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Myopic loss aversion

Checking results too often, which exposes you to more losses than gains in the short run and makes a good strategy feel unbearable.

Loss aversion plus frequent checking equals paralysis. The more often you look, the closer to a coin flip each observation is, and since losses hurt roughly twice as much as gains please, frequent looking produces net pain even from a profitable system.

This is why the same account feels catastrophic when reviewed tick by tick and perfectly healthy reviewed monthly. Nothing about the returns changed, only the sampling frequency.

Match the review interval to the strategy horizon. A swing system reviewed every thirty seconds will be abandoned before its edge has a chance to appear. See p-and-l-watching for the screen-level version of this habit.

Related: narrow-framing, loss-aversion

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