What are the most common mistakes made by first-time traders?

Trading without a clear understanding of the specific order type used, market versus limit, or the mechanics of a stop-loss, leads to outcomes that feel confusing or unfair but are actually just the order type behaving exactly as designed. Underestimating total transaction costs, focusing only on headline brokerage while ignoring STT, GST, exchange charges, and DP charges, especially with frequent small trades, is another common one, since costs that look negligible per trade add up meaningfully over many transactions. Jumping into F&O or MTF-leveraged positions without first understanding margin, time decay, and how quickly leverage can amplify losses is a particularly costly mistake, since SEBI’s own published data has repeatedly shown most individual F&O traders lose money. Acting on unverified tips from social media or unsolicited calls, without checking the source’s actual SEBI registration, exposes beginners to a well-documented category of fraud. And not maintaining a personal trade record separate from what the broker’s app shows, which then becomes a scramble at tax filing time, is a smaller but very common oversight you’d flag as well worth avoiding from day one rather than fixing later.