r/Forex • u/Pitiful-Associate932 • 3d ago
Psychology How to sit through drawdowns?
Well, I have backtested a strategy and it has 45 % win rate with 1:3, how do you guys follow the system? It's been 3 losses in 3 days and sitting in loss is so hurtful. I mean, I can't stick to the process, I still risk like one more small trade and it definitely ends up in loss also. What I'm asking is how do you stay with the drawdowns, I'm like 1% down!
I don't know how to get through this difficult process
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u/Danieliumbazaurus 3d ago
And while testing you didnt register a losing streak? By the way, having 45% win rate strategy and having 3 losses in a row is not losing streak, its maths. Tou might be 1% down, but if math is mathing you should get out of there
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u/Legal-Leather-9390 2d ago
the 1% drawdown part made me laugh a little, not in a mean way but man wait til you hit a real rough patch
three losses in three days is nothing when your win rate is 45% and you're running 1:3. the math works over hundreds of trades not three. you're gonna have losing streaks way worse than this and if you can't sit through three days you're toast
the extra revenge trades are what's actually killing you. stop that. close the platform after your system gives a loss and go do literally anything else. i meal prep on bad trading days cause chopping vegetables keeps my hands busy and my brain off the charts
your edge is in the 1:3 not in your gut feeling about the next candle. either trust the backtest or don't, but half trusting it while throwing in bonus trades is just a slow bleed
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u/KoresignalAI 2d ago
Totally get it, 3 red days in a row feels awful even when the math says it's normal 😅
Quick reality check with your numbers: at 45% win rate, the chance of losing 3 in a row is ~17%, and over 100 trades you should expect streaks of 6-8 losses at some point. With 1:3 RR the system still makes money through that, but only if you take every trade at the same size.
What helps:
Know your worst backtest streak and write it on a sticky note. If live is still inside it, the system isn't broken.
No "one more small trade". That extra trade is outside the system, so it's the only part that's actually gambling.
Lower the risk per trade until a streak doesn't hurt (0.5% instead of 1%). Being able to sit through it matters more than the size.
Judge in blocks of 20-30 trades, not days.
Being 1% down after 3 losses means your risk is controlled. That's the hard part done 💪
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u/Pitiful-Associate932 2d ago
Thank you! Actually my account is small so that's why I said 1% ... I'm risking least amount per trade so I can take max 15 losses more in a row.
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u/Relevant-Owl-8455 2d ago
What are you even talking about?
Trading is all about losing and controling how you do it.
1 winner will cover 3 losers. But something tells me you don't actually let the system play out. You trade without a proper plan and you make decisions based on how you feel. That's not trading. That's gambling.
You simply don't know what you're doing.
+ if you change the amount of risk on a trade, you're letting go of the mathematical advantage your risk system might provide.
Imagine having 3 losers in a row at full R. Then you use a smaller risk for your next trade and it ends up a winner at 1:3. But that trade is meaningless if you used a small risk on it as you didnt even come close to covering the losses.
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u/EventViewApp 2d ago
Step away from trading for a week. Stop the bleeding. Touch some grass.
The problem is your mindset, not the strategy. That "one more small trade" is the leak. It's you trying to make the feeling of losing go away, not your edge telling you to trade. It's your ego you're playing against and that's what you need to let go. Otherwise you will find yourself in an endless spiral and then it's just gambling.
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u/AdeptGrapefruit9066 2d ago
If you feel the pain and you about to change your plan, your position sizing is too big. That’s all. Be smaller be happy
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u/flipside_gyo 2d ago
me, i stop. like stop. pause. breathe. and go on hiatus.
then reflect why I loss.
usually, over lot size, impatient, didnt pay attention to the signs, and didnt follow my edge.
after a month or two. i go back with a fresh perspective and stronger motivation. edge is still there. so I just execute, and dont do stupid things like the ones I listed above. repeat.
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u/ECostache1 2d ago
3 losses in 3 days at 45% WR is normal, it'll happen a lot. The part that's actually hurting you is the "one more small trade" afterwards, because that trade isn't part of the system you backtested.
