Absolutely, unless your trading is automated don't make any trades. Trading is hard enough even when you are not feeling down.
The hope is you don't do dangerous things like revenge trade with 5x size when auto trading while depressed. You would have to go in and modify the code to do that. There is still the risk of closing an automated trade early when you feel down and that could mean you miss a big win. When manual trading you can do dangerous and damaging things to your trading account in many more ways. Really depression is a bad state of mind for all types of trading. Because you cant easily come out of it on demand. Lack of sleep is another bad state to be in on any given day for similar reasons.
Having Specific rules that you follow makes a big difference. But in general if I'm not in a good mood I don't trade much. Great acronym ccff
Trade (even if just to stay in the flow of the market and new opportunities), but use minimal postition sizing - if u make money, it will up your mood, and if u lose, u will be glad you sized down)
I may sound like a broker record but, If you have a plan and follow it, your emotions and feelings shouldn't be a problem. You shouldn't trade based on your emotions and feelings, but based on a solid trading plan with specific set of rules. Bad trading on days when you feel bad is not a cause but a symptom.
huh? It is like telling an overweight person to write a solid plan like: - eat 2 meals a day - eat <500 calories per meal - no fast food, no sugary drinks, no alcohol, no cakes and no matter how hungry they are, we tell them to stick to the solid plan. We know it wouldn't work. Traders can write (or chisel) their trade plan on a huge piece of rock. It wouldn't work unless they fix their right brain ( the psychological aspect).
You are comparing apples with oranges unless you are addictive to trading and trade based on your emotions and feelings. If a person is addictive to trading, that's another game. But the original question of the OP was not about that. If a person is trading based on how he/she feels, that's a problem, and even with a solid plan, it won't be much better.
Ms K80 you are obviously an complicated AI robot. Who likes to shop. I'm guessing, but I have met AI like you before. Always testing us on moods? Why? No moods on the planet where the Aliens live? The very most base part of investing is moods. The mood of the market. The market is a living organism (tell that to the aliens) Every day a million imputs on likes and dislikes filtered through a world event prism leads to responses. It never pays to follow the crowd. Your mood may be sour but in a face ripping tech rally actually right on point. I use moods in a variety of ways. Moods are especially useful in spotting tops. Do you feel greedy? So it's a stage beyond good mood-- it's when in my personal case I started thinking about a scheme in which I would request money for taxes from my Stock manager and since I don't owe any tax until the 4th QTR I was going to use that money in my Etrade high risk account... The moment I thought that way because so much stuff was popping.. was the moment the market stopped going up. Recognize when elation becomes greed. Now the flip side-- everyone is so damn depressed these days--- SNAP OUT OF IT!!! I've got friends getting divorced, friends getting real sick and really alack of friends.. but I keep engaged how? I use Marijuana all day. Hope This Helps- stoney