Why newbie F&O traders are making losses

Mumbai: A study by brokerage Sharekhan said the inability to determine the market movement and lack of trading know-how among newbie futures and options traders are the main reasons for losses. The firm, which conducted the study with analytics firm Kantar, said 32% of such traders couldn’t judge the market movement, while 13% claimed a lack of enough trading knowledge.

More than half of the survey participants of traders surveyed claimed they buy more to average out their losses in trades, said Sharekhan, terming the findings of its ‘Serious About The Markets’ pan-India study a ‘worrying’ trend.

“While we were happy to find out that newcomers are quite aware of the risks and their own lack of knowledge we are concerned about the survey’s findings on the approaches taken to decide where to trade in F&O and the lack of required discipline when it comes to trading,” said Jean-Christophe Gougeon, Chief Marketing Officer, Sharekhan, in a release.

The study said 40% of newbie traders claim that their main reason for entering the Futures & Options segment is because of a chance of making quick and easy money, while 48% of them believe that 30% to 50% of people are consistently making ‘good returns’ from the F&O segment.

According to the study, 35% of these traders do not use or apply any specific trading strategy, which can often lead to risky trading decisions. Only 5% of traders claimed they are using algo strategies provided by specialized companies/ websites, it said.