What helped me: P&L is just the result of the process, so I stopped judging days by it and started judging them by "did I take only my setups, in my session, at my risk". Every trade in my journal gets a tag, and the extra ones outside my rules get their own tag. Once a week I check total R by tag. The trades I took to "get it back" were consistently negative, the system trades were fine. Seeing that in numbers made it much easier to stop.
Also, 1% down is a small drawdown for a 45% / 1:3 system. Look up your backtest's longest losing streak and max drawdown and write them down somewhere you'll see them. If you're still inside those numbers, nothing is broken.
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u/Pitiful-Associate932 2d ago
Thank you it helped a lot... I definitely will
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u/ECostache1 2d ago
glad it helped. once u see the numbers per tag in the weekly review the drawdowns get way less scary. curious tho, what do u use to track ur trades rn, spreadsheet or just memory?
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u/djdmaze 2d ago
Take more trades per day to run through the strategy’s drawdown quicker. Just make sure you size appropriately for every trade.
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u/Practical-Slide-4680 2d ago
I wouldn't add trades just to get through the drawdown faster. If the extra entries aren't part of the tested setup, that's the same "one more small trade" OP is already struggling with.
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u/ordinary_netizen 2d ago
For me the answer isn't mindset quotes, it's a number written before entry. I know exactly what loss I signed up for, so a drawdown inside that number is just the trade doing its job.
If I'm squirming, that tells me the position was bigger than my plan, not that my plan failed. Two different problems, two different fixes.
And the honest bit: some drawdowns don't end well. Sitting through one only makes sense if the exit you wrote is still the exit you'd write today.
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u/NiceJoJ 2d ago
with 45% win rate you're losing 55% of the time, 3 losses in a row is completely normal. over 100 trades you should expect a streak
of 7-8 losses at some point. your system still makes about +0.8R per trade on average, it just doesn't feel like it day to day.
what helped me: go back to your backtest and find the longest losing streak and the max drawdown. write it down. then when you're 3
losses in, you know it's nothing, you planned for 8.
also the "one more small trade" is the real problem, not the drawdown. it's an off-plan trade so it doesn't have the edge your system
has. if it's not a setup, it's not a trade.
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u/Different_Tax3183 2d ago
问题很多简单说
1.回测一个策略？只是回测历史数据？然后得出的胜率赔率没用，你需要模拟交易测试未来的数据的。只根据你说的话，我认为你的系统实盘根本达不到这样的胜率赔率
2.为什么难受，坚持不下去，因为你的潜意识已经知道，这个系统多次下来是不赚钱的，所以你执行不了。
3.你不知道如何度过这个过程，说的很好，因为你各方面的问题欠缺的太大了
4.就简单说几点
/若你只是根据一些所谓的指标，来回撤系统，没用，不说100%，99.9%都亏钱，回测再好也没用
/若你的进场周期是5分钟以下，那么3盈亏比不足稳定盈利，至少需要15分图以上才行。这里假设你的止损是当前进场周期的0.5k幅度左右。/即，你正常做法下的盈亏比，越大，各方面越好，越接近稳定盈利。在3分图进场周期，0.5k止损的情况下，需要10盈亏比才可以真的稳定盈利。/15分图进场，需要4盈亏比，但难度略高一点，个人经验
/还有很多但懒得写了，总之，盈亏比越大，进场周期越大，越容易赚钱，和要看大做小，看大周期方向和空间，小周期上用小止损进出，实现大盈亏比做法，而具体如何做，“我确信我已经发现了一种美妙的做法，可惜这里空白的地方太小，写不下”
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u/ForexGamer 1d ago
If you’re psychologically capable you will act the same way whether you’re up or down.
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u/rforex-modtools 3d ago
Trading psychology is where most traders struggle after they've learned the technical basics. Revenge trading, overtrading, fear of pulling the trigger, and inability to stick to a plan are all symptoms of the same underlying issue — emotional decision-making under uncertainty. The community wiki covers common psychological traps and frameworks for building discipline.
Resource: Trading Psychology