Decision Fatigue in Trading

Thank you poster for this thread, this happened to me yesterday. I was trading from London into NY session several hours! During NY I was waiting for a candle to close below another one but somehow my brain told me it had closed and i took the trade. It was only after I lost the trade that I checked closely and discovered the candle didnt actually close below the one I expected. It was as if my eyes played tricks on me. I immediately knew it was decision fatigue. Now I have decided to reduce my trading hours to three max.

Sometimes fatigue can even make you click on buy when you intenede to cick onn sell. It could even make you trade on the chart for the wring instrument without knowing. One day I mistakenly traded on GBP/USD chart instead of EUR/USD chart because i was tired.

This has happened to me before. There was a trade i wanted to click buy but because of fatigue i clicked sell and i was not even aware until i came back to the chart. The trade was already against me, i waited for it to come back to entry but it didnt. The trade ended in loss.

😂

I just couldn’t be angry with myself sincerely 🤣

Shouldn't come up if you're following your strategy

100% this is real and it doesn't get talked about enough. I've sat at my desk after a 4 hour session and caught myself taking trades I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole in the first hour. The chart starts looking different, every candle looks like a signal, and before you know it you've given back half the day's gains in 20 minutes.

What helped me was setting a hard rule after a losing trade I take a 15 minute break, no exceptions. Walk away from the screen completely. And if I hit my daily target before midday, I'm done. Laptop closed. Because I noticed my worst trades always came after my best ones, like my brain was looking for more when it should've been resting.

The dangerous part is you don't even realise it's happening in the moment. You feel sharp, you feel confident, but that confidence is the fatigue talking.