7 Common Mistakes in Technical Analysis
Güncellendi
1. Not cutting your losses
Let’s start with a quote from commodities trader Ed Seykota:
"The elements of good trading are: (1) cutting losses, (2) cutting losses, and (3) cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.”
This seems like a simple step, but it’s always good to emphasize its importance. When it comes to trading and investing, protecting your capital should always be your number one priority.
2. Overtrading
When you’re an active trader, it’s a common mistake to think you always need to be in a trade. Trading involves a lot of analysis and a lot of, well, sitting around, patiently waiting! With some trading strategies, you may need to wait a long time to get a reliable signal to enter a trade. Some traders may enter less than three trades per year and still produce outstanding returns.
Check out this quote from trader Jesse Livermore, one of the pioneers of day trading:
“Money is made by sitting, not trading.”
Try to avoid entering a trade just for the sake of it.
3. Revenge trading
It’s quite common to see traders trying to immediately make back a significant loss. This is what we call revenge trading. It doesn’t matter if you want to be a technical analyst, a day trader, or a swing trader – avoiding emotional decisions is crucial.
It’s easy to stay calm when things are going well, or even when you make small mistakes. But can you stay calm when things go completely wrong? Can you stick to your trading plan, even when everyone else is panicking?
Notice the word “analysis” in technical analysis. Naturally, this implies an analytical approach to the markets, right? So, why would you want to make hasty, emotional decisions in such a framework? If you want to be among the best traders, you should be able to stay calm even after the biggest mistakes. Avoid emotional decisions, and focus on keeping a logical, analytical mindset.
4. Being too stubborn to change your mind
If you’d like to become a successful trader, don’t be afraid to change your mind. A lot. Market conditions can change really quickly, and one thing’s a certainty. They will keep changing. Your job as a trader is to recognize those changes and adapt to them. One strategy that works really well in a specific market environment may not work at all in another.
Let’s read what legendary trader Paul Tudor Jones had to say about his positions:
“Every day I assume every position I have is wrong.”
It’s good practice to try to take the other side of your arguments to see their potential weaknesses. This way, your investment theses (and decisions) can become more comprehensive.
5. Ignoring extreme market conditions
There are times when the predictive qualities of TA become less reliable. These can be black swan events or other kinds of extreme market conditions that are heavily driven by emotion and mass psychology. Ultimately, the markets are driven by supply and demand, and there can be times when they are extremely imbalanced to one side.
Take the example of the Relative Strength Index (RSI), a momentum indicator. Generally, if the reading is below 30, the charted asset may be considered oversold. Does this mean that it’s an immediate trade signal when the RSI goes below 30? Absolutely not! It just means that the momentum of the market is currently dictated by the seller side. In other words, it just indicates that sellers are stronger than buyers.
Blindly making decisions based on technical tools reaching extreme readings can lose you a lot of money. This is especially true during black swan events when the price action can be exceptionally hard to read. During times like these, the markets can keep going in one direction or the other, and no analytical tool will stop them. This is why it’s always important to consider other factors as well, and not rely on a single tool.
6. Forgetting that TA is a game of probabilities
Technical analysis doesn’t deal with absolutes. It deals with probabilities. This means that whatever technical approach you’re basing your strategies on, there’s never a guarantee that the market will behave as you expect. Maybe your analysis suggests that there’s a very high probability of the market moving up or down, but that’s still not a certainty.
You need to take this into account when you’re setting up your trading strategies. No matter how experienced you are, it’s never a great idea to think the market will follow your analysis. If you do that, you’re prone to oversizing and betting too big on one outcome, risking a big financial loss.
7. Blindly following other traders
Constantly improving your craft is essential if you want to master any skill. This is especially true when it comes to trading the financial markets. In fact, changing market conditions make it a necessity. One of the best ways to learn is to follow experienced technical analysts and traders.
However, if you’d like to become consistently good, you also need to find your own strengths and build on them. We can call this your edge, the thing that makes you different from others as a trader.
If you read many interviews with successful traders, you’ll surely notice that they’ll have quite different strategies. In fact, one strategy that works perfectly for one trader may be deemed completely unfeasible by another. There are countless ways to profit off of the markets. You just need to find which one suits your personality and trading style the best.
