Overtrading help: a trade budget you can see on the desk
Most extra trades are not edge. They are a way of staying engaged during hours when nothing is happening — which is why a number in your head never holds.
Is this you?
- —You take more trades on quiet days than busy ones.
- —You cannot say how many trades you took without checking.
- —You find something to be in when your setup is absent.
- —Your best days have fewer trades than your average day.
Two or more of those and this is the state costing you the most, not the strategy.
What it actually costs
Extra trades cost twice: the fees and spread on trades with no edge, and the attention they burn before the setup that actually mattered shows up.
The protocol: Ticket Budget
Trigger — The start of every session, before the first chart.
- 1.Write today's number of tickets on paper: three, four, five — whatever your average winning day actually used.
- 2.Draw that many boxes. Cross one off out loud each time you enter.
- 3.Before crossing a box, say the setup name. No name, no ticket.
How long — One minute at the open; enforced all session.
Read the full protocol, success test and what to do if it fails →Do this in your next session
Put three coins on the desk. Each entry costs one. When they are gone, the platform closes. At the close, check the coins match the log — and write one word for why any extra one happened.
Not sure this is your state?
The quiz takes two minutes, needs no sign-up, and names your top three protocols out of the fourteen.
Keep reading
Work it through with the Coach
Describe your last bad trade. It names the state, picks the protocol and gives you the exercise to run before the next session. Free to use.