How to Reset from Red Days
Ok traders, let me tell you how we’re going to break this one down. I (host, Becky) have been a day trader for 4 years now. And I can say with certainty that while I am working daily to turn my track record, I have still proportionately experienced more lesson days than clean, clear, smooth green days over the course of those 4 years all combined. But I can also say matter of factly based on my trading journal, that my trajectory has turned and I am generally nicely green vs red over this last year at least! So, that’s pretty great.
What I have been wanting to talk to you all for a while about is the stark differences between the extreme days. And as we get into it here, we can easily call out the early triggers and signs of which day is beginning so that we can ideally cut short a potential mass casualty day before it gets that bad. In this episode/blog, I’m going to frankly lay out for you what my best and worst days have been like and how I am focusing to keep my momentum going in the green direction month over month.
A very hard day as a trader typically includes a combination to one degree or another of emotional, technical, and financial stressors. Often, one thing goes wrong early in the session or our day, and we don’t fully recognize or give enough credence to its impact before we just keep trucking along. But the tilt can start just that easily. One little thing can lead to another, and before we notice, systems are failing and our emotions are starting to take the wheel. There are generally warning signs being thrown up. Whether it is your first stop out or an inappropriately short and irritated comment to a family member, in which we hopefully could notice the fight or flight uptick in real time here. But, in my experience, we have to be calmer and very self aware in those moments to catch these signs before the snowball really starts to roll. And that does not always happen.
If we CAN catch ourselves and make a smart choice to walk away and take a break from the charts to cool it back off, then the day is contained and our system holds steady. A losing trade is not, in itself, a negative sign. They will happen in the business of risk that trading is. However, the key here is to catch a potential trigger early and respect its risk and impact to our mindset and energy. When caught and managed appropriately and purposefully, we are solid and our day is fine. Even if we leave it there and accept a small losing trade in the setting of your first trade being stopped out, that is a very reasonable outcome for one day out of your month of trading. Normal and should be an expected part of being a day trader. This is not, however, as easy and intuitive as it sounds on paper. In the moment, for me at least, it is hard to accept defeat on any trade and feel content with that being my trading day’s outcome.
I often have to battle an internal urge to fix it as soon as possible so that my day can end beautifully green, my naturally preferred trading result. Here is where my day can go in one of three directions. First, I accept that defeat gracefully, walk away, busy myself elsewhere with other responsibilities, and call it a day with the charts. By the next morning, one small stop out leaves no carry over emotions and I start fresh and ready to conquer the day, my account balances having remained essentially completely stable. Second option, I walk away, breath deeply, snuggle a kid or two, and come back to my charts focused and intentional to my system. When I am calm, patient and focused, Miss Market is abundant and I generally always can spot another great opportunity within my trading system, nail a good trade or two, and indeed close out my trading day profitable and satisfied.
But let me tell you about that third demon option that you all likely know is coming if you have attempted day trading. That red trade pissed me off. I really was sure that level was going to hold. In my mind, I entered a winning trade, so what the hell?!!? When it didn’t and it put my accounts red on the morning, I was not pleased. I don’t catch my irritation and self righteousness in the moment, I don’t walk away, and I don’t take deep centering breaths. Rather, I go harder at Miss Market. I may re-enter a trade nearly immediately, with my normal leverage or heaven forbid, heavier size in an attempt to make back my losses even quicker. My vision narrows and I take in less pertinent data by the second. I focus only on my execution chart and tune out the larger time frames and objective data that I normally would be continuously monitoring and factoring into my decisions. My heart and breathing rate have increased, my palms sweat, and my live journaling has gone by the wayside. Recipe for disaster.
On these days, the losses come steadily. There are all kinds of ways this can go down depending on your personality and tendencies. But often it is a mix of revenge trading, chasing the market, over-leveraging, doubling down, adding to losers, moving your stop loss, squeezing good trades, taking more risk on poor ones, flipping teams haphazardly, and resetting accounts like they’re going out of style. Yep, I have done this. On many more than one occasion over the years. They are bloody, painful, regret laden days that can haunt me for many days to follow. Sometimes I can turn it around within that session, and sometimes I can catch them before the worst damage is done. But, fully authentically, not always have I.
