What a trading plan should say about bad days

[Shadow Trader]

Most plans describe how to enter and exit. Few describe how to behave on a bad day, and that is when guidance matters most.

A useful section covers specific triggers: three consecutive losses, a daily loss of 2 percent, a rule break. Each trigger comes with an action: stop trading for the next hour, shut the platform for the day, review the trades immediately.

It also names what is not allowed after a bad day: increasing size, changing the strategy, switching pairs in search of luck.

The plan should include a restart condition. After a shutdown, trading resumes the next day at half size for the first three trades, rebuilding confidence with small risk.

Writing this when calm, not in the moment, makes it enforceable. The decision was already made by a clearer head.

Without a written plan, a bad day is improvised, and improvisation under stress is expensive.

What does the bad-day protocol look like here, and has it been tested?