It is a well known statistic that over 90% of traders do or eventually will lose some or all of their money. It is also interesting to note that many highly qualified and intelligent people come to the market and very surprised when they find out how difficult it is to make money. In this article I will cover some of the reasons why this is so.

In order to simplify matters I have created a list of reasons which hamper peoples progress and these are why most people lose money. Many are the often sited and somewhat hackneyed ones; others are perhaps new to you.

1. Attachment to money.
2. No Trading Plan
3. Under capitalization.
4. Fear and Greed.
5. Excessive Leverage
6. Inadequate risk controls
7. Lack of market understanding
8. Impatience
9. Lack of interest in Trading
10. Unwillingness to accept you are wrong

The cumulative result of one or more of the above is normally enough to finish most traders off. As I mentioned earlier, even well qualified and otherwise successful traders things.

Just as a taster I will now look at why it is that outwardly successful people, perhaps, doctors, dentists or lawyers have such issues when it comes to financial trading. For many of these people, to fail at trading is their first 'failure' in life. Exams have been passed, businesses built and all this with great ease and then the trading game comes and trips them up. People are very surprised when this happens.

When you trade you need to develop a skill set and not all of us have a natural tendency towards either obtaining the skill set or if learnt, applying it correctly. Discipline is of paramount importance following what you set out to do is a must. Imagine you have a method which wins say twice in five trades. Imagine also that you take three trades and all of them are losers, are you now going to abandon your method and your plan, or are you going to take those subsequent trades as per your plan ? As a trader I can tell you, you won't feel like taking those trades, but you must, if you want to follow your plan. Three losing trades is quite possible, it could quite easily have been three winning trades - the market doesn't offer you successful trades all packaged up in blocks the way you would like them.

In subsequent articles I will discuss each of the above issues in turn.