a.m., quietly getting out of bed, tiptoeing to my study, turning on the monitor, and watching those flickering numbers. Behind those red and green candlesticks is not wealth, but all the dissatisfaction I’ve carried for more than 20 years, my inferiority, and my longing for recognition.
I grew up under an oppressive educational style, and my father rarely praised me. If my grades improved, he said, “Don’t be proud.” If I got first place, he said, “Maintain it next time.” Deep down, I was insecure. I was desperately yearning to prove myself in some way. For me, trading wasn’t just a way to make money—it was a campaign to prove my worth to my father, to the world, and to that timid version of myself.
But the market doesn’t care about your childhood wounds. It only keeps crushing you again and again until you finally see your real self.
The turning point came very coincidentally. That night, I blew up again and smoked alone on the balcony until dawn. As I watched the city wake up from sleep, as I watched the sanitation workers downstairs begin their day’s work, as I watched the first rays of sunlight land on the glass curtain wall across the way, I suddenly asked myself a question:
“If I can’t make money from trading in this lifetime, would I still be doing this?”
I thought about it for a long time. The answer was: no. But I would be grateful.
Because it’s like a mirror for exposing what’s really inside. It showed me all my greed, fear, luck, vanity, and self-deception. It tore off all my disguises and forced me to face that imperfect, fragile, flawed real self.
5. Move forward with scars
Five years later, I’m still sitting at this trading desk. The screens are still the same, but I no longer fantasize about getting rich overnight. And I no longer deny myself because of a single loss.
I’ve learned to accept losses—not rationally telling myself, “Losses are part of trading,” but emotionally truly allowing losses to happen. It’s like allowing it to rain. Allowing winter to be cold. Allowing everything that’s supposed to happen to happen. When my stop-loss gets triggered, I feel a twinge of regret, but no longer that sting of being insulted or denied.
I’ve learned to wait. Before, waiting meant “missing out.” Now, it means “choosing.” I’m starting to understand that not every day is suitable for hunting. Sometimes, the best trade is simply not to trade.
Before the market opens, I start writing my plan—not only technically, but psychologically: “If I have two consecutive losing trades today, I’ll turn off the computer and go for a run.” “If floating profit retraces by more than 40%, I must cut my position in half.” These seemingly mechanical rules are a ceasefire agreement I reached with myself after repeated battles.
Last week, the same situation happened again—a trade that pulled back from +120 points to the cost line. That familiar voice that tells me to move my stop-loss sounded again. But this time, I looked at the flickering candlestick chart, took a deep breath, and pressed the close position button.
As I watched the small “+5.00” profit on the close, my eyes suddenly felt a little sore. I know it’s not weakness. It’s because I finally had the courage to protect that wounded version of myself before the losses happened.
I’m writing this not to teach from the posture of a winner, but to share as a survivor. If you’re also struggling on the path of trading, if you’ve also experienced those late-night doubts, and if you also feel like the market keeps humiliating you—
Please know that you are not alone.
We are all on the same road. This road has no destination—only the process. There is no Holy Grail—only self-reflection. There is no beating the market—only beating yourself.
The difficulty of trading isn’t finding the method that makes money. It’s the human tests you face day after day while executing that method.
I still have to keep walking on this path. Not to prove anything, but to learn how to live in peace with that flawed self.
The road of trading is long. I once shattered myself on it, and then pieced myself back together little by little. If you’re willing, you can click “Useful” or leave a comment, so more lonely souls staring at the screen late at night will know that on this road, we are walking side by side.
By: Jiangfeng Capital
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