The first time I took a big loss on contracts, it wasn’t because I picked the wrong direction—it was because I just refused to admit defeat.

That day, the market moved against me. I stared at the screen thinking, “It’ll definitely bounce back soon.” I held on from 9 PM until 3 AM, watching my margin drain away like sand in an hourglass. When the liquidation notice popped up, my mind went blank—the market doesn’t care if you can hold on or not. When it hits your stop-loss, you should get out. Dragging it out only makes things worse.

After that, I set a hard rule for myself: if I lose five trades in a row, I shut everything down immediately. Once, I ran into a weird market and stubbornly opened three losing trades in a row, still trying to claw it back. By the fifth trade, I’d given back everything I’d made in the past two weeks, and that finally woke me up. Now, whenever I lose five times straight, I force myself offline—go for a run, get some sleep, and only come back to review things with a clear head.

Don’t trust those account numbers—they’re the most unreliable thing. My rule now is: for every $3,000 profit, I withdraw $1,500 into my cold wallet. Last time, there was a sudden crash, and I was lucky I’d already locked in half my gains. Otherwise, all those unrealized profits would’ve vanished. Don’t keep thinking, “Just one more round”—money that’s not in your pocket is just the market letting you play with it for a while.

I don’t even look at choppy markets anymore! I used to get itchy and open three trades, thinking I could scalp some small moves. Instead, I just got stopped out again and again. The losses from fees and stop-outs were worse than in trending markets. Now, I only take clear trends: when the candles show a direction and key levels break, then I’ll act—this way, I feel at ease and don’t get tossed around second-guessing everything.

Position management is everything. At first, I tried to go all-in for quick gains and ended up losing half my principal in one go. Now, I only use 10% of my principal per trade, max $30 per position. Even if I’m wrong, it doesn’t hurt much, and I can review calmly. Most people don’t lose because they can’t read the market—they lose because their urge to gamble overrides their rationality.

Contract trading has never been a get-rich-quick scheme. Surviving depends on execution—cut losses when you need to, stop when you need to, withdraw when you need to. I learned all this the hard way, paying plenty of tuition. Now I’ve organized these hard-earned lessons for you; it’s basically a map of all the pitfalls. Whether you can stay steady—well, that’s up to you.