Three Critical Pitfalls for Traders
Three recurring pitfalls that undermine trading results, with practical guidance on risk, discipline, and reflection.
A short but very clear reflection this time. My first week back after leave is complete, and three critical process issues stood out during last week's mentoring calls:
- Not focusing on one type of setup (plan/strategy/pattern), but continuing to try different things
- Not having a checklist of (objective) confirmation points clear enough, or simply not keeping to one (see example checklists)
- Not logging, or logging incompletely
If you want to make a success of (day) trading, you'll need to specialize and adopt a professional approach. If you're not yet achieving the results you want, one or more of the points above is likely not being followed consistently.
The question is: what will you specialize in, and how systematically will you go about it?
Below, another clean, straightforward short-reversal setup on gold that I saw coming from well in advance, but didn't take because I had committed to not trading during my first week back from leave. That's discipline, and discipline is like a muscle - it can be trained. To reach bigger goals, choices have to be made and stuck to.
Gold - 02/25/2026 - Reversal Short (H&S)
https://www.loom.com/share/35e9b148295a43c5b504990f227bbc58
Seven checks on the (objective) confirmation checklist:
- Double top rejection in resistance zone
- 50% retracement resistance zone on daily
- Trendline break + break and retest
- Retracement into the 9EMA on the 5-minute chart
- Retracement into VWAP
- Bearish candle
- 2R room
Addendum to the video above -> Take-profit level
https://www.loom.com/share/dfa5632403564ae0983c56bb329c32cb