What do you do in the ten minutes after a losing trade closes? Describe your routine

The minutes after a stop-out are where a lot of trading discipline is won or lost. The loss itself may be perfectly within the plan, yet the urge to win it back, to change the rules, or to look for a quick replacement trade can be strong. Many traders describe those minutes as the most dangerous of the day.

Some have built a routine for exactly this moment: stand up and leave the screen, write a line in the journal, close the platform, or follow a fixed rule such as no new trade for an hour. Others do nothing special and say the losses don't bother them, or that the routine only made them feel worse.

We would like members to describe what they actually do, as honestly as possible:

• What is the first thing you do after a loss closes, and what do you avoid doing?
• Do you have a cooling-off period before you allow another trade, and how long is it?
• Do you write down why you lost, and does that separate a loss that followed your plan from one that broke it?
• Have you ever placed a trade within minutes of a loss and regretted it? What happened, and what did you change afterwards?
• Does the size of the loss, or of the position, change the routine?

How to keep a trading journal covers what to record after each trade, and position sizing explains how keeping the risk per trade fixed makes any single loss easier to accept.

If you are struggling with a run of losses right now, you are welcome to say so here. Please keep replies to your own experience. Posts that promise a direction or sell signals will be removed.