Thankfully, I can say that I do now, in year four, have way less of these days, and often catch and stop them before all accounts are wrecked. But these were my early teachers. The tearful, frustrating, demoralizing, sad days that I had to purposefully choose to grow past instead of wallow in. Which also, is easier said than done during those phases of a trader’s journey.
So, in order to prevent harm in the future, it is best to learn all we can about risks so that we can also learn how best to mitigate them. Let’s do that together. What can be the potential catalysts for these days? Well there are some pre-defined potential risks to any trading system, those being unexpected market volatility as in sudden, sharp moves not aligned with your strategy (such as with major news, or a Fed announcement), sharp, prolonged, seemingly unprecedented abnormal momentum pushes, gaps up or down that invalidate your planned entries or exits, earnings surprises, or sudden geopolitical events spiking or crashing the market. In another vein, the irritation could be from unexpected technical failures that are very frustrating and distracting, either from your internet, hardware infrastructure, data feed, platform or broker malfunctioning. But then of course the myriad of psychological and emotional factors are also potentials, such as multiple trades hitting stop-losses in a row, getting chopped up in sideways markets by fake breakouts causing death by a thousand paper cuts from the small losses that accumulate quickly, emotional overreactions such as revenge trading, hesitation, or FOMO, feeling isolated, stuck, or out of control, oversizing positions in hopes of recovering losses, entering impulsive trades outside of your normal setups, staying in losing trades too long or exiting winners too early, missing opportunities within your system, poor sleep, nutrition, or over-caffeination, or burnout from overtrading or being in too many positions. And of course this list is not exhaustive. But, just from these alone, it’s clear that there are many potential factors that can go wrong early in our trading session that can lead us down a dangerous path.
And depending on how we can move forward from these triggers and the hit to our accounts that ensued, there could be additional aftermath that makes it all slightly worse before it can get better as well! A trader could then experience a loss of confidence going into the next day, difficulty logging the trades and reviewing mistakes due to the volume and chaotic nature of the trading day, and a pressure to “make it back” too quickly that week, which often leads to further losses. This situation is so multifaceted that it's no wonder that it's normal for traders to take many months to years to work through all of the growth and lessons on the way to stabilizing as a consistently profitable trader! Quite frankly, there are so many ways to fuck it up! And as traders work through the lessons that each situation provides, the growth will come.
These struggles are pretty much a guaranteed part of the process as a trader progresses along the journey. To what degree and impact each trader will experience them though is more personal and unique to the trader and their circumstances, so that’s what gives us all such individual and interesting trader origin stories. Some traders will never have certain struggles because of who they are, and some will experience the same issue hundreds of times before finally improving beyond it consistently.
“A losing trade is not, in itself, a negative sign. They will happen in the business of risk that trading is.”
~ Becky Gaskell, Market Mamas
So now let’s get into the more uplifting and informative part of this conversation. How we can best mitigate these hard days and lean into more of the clean, smooth days, or at least moderate and manageable ones! Let’s say you did have a toxic day and it was very bloody. What’s the most ideal way to recover and get back on track?
First, Stop Trading Immediately
Step away once you’ve recognized it’s a bad day.
Prevent further damage. Trading under stress usually leads to more losses.
Once your trading session has closed and you’ve had some distance to settle, Don’t Avoid the Pain — Review It
Log the trades honestly: entries, exits, what went wrong.
Note your emotional decisions (such as revenge trading, or hesitation).
Ask: “Did I follow my plan? If not, why?” - understanding this is powerful for the lesson to actually have the power to change you.
But then you need to Detox Emotionally
Take a walk, journal, or talk it out with your trading people or accountability partner — don't bottle it in.
Remind yourself that: “One day doesn’t define me.”
If needed, take a day or two off the charts. Cut the pressure off and allow a little nervous system rest and reset! Check out this episode for guidance on this reset: https://youtu.be/SXQ6z2Ww8-k?si=mA8H9pAeUnBcyxv2
An important mental shift is to Reframe the Experience
Look at the losses as tuition: What did the market teach you? I always try to view hard days as lesson days!
Is there a setup or condition you now understand better? These days have the distinct potential to teach us the most as we grow!
