Risk discipline: red flags and abort criteria

[LondonScalper]

Red flags and abort criteria (risk discipline)

A written plan without abort criteria is a wish list. I keep a short red-flag list taped beside the monitor. If two fire, I am done for the session — not “careful,” done. This sits beside the trading plan, not inside the vague “be disciplined” paragraph nobody obeys when adrenaline is high.

Examples that actually get used:

• Second rule-break in the same hour
• Spreads > my filter on the pair I am trading
• Heart-rate / jaw-clench after a loss (yes, I notice)
• Urge to widen stop “just this once”
• Calendar Tier-1 inside my blackout window and I still want size

Abort means: flatten, log the flag, timer on, no “small” revenge size. The point is to decide before adrenaline when you will walk away. Green mornings are when I am most tempted to treat the list as optional — that is exactly when it must stay binding.

What belongs on your red-flag list that is not already in the trading plan? And how do you stop abort criteria becoming soft suggestions after a green morning?

[PropScalpDesk]

One I've added that isn't in any plan: checking the account balance more than once during a single trade. When I catch myself doing that, it means the size is too big for me to think about the chart, and the next trade is at half size.

For the second question, the thing that stopped the list going soft after a good morning was having it checked by the platform where possible. A daily loss limit and a max trade count in an EA or the prop dashboard can't be renegotiated at 11:00. Only the flags that need judgement stay on paper.