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Writing this down because I promised myself I'd post the bad trades too, not just the tidy ones.

Tuesday, 08:03 London. NAS100 isn't even a London open instrument for me. I trade it in the afternoon when the US cash session is live. But the futures had dropped about 0.6% overnight on some earnings news, and I saw a sharp bounce on the M1 chart while I was watching EURUSD.

I bought. No plan, no level. Size was my normal afternoon size, which on a thin morning index market is too big. Stop was placed after the fill, not before, and it was based on a round number rather than any structure.

The spread at that hour was roughly three times what I normally pay in the afternoon. The fill was 2.4 points worse than where I clicked. Within ninety seconds the bounce faded and price went through my stop. Total loss: about 0.7% of the account, more than my average losing day.

What actually went wrong: I broke three rules at once. Wrong instrument for the session, no pre-defined stop, and normal size in abnormal conditions. None of these was a market problem.

What I've changed: NAS100 is now hidden from my Market Watch until 14:00 London. A bit childish perhaps, but it removes the temptation entirely.

The EURUSD setup I was supposed to be watching worked, by the way. I missed it while dealing with this.

Hiding NAS100 until 14:00 isn't childish, it's the cheapest rule you'll ever write. I did the same with gold after a very similar morning, and the temptation was gone within a week.

The part I'd look at closely is the stop placed after the fill. In my log, trades where the stop went in after entry had an average loss of about 1.4R against 1R on the planned ones. That extra 0.4R is the price of deciding under stress.

Three times the normal spread on a thin index at 08:03 is about what I'd expect. Add the 2.4 point slip and you were several points behind before the bounce even faded. On a ninety second trade that is most of the edge gone.

The missed EURUSD setup is the real cost for me. The 0.7% is visible, but the trade you skipped while managing the mess never shows up anywhere unless you log it.

Do you record missed planned setups as a separate line? I started doing that last year and it changed how I think about distraction trades.

The version of this trade I worry about more is the one that wins. If that 08:03 bounce had run 40 points, the lesson would have been "trust your read on NAS100 in the morning", and the next one would have come at bigger size.

So I grade rule breaks the same whether they win or lose. Two or more broken rules on one ticket ends my session on the spot, even if the trade closed green.

I'd also look at what pulled your eye in the first place. A 0.6% overnight drop on earnings news is exactly the kind of headline that makes a morning chart look like an opportunity, so I now keep index charts off every screen until the afternoon, not just off Market Watch.

On any instrument outside its normal session I cut size to about a third. The spread can be three times wider, and the stop has to cover that as well as the structure.

LondonScalper, did you stop trading for the rest of that morning after the NAS100 loss? I'm curious whether the EURUSD setup was skipped by choice or because your head was still on the index.