Tilt
A state of emotional destabilisation — borrowed from poker — where recent losses drive irrational, increasingly reckless trading behaviour.
Tilt is borrowed from poker, but traders hit it just as hard. You are on tilt when a sequence of losses (or sometimes unexpected wins) shifts you from systematic execution into reactive, emotion-driven trading with progressively worse judgement.
On tilt you break rules you never break when calm: you move stops, you double down, you enter revenge trades, you hold through your daily loss limit. Each bad decision validates the next one. The hole gets deeper.
The only reliable tilt strategy is a circuit breaker — a pre-defined point at which you close everything and walk away from the screen for the day. No exceptions. You cannot think your way off tilt. You can only remove yourself from the game.
Example
Three stop-outs in a row. A fourth setup appears. Normally you size at 1%. On tilt you size at 3% to "make it back faster." It stops out too. You are now down 6% on the session from what started as a 1.5% drawdown. Tilt multiplied the damage.
Related Terms
Discipline
The ability to execute your trading plan without deviation, even when emotions scream at you to do something different.
BeginnerDiscipline Slippage
The gradual erosion of trading rules over time — small exceptions that compound into a completely undisciplined approach.
IntermediateEmotional Trading
Making buy or sell decisions based on how you feel rather than on pre-defined rules and objective market conditions.
BeginnerMental Capital
The finite reservoir of cognitive energy, emotional resilience, and focus available for trading — when it runs out, decision quality collapses.
IntermediateRevenge Trading
Taking impulsive, oversized trades immediately after a loss in an attempt to win the money back — almost always making things worse.
BeginnerTrading Journal
A systematic record of every trade with entry rationale, outcome, and emotional state — the most underused tool in most traders' arsenals.
Beginner