“…cool it off before you burn it out…” – Billy Joel
When most people talk about “discipline,” they mean avoiding revenge trades after a loss.
But the sneakiest danger isn’t the bad trade — it’s the good one that leaves you drunk on victory.
You sell high, your heart is racing, dopamine’s humming like a Tesla coil.
Then the whisper hits: “Get back in, ride it again.”
That whisper is how accounts die.
If you want your account to survive, you know not to respond immediately.
The reason I employ a cooldown model isn’t to recover from pain; it’s to metabolize success.
When a trade goes well, I force myself to wait before re-entering. Sometimes an hour. Sometimes more.
Why? Because after a win, your internal clock speeds up. You think, “Hey, let me jump back in,” but if you just sold correctly, you likely sold when market prices were high. You want to avoid buying right away after a good trade, because to win you have to buy low.
So let some time run by, and schedule in that boredom to allow markets to move.
🕰 Scheduled Boredom
Every trade — win or lose — gets a timeout.
No charts, no alerts, no tweaking. Just silence.
The markets have a rhythm. You don’t want to fight it; you want to dance with it.
That’s Volatango — the rhythm of volatility. You move with the tempo, not against it.
Most automated traders secretly think they’re building a machine-gun.
But I design my systems like wind instruments — they inhale, exhale, pause.
Most of the day, my algorithm does absolutely nothing.
It sits.
Waits.
Listens for the music of opportunity.
And when that melody finally hits the right note — then it plays.
Because in the end, discipline isn’t about doing less out of fear.
It’s about doing nothing until the rhythm says go.
🔗 Trading Discipline and Post-Profit Routines — Investopedia
🔗 Volatility and Market Tempo — CFA Institute
🔗 Algorithmic Cooldown Models — QuantStart
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