Caffeine and the trembling mouse hand

[Shadow Trader]

Scalping needs fine motor control and quick judgment. Both are affected by stimulants, and not always in the direction expected.

A single coffee can sharpen reaction time. A third one produces jitter, impatience, and a tendency to click early. The hand moves faster than the thought, and entries happen before the setup is confirmed.

The effect shows up in the logs as a spike in early entries, shorter holding times, and more scratch trades in the hours after heavy caffeine. It's easy to blame the market instead.

It's unfashionable advice, but a test is simple. Record caffeine intake and sleep alongside the trading journal for a month. The correlation with trade quality is sometimes stronger than the correlation with any market condition.

Treating the body as part of the trading system, with its own settings to tune, is more productive than another indicator.

What caffeine pattern, if any, shows a visible effect on trade quality in the journal?