2025 has been a dramatic year. And we’re not even at the halfway mark…
After a choppy start, stocks sold off from mid-February into March. Then they tanked heavily in April.
Yet just as quickly, stocks made a remarkable recovery. I’ve never seen a rebound quite like this after such a sharp fall.
These big moves have offered plenty of trading opportunities over the past few months. But you’re not alone if you didn’t catch every swing this year… or even got caught on the back foot.
No matter what anyone tells you, even the best traders miss out sometimes. So let’s talk about how to get through these kinds of rough patches…
Losing Periods
It’s a simple fact that not every trade goes right. That can lead to frustration… even for someone like me who managed millions of dollars at my hedge fund.
I even went through 20 years without a losing year, which led to bestselling author Jack Schwager featuring me in his book Hedge Fund Market Wizards. During that time, I made over a million dollars more than 500 times.
Yet despite that success, I’ve gone through losing periods like everyone else.
The tough part was when a brand-new investor would ring up and want to know what the heck was going on. But those who had been with me longer-term knew that there would be some down weeks in any given year. And they had profits to help cushion those down periods.
The key was to stick to our strategy and keep grinding it out until we got some winners again.
And it’s a similar story now…
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Grinding It Out
While we might go through the odd losing period in my Opportunistic Trader services, the strategies that I use have been profitable for decades.
If we keep putting a solid strategy to work, we can let the percentages take care of themselves. A losing week (or even a month) won’t pull us into the red long-term.
Yet an important thing to consider is position sizes…
If you’re sweating every trade, you’re trading too big a position. One or two bad trades shouldn’t rip a hole through your account. Never trade a position size that makes you lose sleep over it.
I usually recommend picking a small percentage of your trading funds… such as 2-3%… that you’ll put into each trade. That way, you’ll be unlikely to blow yourself up even if a handful of trades go against you.
Every trader goes through lean periods… It’s simply part of trading. No one can make money all the time.
The trick to surviving (and prospering) long-term is to accept those losses… and ensure that no loss is big enough to blow up your trading account.
That way, you’ll be ready to capitalize when your trading swings back to winners.
Happy Trading,
Larry Benedict
Editor, Trading With Larry Benedict
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