Avoid These Costly Mistakes
Some paths look promising but lead nowhere.
There are proven paths that guarantee failure. There are paths that lead to frustration, not money.
No matter how much effort you put in, you won’t succeed if you’re on the wrong path.
Before you learn how to make money, you must learn what doesn’t work.
Avoiding mistakes is just as important as finding the right strategy.
Here, you’ll discover the costly mistakes most traders make and how to avoid them.
But before that, let’s understand why people keep making these mistakes.
Root Cause of Costly Mistakes
Imagine you want to lose weight. You have two choices.
Option one: Hit the gym, follow a strict diet, stay disciplined, and lose weight over the next few weeks. It’s hard. It takes effort. But it works.
Option two: Take a magic pill for ten days, a shortcut to weight loss—no workouts, no dieting, no struggle. Sounds tempting, right?
Most people would choose the shortcut. They want fast results. Easy results.
This same mindset is why people lose money in the stock market. They want to get rich quick. They don’t want to put in the work.
And that’s where the costly mistakes begin.
The root cause of all your mistakes is the desire for fast money and easy money.
Unrealistic Expectations
Becoming a doctor takes five years. Thousands of hours of study. Lakhs of rupees in fees. Years of practice.
Becoming an engineer takes four years. You have to clear tough entrance exams and spend years mastering your skill.
But when a new trader enters the stock market, he expects to make money from day one.
No training.
No experience.
No effort.
He believes he will beat veteran traders at their own game—traders who have spent years refining their craft.
This is the biggest trap. The desire for fast and easy money leads to one thing — unrealistic expectations.
And in the stock market, unrealistic expectations are always met by disappointments.
Let’s learn the costliest mistakes traders make.
Let’s explore the path that guarantees failure.
Mistake 1 : Intraday Trading
Intraday trading looks like a dream.
Fast money.
No need to wait for months. Buy in the morning, sell by afternoon.
Profit on day one.
It feels so simple.
No need to study companies. No reading annual reports.
Just spot a chart pattern, trade the breakout.
Easy, right?
Wrong.
At first, it feels like it’s working. But slowly… losses creep in.
No matter how hard you try, the market slips away.
Why?
Because today, the majority of trades are done by algorithms.
Algos that are lightning fast. They don’t sleep. They don’t fear.
They read the market in milliseconds.
You’re trying to beat them with chart patterns? That’s like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
You will lose.
For most retail traders, Intraday trading is a sure-shot way to lose money.
Time. Capital. Confidence. All gone.
Don’t waste your time chasing an illusion.
Intraday trading is not your path to financial freedom. It’s a trap that looks like an opportunity.
Escape it before it’s too late.
Mistake 2 : Future and Options (FNO) Trading
Futures and Options look glamorous.
They promise fast money. Big money.
With just a small capital, you can make massive returns.
That’s the trap.
Retail traders jump in because F&O offers leverage. Your ₹10,000 can act like ₹50,000.
When you win, you win big. But when you lose… you lose everything.
F&O is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. One wrong move and your capital is gone.
It feels like you have control.
Markets go up? You make money.
Markets go down? You still make money.
Even in a flat market, there’s a strategy.
But here’s the truth: F&O is a zero-sum game. For you to win, someone else must lose.
And most of the time, you are the one losing.
Less than 1% of F&O traders make money consistently.
The rest? Burn out.
F&O is built for professionals—those with deep pockets, experience, and nerves of steel.
Most retail traders have none of that.
If you trade in Future and Options, you will neither have any future nor any option.
It promises fast money but delivers only frustration.
Avoid this path. Protect your capital. Don’t gamble your future.
Mistake 3 : Asking For Tips
Most retail traders chase tips.
Why?
Because it’s easy.
No research. No effort. Just buy what someone else says.
It feels like free money.
But here’s the ugly truth: Tips are traps.
You follow a tip, the stock goes up a little. You get excited.
But here’s the problem—what happens when the stock falls?
You don’t know what to do. You don’t know why you bought it.
And the person who gave you the tip? They’ve disappeared.
There’s no exit plan. No strategy. Just panic.
You keep holding, hoping. Watching your money bleed.
If you don’t understand the reason behind a trade, you won’t know when to get out. That’s how losses turn into disasters.
Tips make you dependent. And that’s dangerous.
The real reason traders follow tips?
Because they don’t want to learn. They want shortcuts. They want easy money. But in the stock market, easy money becomes easy loss.
If tips worked, every WhatsApp group would be filled with millionaires. But look around, most are losing money.
Stop chasing tips. Start learning. Because in the market, knowledge is the only real tip that works.
If you want to survive in the market, don’t blindly follow anyone. Learn. Understand. And make your own decisions.
Because in the end, only one person is responsible for your money – you.
Keep Learning
Next Lesson: Mental Analysis