Trading Psychology
Tilt — Definition & Example
An emotionally compromised state where decisions are driven by frustration, anger, or panic rather than the trade plan.
Borrowed from poker, "on tilt" describes the mental state that follows a bad beat or losing streak — the trader stops following their plan and starts making impulsive decisions. Symptoms: oversizing, taking marginal setups, ignoring stops, holding losers in hope of recovery. Tilt almost always leads to bigger losses; recognising it early and closing the platform is the only reliable fix.
Example
After a -₹15,000 stop-out at 11 AM, the trader takes 8 more trades in the next hour without checking setup quality, ending the day -₹35,000. The morning loss became the entry point for tilt.
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