The siren song of 'just one more'
Thought I'd share a recent reminder of why less can indeed be more, or at least, less painful. I've been watching $NDX with a fairly clear, albeit short-term, bearish bias for the last week, spotting some decent setups that paid well. Felt good, you know, being 'on it'. But then, after a perfectly fine session, with my targets hit and risk managed, I caught myself scrolling through the charts, seeing another potential entry. It was late, I was tired, and the setup was... well, it was more of a hope than a high-probability trade. Nonetheless, the FOMO from the earlier successes whispered, 'just one more.' Naturally, it flipped. Lost a good chunk of the day's gains, all on a trade I knew, deep down, I shouldn't have taken. It's a classic case of overtrading out of boredom and a misplaced sense of 'being hot' — the market's way of reminding you it doesn't care about your winning streak. Should've just walked away.
That's a classic trap, and it highlights the importance of having a robust exit strategy for both profit and managing the desire to keep trading. Sometimes the best trade is no trade at all after you've hit your daily or weekly targets.