Journal
Trade Journal
Real trades, logged as they happened — wins and losses both.
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Psychology
Trading Psychology
FOMO, revenge trading, overtrading and every emotional trap — explained, with the fix.
Explore topics →trade_with_precision // rules · journal · analyser
Rules that hold you accountable, a journal that never lies, and an analyser that shows exactly what your edge is worth.
Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.
Charts rarely blow up accounts — emotions do. Tap any topic to see what it is, how it shows up in real trading, and how to fix it.
The urge to jump into a trade that is already running because you cannot stand watching others profit. The decision comes from envy and anxiety, not from your plan.
Buying green candles far from your planned entry, taking a bigger size to catch up, skipping the stop because the move is fast, or entering just because a post or chat group is excited.
Trade only setups written in your plan. If price has left your entry zone, wait for a pullback or skip it. Use price alerts instead of staring at the screen, and remember another setup always comes.
Trading straight after a loss to get the money back, driven by anger or hurt pride rather than by a valid setup. The market is not the person who hurt you, so there is nothing to take revenge on.
Doubling your size, dropping the stop, jumping to random instruments, or opening a new trade within minutes of closing a loser.
Set a daily maximum loss and a limit of consecutive losses. When either is hit, close the platform and walk away. Write down what happened in your journal before you are allowed to trade again, and cut your size after a loss, not raise it.
Taking more trades, or larger trades, than your edge supports. It often feels like productivity, but it mostly adds costs and mistakes.
Trading out of boredom, taking weak B-grade setups, trading every candle, high commissions and spread costs, and sloppy decisions late in the session when you are tired.
Cap the number of trades per day. Write a short entry checklist and take only trades that tick every box. Trade inside a fixed time window, and track number of trades against results in your journal.
A strong dislike of losing that makes you hesitate on valid signals, exit winners too early, or put stops so tight that normal noise knocks you out.
Skipping a clean setup after a losing streak, freezing at the entry button, closing at a tiny profit, or moving your stop closer the moment the trade is slightly negative.
Risk an amount small enough that one loss does not matter, for example a small fixed percentage of your account. Judge your system over a sample of 20 to 30 trades, not one. Accept that losses are a normal business cost.
Pushing beyond your plan because a trade is working, so you move targets further, add size, or hold on for just one more point.
Removing your take-profit, adding to a winner with no rule for it, using too much leverage, and watching a good profit turn into a loss.
Decide targets before entry. Take partial profits at planned levels, keep risk per trade fixed, and set a maximum leverage you will never exceed.
Refusing to admit a trade is wrong, so you hold on or widen the stop and hope price returns to your entry.
Moving the stop further away, averaging down on a loser, saying it will come back, or avoiding looking at the account.
Place the stop where the idea is proven wrong and never widen it. If that level breaks, the trade is over: exit, then review calmly afterwards.
After several wins you start to believe you cannot lose and mistake luck or a favourable market for skill.
Increasing position size, skipping your checklist, ignoring news, taking low-quality trades and breaking your own rules.
Keep position size fixed no matter how well you are doing. Review wins as strictly as losses, and ask what would prove you wrong before you enter.
Research on prospect theory suggests a loss is felt roughly twice as strongly as an equal gain. That pushes traders to cut winners early to lock in a feeling of safety, and to hold losers to avoid feeling the loss.
Closing a profitable trade at a small gain while letting a losing trade run, and feeling worse about a 100 loss than good about a 100 win.
Measure trades in R multiples (your risk unit) rather than money. Judge results over many trades, and use bracket orders so your stop and target are set before emotion starts.
Looking for information that supports the trade you have already taken and ignoring or explaining away anything that disagrees.
Reading only bullish news after you buy, ignoring a break of structure, or leaning on the one indicator that still agrees with you.
Before entering, write down the case against the trade and the exact level that proves you wrong. Check a higher timeframe, and ask someone who disagrees to challenge your view.
Too many indicators, timeframes and opinions leave you unable to pull the trigger, or always waiting for one more confirmation.
Missing valid entries, switching strategies after every loss, and having charts so crowded you cannot read price.
Limit yourself to two or three tools. Use a written entry checklist: if every box is ticked, execute; if not, do nothing. Keep one strategy long enough to judge it.
The inability to wait for your setup to appear, or to let a trade reach its target once you are in it.
Entering before the confirmation candle, closing early out of boredom, moving stops to break-even too soon, and constantly changing timeframes.
Set alerts at your levels and step away. Treat waiting as a position in itself. Use fixed targets and let the trade work, and fill the downtime with review and study.
Locking onto a price such as your entry, yesterday's high or a round number, and judging everything relative to it instead of the current situation.
Refusing to sell until you are back to break-even, or thinking a market is cheap just because it is far below a previous high.
Ask yourself: would I enter this trade right now, at this price, with this risk? Base decisions on current structure and risk, not on where you got in.
The gambler's fallacy is believing a win is due after a run of losses. Recency bias is giving too much weight to your latest results when judging a strategy.
Raising your size after losses because a win must be next, or abandoning a good system after three losses in a row.
Treat each trade as independent. Judge a strategy on a sample of 50 to 100 trades. Keep your sizing rules fixed so streaks do not change your behaviour.
A state where emotion, stress, lack of sleep or outside pressure overrides your judgement, so you trade worse than you normally would.
Impulsive clicks, ignoring rules, short temper, trading while exhausted or upset, and trading to escape a bad day.
Do a quick pre-trade check-in: sleep, mood, distractions. If you are off, do not trade. Take breaks, set a hard stop time, and note your emotional state in your journal.
Six habits that keep emotion out of the decision.
// Educational content only — not financial advice. Trading involves risk of loss.