A Glimpse That Ruined the Session

Something weird happened this Tuesday (May 27). Just a glimpse of two tweets messed with my head, and wrecked the rest of the trading session.

Now, I read and write about trading psychology all the time. But I also trade actively. And the whole point of doing both is that I try to follow the exact rules I write about.

One of the key rules? Shut off all noise during the trading session. No news, no tweets, no hot takes.

I use X (Twitter) a lot. It’s how I communicate. Thanks to X Pro, I’ve got signal and noise separated into columns. Neatly divided. Or so I thought.

What Went Wrong

Mid session I accidentally landed on my main X feed. Just a quick glimpse. But that’s all it took.

Two tweets.

One just before the open:

Another right after the open, from someone else:

If you’ve traded long enough, your brain fills in the blanks instantly.

• “A lot of chasers” means crowded setups, late entries, potential to get stopped out fast.

• Max tick at open may indicate extreme greed → likely top → a day long fade.

That entire chain reaction fired in my brain in under a second. It was like a panic attack in the small part of my mind that handles trading execution.

I had just entered a setup that aligned beautifully with my plan. Solid entry. Clear logic. Good R/R. But now, my brain was screaming “This market’s frothy. You’re late. Bail.”

So I did.

I Closed Too Early

I closed the trade slightly above breakeven. Not because of price action. Not because the setup failed. But because I couldn’t unsee those two tweets.

It threw me off for the rest of the session. I didn’t re enter. I didn’t trust my plan. I second guessed everything.

And of course, the trade would have worked. It ran.

The Lesson

You’d think I’d have learned this by now but the market has endless ways of testing your discipline. This wasn’t about the setup or the strategy. It was about mental exposure to the wrong input at the wrong time.

Even a single tweet can wreck your execution if your mental filters are off for just a moment.

So this one’s a reminder. For me and maybe for you too.

Don’t scroll. Especially not mid session. Your edge isn’t just in the setup. It’s in what you ignore.

Protecting your mental capital is the foundation for growing your financial capital.