The itch after a missed trade

[Fairman]

The itch after a missed trade

A setup appears, hesitation wins, and price runs ten pips without the trader. The next setup looks worse, and the temptation to force an entry grows.

Missing a trade creates a feeling out of proportion to the loss. No money was lost. The regret is about money not made.

The danger is that the regret drives the next decision. Entering late, chasing price after a move has mostly played out, or lowering standards for the next signal.

Short timeframes intensify it. Opportunities come and go within seconds, and the sense of missing out is fresh every minute.

A defence is accepting in advance that a certain number of setups will be missed, and treating the miss as part of the process. Logging missed trades in a journal, with a note on why, tends to reveal that most of them were not as clear as they looked in hindsight.

What percentage of missed trades would actually have worked out, if checked honestly?