Using a stopwatch on my phone to time setups

[FXS London Scalper]

This sounds silly, but it changed how I take trades. For two weeks I started a stopwatch when a setup appeared on my chart and stopped it when I clicked.

Average: 14 seconds. But the spread was large: from 3 to over 60 seconds.

The fast clicks were mostly impulse trades. The slow ones were hesitation, often after a loss. The best trades took about 8 to 20 seconds, enough to check the checklist, not long enough to doubt.

Now I use a short checklist that I read in that window. If I can't decide in 30 seconds, I skip.

Has anyone else measured their own decision time?

[Shadow Trader]

Average human reaction time to a visual signal is around 200 to 250 milliseconds. Add the time to decide and click, and an entry in response to a price movement arrives well over half a second later.

A scalper who believes they catch the first tick of a move is almost always mistaken. By the time the click lands, the move has run, the spread has changed, and the fill is at a different price.

There are online tests that measure reaction time. Taking one before a session, and again after a few hours, shows the effect of fatigue. Times that drift up by fifty milliseconds suggest declining alertness.

Knowing the number reframes strategy design. Setups that depend on reacting to a move in real time have a built-in disadvantage. Setups that anticipate, using pending orders at levels or automation, don't depend on reflexes.

It also supports using fixed exits. A human can't reliably react to a reversal within a fraction of a second, but a resting stop can.

The humbling part is realizing how much of the apparent speed is really prediction rather than reaction.

What was the measured reaction time, and does it change much by the end of a session?