The mechanism
A loss creates an open loop. The trade is closed but the feeling is not, and the fastest available way to close it is to make the money come back — from the same market, now.
Two things happen at once, and both work against you:
The reference point moves. You are no longer trading to make money; you are trading to return to a number you held twenty minutes ago. That target has nothing to do with what the market is offering.
The bar for an entry drops. A setup that would not have interested you an hour ago becomes acceptable, because waiting has become the intolerable option.
Size usually follows. If the goal is to recover a specific amount, the position gets scaled to that amount rather than to the risk that is reasonable.
The signature in your file
Revenge trading leaves a timing trace, and timing is recorded precisely:
A shorter gap after a loss. The interval between the previous exit and the next entry, compared with your own typical pause. Consistently faster re-entries after losses is the core signature.
Size stepping up after a loss. Position size relative to your own average, on trades that followed a losing one.
A worse average on those trades. The consequence, if it is costing you anything.
The comparison that makes it honest
Here is where most analysis of this goes wrong, and it is worth understanding before you trust any number about it — including ours.
The obvious test is to compare fast re-entries against all your other trades. That test is rigged. Trades after a loss are already unlike your average trade: something just went against you, and market conditions that hurt you a minute ago may still be there.
So the correct comparison is narrower — trades that also followed a loss, but where you waited. Same starting point, only the pause differs. That is what the revenge trading analyzer computes, and it also shows a control: what your fast entries after a winning trade returned. If they are fine after wins and bad after losses, the pattern really is about the loss. If they are bad in both cases, hurrying costs you regardless, which is a different problem.
What to do
A timed pause is the only intervention that works reliably, because it does not require judgement at the moment when judgement is compromised. Five minutes, a walk, anything that is a rule rather than a decision.
Cap size after a loss instead of forbidding trading. A prohibition gets broken; a smaller maximum survives contact with the urge.
Know your own number. If the measurement says the effect costs you very little, the pause is a habit worth keeping but not a priority. If it costs a large fraction of your annual result, it is the highest-value thing on your list, and it takes five minutes to implement.