Blindspot
Trading tilt: how to spot it in your own trades
Tilt is trading on emotion after a loss: taking the next trade to win it back, bigger, sooner and outside your plan. It feels like nothing in the moment. In a trade history it leaves marks you can count.
- Streaks after losses: more trades than usual after two or three losers in a row.
- Size jumps: a bigger position on the trade after a loss than your normal size.
- Less time between trades: re-entering minutes or seconds after a stop-out.
- Broken daily limits: days past your own loss limit or maximum number of trades.
The four marks tilt leaves
1. Losing streaks followed by more trades
Losing streaks happen to every strategy. Over 300 trades, a system that wins 45% of the time has its longest run of losers at seven or more in most cases, by chance alone. The streak is not the tilt. The tilt is what comes after it: if your sessions that start with two or three losers end with twice your usual number of trades, the extra trades are the problem.
2. Size jumps after a loss
Compare the size of each trade with the trade before it. If you normally trade 2 contracts and the trade after a loss is 4, you are trying to win back the loss in one go. That is the trade most likely to turn a bad day into a blown account.
3. Less time between trades
Look at the gap between one trade's exit and the next trade's entry. A planned entry usually needs the market to set up again. A re-entry 30 seconds after a stop-out, in the same direction, usually doesn't wait for anything.
4. Days past your own limits
A daily loss limit and a maximum number of trades, set before the session, turn tilt into a yes-or-no question for each day: did you stop when you said you would? Days you didn't are where to look first.
A worked example
One morning of MNQ trades, normal size 2 contracts, every P&L net of commission:
| # | Entry | Exit | Size | Net P&L | Gap since last exit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9:41 | 9:52 | 2 | −$84 | – |
| 2 | 10:15 | 10:22 | 2 | −$90 | 23 min |
| 3 | 10:24 | 10:27 | 4 | −$172 | 2 min |
| 4 | 10:28 | 10:31 | 4 | +$96 | 1 min |
| 5 | 10:32 | 10:36 | 6 | −$258 | 1 min |
The first two trades are ordinary: normal size, 23 minutes apart. After the second loss the pattern changes. Size doubles on trade 3, the gap drops to two minutes, then to one. Trade 4 wins, which makes it worse: it feels like the method is working, and trade 5 goes to 6 contracts. Trades 3 to 5 lost $334 net. With a $250 daily loss limit, the day broke it at 10:27, on trade 3, and the last two trades should never have happened.
None of this needs a theory of your psychology. Size, gaps and the running P&L are all in the trade list.
What Blindspot shows of it
- Win/Loss Streaks (Analytics): the streak you are on now, your longest winning and losing streaks with what they made or cost, average streak lengths, and a chart of how often each length happened. Switch to Within a session to end every streak at the end of the trading day, so you see the losing runs inside one session. Each trade is judged after commission; a scratch, whose gross P&L is no bigger than its costs, is skipped.
- Day streaks: green and red days in a row from your daily P&L.
- Trading Rules (Settings → Trading Rules): a daily loss limit, a maximum number of trades per day and an optional stop after your profit target. The Calendar marks each day you kept to them or broke them. The loss limit is judged by the day's running net P&L over closed trades, so a day that went to −$600 and recovered to −$400 still counts as broken at a $500 limit, and hovering the day shows the time it happened.
- Mistake tags: Revenge Trade, Oversize Position, FOMO Entry and Ignored Rules are among the default mistake tags. Tag the trades, and Tag Performance in Analytics shows how many trades each mistake has and what it cost.
- Size and timing: the Trades list shows each trade's entry time, quantity and duration, and with the Exit column switched on (Columns button) its exit time. Blindspot does not compute the gap between trades or flag a size jump for you: read them off the list, a day at a time from the Calendar.
If you connect ChatGPT or Claude to your journal, you can ask it to do that reading for you: "list the days where my size went up after a loss" or "how long did I wait after a stop-out this month?". The assistant answers from your trades.
Frequently asked questions
Does Blindspot detect tilt automatically?
No. It shows the evidence: your current and longest losing streaks, losing streaks within a session, the days you broke your daily loss limit or maximum number of trades, and what trades tagged Revenge Trade or Oversize Position cost you. Size after a loss and the time between trades you read from the Trades list.
Is a long losing streak a sign of tilt?
Not on its own. Over 300 trades, a strategy that wins 45% of the time will usually have a run of seven or more losses by chance alone. Tilt shows in what you did during and after the streak: more trades, bigger size, less time between entries.
What is the fastest way to stop tilt costing money?
A hard daily loss limit and a maximum number of trades, set before the session and enforced by your platform where it can. Blindspot marks the days you broke your own limits afterwards, but it does not block orders.
More guides
Expectancy and profit factor, finding your best time of day to trade, TopstepX loss limits in Blindspot, and every guide.
Find the days tilt cost you.
Import your trades, set a daily loss limit, and the Calendar marks every day you went past it.
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