Trading questions
Why am I not profitable trading?
Maxwell Norman · October 13, 2026 · 4 min read
Usually because one costly habit repeats, not because the strategy is wrong. Oversized trades after a loss, winners cut early, extra trades with no setup or entries off the plan carry most of the losses. Grade your last 30 to 50 trades on whether they followed the plan, add up the ones that broke it, and fix the single biggest habit first.
Most traders who are not profitable do not have a strategy problem. They have a repeat problem: one costly habit shows up again and again, and it eats whatever edge the strategy had. The win rate looks fine, the setups look fine, and the account still drifts down, because a handful of trades with the same mistake in them carry most of the losses.
You find it by grading decisions, not outcomes. A loss that followed your plan is a good trade with a bad result. A win that broke your plan is a bad trade you got paid for. Mix the two and the record lies to you, which is why staring at a P&L curve rarely shows the leak.
Where the leak usually is
Size. The same setup traded at double size after a loss, or at a size that risks far more than the plan allows. A trader risking 1% on most trades and 4% on a few is really trading the few.
Exits. Winners closed at the first green tick while losers run past the stop. A strategy can be right more often than it is wrong and still lose money this way.
Frequency. Extra trades taken out of boredom or to win back a loss. They carry no edge, so their expected result is the cost of commissions plus slippage.
Entries off the plan. Chasing a move that already left, or entering before the setup confirmed. Each one feels small. Together they are a different strategy from the one you think you are trading.
How to find yours
Take your last 30 to 50 closed trades. For each, write whether it followed your plan on entry, size and exit. Then add up the result of the trades that broke a rule, separately from the ones that did not. The gap between those two numbers is what your habits cost. It is usually larger than traders expect, and it usually comes from one habit, not five.
This is the work Travise does on the trades you log, and on any imported trade you ask it to read: it grades the decision out of 100 on entry, risk, thesis, management and discipline, names the habit costing you most, writes one rule to fix it, and then marks every later trade kept or broken against that rule. Whether you use a tool or a spreadsheet, fix one habit at a time. A list of ten resolutions changes nothing.
How many trades do I need before I can see the habit?
Thirty to fifty closed trades is usually enough to see one habit repeat. Fewer than that and a single bad week can look like a pattern. Grade each trade on the decision, not the result, or a lucky win will hide the habit.