How Not to Blow an Account

Fernando Arias — a psychologist, economist and trader — tackles what most trading books skip: the biases that blow trading accounts.

Don't expect miracle strategies; expect the rules that separate a consistent trader from someone who keeps starting over from zero. Arias writes from the trenches, in blunt language stripped of motivational filler, focusing on the mistakes that truly sink an account: overtrading, moving your stop loss mid-trade, and the urge to recover a loss within the very same session.

If you trade with prop firms, this book speaks directly to your day-to-day: most funded accounts fail because of these same psychological traps, not a lack of strategy. The underlying argument is that risk management isn't a complement to your method — it is the method. Without it, any technical edge eventually destroys itself.

By the same author, this catalogue also has Detrás de las velas, more focused on market microstructure and order flow; this one is the better starting point, since it lays the psychological and risk-management groundwork before moving into the more technical side. It fits whether you've already blown an account or want to avoid doing it.