Trading with Emotion: The Hidden Danger of Changing Your Plan Mid-Trade
One of the biggest challenges in trading isn’t the market itself—it’s your own emotions. Even the most brilliant trading strategy can fail if the trader allows fear, greed, or hope to override their plan. This is where many traders lose consistency and blow accounts.
Jesse Livermore, one of history’s greatest traders, called this the “dark secret” of trading success: it’s not the market you need to master, it’s your own mind.
The Emotional Traps That Destroy Traders
Emotional trading typically shows up in three main ways:
1. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
- Entering trades too early because you don’t want to miss a market move.
- Leads to bad entries, frequent stop-loss triggers, and unnecessary stress.
2. Greed
- Holding losing trades too long, hoping they will recover.
- Risking more than your planned loss, and often closing winners too early to “lock in profits.”
3. Hope / Denial
- Ignoring market signals because “it will come back my way.”
- Results in moving stop-losses or taking irrational trades, which can be devastating.
Changing Your Trading Plan Mid-Trade: A Recipe for Disaster
One of the most common ways emotions manifest is adjusting your plan during a trade:
Widening Stop-Loss (SL)
- Traders often move their SL further away when a trade goes against them, hoping the market will reverse.
- Why it’s dangerous: You risk more than you intended, which can turn a small loss into a devastating one.
- Livermore’s lesson: Stick to your original SL. Accept losses quickly if the trade is invalidated.
Tightening Take-Profit (TP)
- Many traders close trades too early because they fear the market will reverse, sacrificing potential gains.
- Why it’s dangerous: This reduces your reward, lowers your risk-reward ratio, and prevents profits from compounding.
- Livermore’s lesson: Let winners run according to your plan. Use predefined targets or trailing stops, not emotions.
Why Emotional Adjustments Kill Your Edge
Changing SL and TP mid-trade almost always leads to:
Worse risk-reward ratio: Losses get bigger, and wins get smaller.
Inconsistent results: Your strategy loses its statistical edge.
Psychological stress: Doubt and frustration grow, affecting future trades.
The market doesn’t care about your emotions—it moves based on supply, demand, and human behavior, not your hopes or fears.
Why Emotional Adjustments Kill Your Edge
Changing SL and TP mid-trade almost always leads to:
Worse risk-reward ratio: Losses get bigger, and wins get smaller.
Inconsistent results: Your strategy loses its statistical edge.
Psychological stress: Doubt and frustration grow, affecting future trades.
The market doesn’t care about your emotions—it moves based on supply, demand, and human behavior, not your hopes or fears.
How to Trade Without Letting Emotions Win
- Follow your trading plan to the letter.
- Define your entry, stop-loss, and take-profit before trading.
- Treat SL and TP as sacred rules—never move them based on emotion.
- Accept losses quickly; don’t let hope turn a small loss into a big one.
- Let profits run, trusting the edge in your strategy.
- Recognize emotional triggers—FOMO, greed, or denial—and pause when they arise.
Conclusion
Trading is 20% strategy and 80% psychology. Jesse Livermore’s success shows that discipline and emotional control are far more important than any technical system.
Changing your trading plan mid-trade—widening stop-loss or tightening take-profit—is one of the fastest ways to destroy your account. The key to consistent profits is simple but hard: stick to the plan, control your emotions, and trust the process.
“It’s not the market you need to master—it’s your own mind.”
ADMIN
20/01/26