Let’s start with a quote from commodities trader Ed Seykota:
"The elements of good trading are: (1) cutting losses, (2) cutting losses, and (3) cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.”
This seems like a simple step, but it’s always good to emphasize its importance. When it comes to trading and investing, protecting your capital should always be your number one priority.
2. Overtrading
When you’re an active trader, it’s a common mistake to think you always need to be in a trade. Trading involves a lot of analysis and a lot of, well, sitting around, patiently waiting! With some trading strategies, you may need to wait a long time to get a reliable signal to enter a trade. Some traders may enter less than three trades per year and still produce outstanding returns.
Check out this quote from trader Jesse Livermore, one of the pioneers of day trading:
“Money is made by sitting, not trading.”
Try to avoid entering a trade just for the sake of it.
3. Revenge trading
It’s quite common to see traders trying to immediately make back a significant loss. This is what we call revenge trading. It doesn’t matter if you want to be a technical analyst, a day trader, or a swing trader – avoiding emotional decisions is crucial.
It’s easy to stay calm when things are going well, or even when you make small mistakes. But can you stay calm when things go completely wrong? Can you stick to your trading plan, even when everyone else is panicking?
Notice the word “analysis” in technical analysis. Naturally, this implies an analytical approach to the markets, right? So, why would you want to make hasty, emotional decisions in such a framework? If you want to be among the best traders, you should be able to stay calm even after the biggest mistakes. Avoid emotional decisions, and focus on keeping a logical, analytical mindset.
4. Being too stubborn to change your mind
If you’d like to become a successful trader, don’t be afraid to change your mind. A lot. Market conditions can change really quickly, and one thing’s a certainty. They will keep changing. Your job as a trader is to recognize those changes and adapt to them. One strategy that works really well in a specific market environment may not work at all in another.
Let’s read what legendary trader Paul Tudor Jones had to say about his positions:
“Every day I assume every position I have is wrong.”
It’s good practice to try to take the other side of your arguments to see their potential weaknesses. This way, your investment theses (and decisions) can become more comprehensive.
5. Ignoring extreme market conditions
There are times when the predictive qualities of TA become less reliable. These can be black swan events or other kinds of extreme market conditions that are heavily driven by emotion and mass psychology. Ultimately, the markets are driven by supply and demand, and there can be times when they are extremely imbalanced to one side.
Take the example of the Relative Strength Index (RSI), a momentum indicator. Generally, if the reading is below 30, the charted asset may be considered oversold. Does this mean that it’s an immediate trade signal when the RSI goes below 30? Absolutely not! It just means that the momentum of the market is currently dictated by the seller side. In other words, it just indicates that sellers are stronger than buyers.
Blindly making decisions based on technical tools reaching extreme readings can lose you a lot of money. This is especially true during black swan events when the price action can be exceptionally hard to read. During times like these, the markets can keep going in one direction or the other, and no analytical tool will stop them. This is why it’s always important to consider other factors as well, and not rely on a single tool.
6. Forgetting that TA is a game of probabilities
Technical analysis doesn’t deal with absolutes. It deals with probabilities. This means that whatever technical approach you’re basing your strategies on, there’s never a guarantee that the market will behave as you expect. Maybe your analysis suggests that there’s a very high probability of the market moving up or down, but that’s still not a certainty.
You need to take this into account when you’re setting up your trading strategies. No matter how experienced you are, it’s never a great idea to think the market will follow your analysis. If you do that, you’re prone to oversizing and betting too big on one outcome, risking a big financial loss.
7. Blindly following other traders
Constantly improving your craft is essential if you want to master any skill. This is especially true when it comes to trading the financial markets. In fact, changing market conditions make it a necessity. One of the best ways to learn is to follow experienced technical analysts and traders.
However, if you’d like to become consistently good, you also need to find your own strengths and build on them. We can call this your edge, the thing that makes you different from others as a trader.
If you read many interviews with successful traders, you’ll surely notice that they’ll have quite different strategies. In fact, one strategy that works perfectly for one trader may be deemed completely unfeasible by another. There are countless ways to profit off of the markets. You just need to find which one suits your personality and trading style the best.
Not
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