When You're On Tilt

Being on tilt in trading means letting emotions—especially frustration, anger, or desperation—take over your decision-making. This often happens after a big loss, missed opportunity, or string of bad trades. When traders are on tilt, they tend to:

Overtrade to quickly recover losses
Overleverage to chase bigger profits
Ignore their trading plan or rules
Move stop losses or remove them entirely
Take irrational trades based on emotions, not analysis
It’s a dangerous state because it leads to impulsive, high-risk decisions that often make losses even worse. The best way to recover is to step away, reset mentally, and refocus on following your strategy with discipline.