Revenge Trading — That part of you that feels 'not fair' after a loss is your biggest enemy.
Revenge Trading — Let's be real, aren't those worst liquidations you experienced all kicked off by the thought of 'I need to make it back'?
📖 This session's term: Revenge Trading
🎯 Difficulty: ⭐⭐ (Intermediate Level)
🔥 Emotional Danger Index: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 (Level 5, Full Danger)
❓ What's this (Plain Language Definition)
It's like after taking a hit, that little voice in your head saying 'not fair' pops up, pushing you to jump into the next trade, doubling your position and cranking up the leverage to the max, desperate to recover everything you just lost.
What happens next? Your mindset is already broken. All you see is the two words “get back to breakeven.” You throw away everything—support/resistance, risk-reward ratio, and your trading plan. Then you become more and more impatient as you trade; the more impatient you get, the more you lose. You lose more and more—until the account hits zero or you’re completely worn out.
To put it simply, revenge trading is: the market slaps you once. You’re not convinced, so you rush in to fight the market. In the end, the market leaves you crippled.
🧠 Real trading scenarios (you’ve definitely experienced)
“That day, I originally made a BTC short trade—the direction was right. But it got stopped out by a spike, and I lost 5%. I was so mad. It was clearly correct, and the market was so disgusting! I thought: ‘No, I have to get back the loss.’”
Then you went the other way and opened a long, with a position size double your previous one. As soon as you entered, it dropped—floating loss 2%. You got even more angry, added more position, thinking “I don’t believe it won’t bounce.” Result: it kept falling, floating loss climbed to 8%. You started panicking, but you couldn’t stop—so you opened another short, thinking “One side will have to win against the other eventually.”
So what’s the end result? The longs got blown up, and the shorts didn’t even make much. In one night, you lost half a month’s profits. The funniest part is: the next day, BTC still dropped as originally expected—but there was no money left.
Honestly, it’s not that you were defeated by the market—you were defeated by “not being convinced.””
📌 Why does it harm people?
Emotions take over the brain: anger, shame, and unwillingness after a loss will directly bypass your prefrontal cortex (the rational decision area) and let the amygdala (the emotional control center) rule. At this moment, every decision you make is essentially about “venting,” not about trading.
Loss of position control: in order to “quickly get back,” you instinctively increase your position size. The bigger the position, the more violent the emotional swings, and the worse the decision quality becomes—this is a death spiral.
Ignore market signals: when you’re revenge trading, you don’t care what the candlesticks look like at all. You only care about “I must win.” The market is no longer an object of trading—it becomes an enemy you have to defeat.
A chain reaction of consecutive losses: the first loss is 5%, the second loss you want to win back and become 10%, the third loss is 20%... Without three trades, the account is done.
💊 The antidote (3-step practice—talk after you finish)
After a loss, forced “red-card exit”
Set yourself a firm rule:Any single trade loss reaching the daily limit (e.g., 2%), or two consecutive losing trades—immediately shut down, stand up, and leave the computer for at least 30 minutes. During these 30 minutes, you are not allowed to check the market, not allowed to check your account, and not allowed to discuss coin prices with anyone. Go get water, take a walk, do a few push-ups—anything is fine, as long as you don’t trade.Set a “emotional stop-loss order”
Before opening a position, ask yourself one question:“If I stop out immediately on this trade, will I want to open the next one right away?”If your answer is “yes,” it means you’re already in the early stage of revenge trading. At this point, the best choice is: close the app, and don’t trade today.Change “get back to breakeven” to “cut the loss”
Change the goal from “make back what you lost” to “That’s it for today’s loss. I won’t let the hole get bigger.”Accepting daily losses is part of trading—just like doing business sometimes there are days with no customers. The fact that you can stop today is a win—because you protected tomorrow’s principal and your mindset.
🧘 Mindfulness practice (can be done in 30 seconds)
When you’ve just taken a loss and that “I’m not convinced” voice in your mind starts shouting “One more trade!”—
Close your eyes, take one deep breath. In your head, silently say:
“That last trade is already over. The market owes me nothing. Every decision I make now should be rational, not driven by emotions.”
Then open your eyes, get up, and leave your seat. At the very least, go pour a cup of water and come back.
📝 Quote summary
Shutting down after a loss is the operation with the highest return rate in this market.
🗣️ Self-reflection question in this issue (engagement in the comments)
“Have you ever revenge-traded because you were ‘not convinced,’ and then ended up losing more and more? How much did you lose that time? Say it in the comments—don’t be embarrassed. Who hasn’t gotten carried away?”
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📙 Teacher Geshe Geshi - Binance Square No.1 founder trading psychology coach
｜ 52nd-generation practitioner of Zen Buddhism｜ AI scientist｜ 10 years as a trading psychology coach