As you re-enter your arena, you’ll have to Rebuild your Confidence Slowly
Start the next trading day with a small size.
Focus only on A+ setups — quality over quantity.
Aim to regain discipline, not money, first.
Within any traders system, you need to establish a plan for How to Prevent Hard Days from occurring or Repeating Often. Here are some tools that bear repeating in this discussion.
1. Have a Pre-Defined Daily Loss Limit
Automatically stop for the day once hit. Shut it down, lock yourself out.
Treat it like an airbag — unpleasant, but protective.
2. Use a Trading Journal
Document not just trades but mindset, your premarket hypothesis in comparison to your actual executions, mistakes.
Spot patterns — emotional or strategic — that lead to trouble for you.
3. Stick to a Strict Trade Plan
Only trade your setups. Pay acute attention to do your best at preventing all impulsive trades.
Limit the # of trades per day to avoid overtrading. Heck, even on a green day, over trading will lead to you executing with less and less mental capital as the day wears on. And that is a choice…
4. Avoid Trading During High-Risk Times (Unless Skilled)
CPI, Fed days, earnings — either plan for it or stay out. And always know when the scheduled volatility risk times are due so that you can protect your backside at all times. Monitoring the forex factory calendar is an important part of any traders base system.
Don’t chase volatility unless you’ve studied this situation thoroughly and your edge thrives in it.
5. Practice Mental Resilience
Use techniques like meditation, breath work, exercise, or visualizations.
Journal about your emotional triggers with the aim of understanding them and spotting them early in yourself.
6. And here’s a suggestion I recently read that makes so much sense - Have a “Reset” Protocol as a part of your trading business plan.
This is a checklist or ritual you follow after a bad day and could include:
No charts for the evening.
Review & journal.
Write 3 lessons.
Revisit long-term goals.
Remember what you do have that you can be grateful for that is separate from trading!
Speak to someone in your inner circle that helps ground and support you.
What do you all do that helps you move forward from a bloody day? In terms of my post toxic day, I vary with these choices on which ones speak most to me in a given week. And sometimes I can feel better by simply getting some space from the day. Busying myself with other tasks, family needs or commitments. Sometimes I can’t pull myself into a positive headspace quickly, but the best I can accomplish is simply just not holding onto miserable feelings and slowly migrating my emotional sentiment to a less awful place. Music, a solid comedy or action movie, a great sweat session, a deep cleaning project I have been putting off - these can all help turn my vibe and settle my heart. These too will look different for all of us based on our personalities and daily habits. You know what makes you feel more peaceful, so prioritize those activities when you need a bounce back!
In comparison, talking about a sick nice green trading session, well that feels like a breath of fresh air! If you are a trader still pushing through the hard days, then you must’ve had some awesome wins thus far that have gotten you hooked on the potential that trading provides! Early wins truly are the hook into this world. I still remember how I felt with my early bigger wins - it was honestly quite a high. As I have matured as a trader, the highs mellow and winning is now an expected outcome for my skill level and expertise. But, not blindly guaranteed by any means. But just, more neutral now.
However, I do believe in the power of positive feedback as a trader. I always celebrate executing on my process well, following my rules during my trading session, and a winning P/L. I want to reinforce those decisions in my mind and system so that I naturally call more of those days to me! To hear more about my favorite kind of green trading morning, watch the episode and hear me talk it out! And, leave a comment, I’d love to hear about yours too! These are the days of my life. It is just a fact that if you are a day trader, you need a community, big or small, in person or virtual, to have these open and at times raw conversations. I can be that with you. Let’s celebrate our wins and learn from our lesson days as we remain relentless towards our greatest goals and dreams!
Thank you to everyone who is subscribing to the podcast, reading the blogs, and providing me with feedback! I am truly grateful to be growing this Market Mamas podcast and community with you all! I love talking about my favorite subject - trading! Miss Market is abundant for those of us that embrace a growth mindset and pursue deliberate practice in learning her tells and our own tendencies. And trading absolutely can be an avenue for the wildest success. But not without diligent work for many many months and years. But to those who show up for the effort and dedication, you are my people and I would love to get to know you better! Please take a moment to shoot me a comment on https://www.market-mamas.com/contact! Happy Trading & Let’s Go!