# Which Way Does Your Retention Tool Push?
> Retention tools sold to brokers and prop firms can push trading in opposite directions. How to tell which way, and why the hours after a loss matter most.
**Published:** 2026-10-19  
**Reading time:** 6 min read  
**Tags:** trader-retention, retention-tools, overtrading, prop-firms, brokers
A broker or prop firm trying to increase trader retention can start by asking which way each retention tool pushes a client's trading after a loss. Some tools are designed to raise activity: competitions and leaderboards, reminders that bring a client back to the platform, a discounted retry after a failed evaluation. Others are designed to slow the next decision. The hours after a loss are where the difference counts. In a study of Chicago futures market makers trading in 1998, those with a losing morning had a 31.2% chance of taking above-average risk that afternoon, against 27% after a winning morning, and placed more and larger trades. The study covered professionals, not retail clients; applying it to clients is our reading. A tool that adds activity in those hours goes the same way as that pattern. The answer is in what each tool counts as success.

## Trader retention is bought as revenue

A firm buys retention to protect money it has already spent. [Our working range](/prop-firm-churn-statistics) puts the cost of acquiring a trader at $200 to $2,000, a figure from our own research rather than a published one. A client who leaves early leaves that cost unrecovered, and takes [the revenue they would have produced](/blog/the-real-cost-of-trader-churn) with them. Retention has become [a product category of its own](/trader-retention-software), sold to brokers and prop firms by platform vendors, engagement providers and coaching layers such as ours.

The products in that category do different things in the hours after a client loses money. That difference is the one a buyer most needs to see before signing.

## One word, two directions

Some retention features are designed to raise activity. Competitions and leaderboards give a client a reason to trade more. Reminders are built to bring a client back to the platform, and a discounted retry after a failed evaluation counts success as another attempt. Each one works by bringing the client back or getting another trade or attempt placed.

Other retention tools are designed to slow the next decision. [A behavioural coaching call](/use-cases/reduce-revenge-trading) is one of them: placed after a [warning sign](/glossary/behavioural-trigger) in the client's own trading, it asks the client to look at their own plan before the next order.

## What followed a losing morning

Joshua Coval and Tyler Shumway studied a year of trading on the Chicago Board of Trade's Treasury-bond futures market: more than 5 million transactions by 1,082 traders in 1998, including 426 market makers trading their own accounts. They related each trader's afternoon risk-taking to how that trader's morning had gone.

Market makers who had lost money in the morning had a 31.2% chance of taking above-average risk in the afternoon. Those who had made money in the morning had a 27% chance. The market makers with a losing morning were about 16% more likely to take above-average risk, a gap of 4.2 percentage points. They also placed more trades and larger ones, and built bigger positions. The authors read this as [loss aversion](/glossary/loss-aversion): "Our traders appear highly loss-averse."

Prices set by traders with a losing morning were reversed faster than prices set by other traders, which the authors read as the market telling their trades apart from informed trading.

These were professionals on one exchange in one year, observed rather than tested, so the study shows a pattern, not a cause, and it says nothing about retail clients. Our own reading, which the study does not test, is that a client with less experience and less capital than a professional market maker has no more protection from the same pull.

## How to tell which way a product pushes

Two checks answer the question from the vendor's own materials, without relying on the vendor's description of itself.

The first is what the product counts as success. A results page that reports sessions or trades placed is measuring activity going up, and a product measured that way is built to produce it. A product built to slow the next decision has to be measured another way ([how to size that test](/blog/proof-has-a-sample-size)).

The second is what reaches a client after a losing trade. Ask for the messages and the scripts. An invitation to a competition or an offer to try again is built to raise activity at that moment, and a question about the client's own plan is built to slow it.

## Our own answer

A Discentra coaching call is placed after a warning sign in the firm's own trade data, such as [a fast, larger re-entry after a loss](/glossary/revenge-trading) or [a burst of trades](/glossary/overtrading). It is designed to slow the next decision: it says what it saw in the client's recent trades, asks a question, and points the client back to their own written plan, [without telling them to stop](/blog/the-coaching-call-never-says-stop). It never invites a trade or a deposit and never promotes anything. It cannot stop a trade: the client decides, and can decline the call. If a call turns up distress, Discentra alerts a named person at the firm. It is behavioural coaching, not financial advice.

Every call is recorded and transcribed, so a firm can check the direction in the calls themselves.

## Sources and notes

- **The Chicago study**: Joshua D. Coval and Tyler Shumway, "Do Behavioral Biases Affect Prices?", *Journal of Finance* 60(1), 2005, pages 1-34 ([publisher's record](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2005.00723.x)). The direction of the finding and the faster reversal of prices are in the published abstract, [read on RePEc/IDEAS](https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jfinan/v60y2005i1p1-34.html) on 16 October 2026. The quotation appears in the published abstract and in the abstract in the authors' repository, an earlier version ([BYU ScholarsArchive](https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/9284)); the "about 16 percent" figure appears only in the earlier version. The 31.2% and 27%, the larger and more frequent trades and the bigger positions, and the sample (1,082 traders, 426 market makers, more than 5 million transactions, 1998) are from the CFA Institute's summary of the published article ([CFA Digest, November 2005](https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/research/cfa-digest/2005/11/do-behavioral-biases-affect-prices-digest-summary)). We did not read the paper's own tables. Professional market makers on one exchange in one year: a pattern in observed trading, not an experiment, and not a finding about retail clients.
- **About 16% more likely**: 31.2 divided by 27 is 1.156. The relative figure needs its base, so the base is stated beside it: a 27% chance after a winning morning.
- **$200 to $2,000 per trader**: our working range for the cost of acquiring a trader, from our own research, with no published source. More on [the churn statistics page](/prop-firm-churn-statistics).
- **The retention features described**: read on vendors' own pages in October 2026. No firm, vendor or platform is named, and the post counts none.
## Frequently asked questions

### How can a trading platform increase trader retention without encouraging overtrading?

Ask which way each retention measure pushes a client's activity after a loss. Competitions, reminders to come back and discounted retries are designed to raise activity, and the hours after a loss are when that matters: in a study of Chicago futures market makers trading in 1998, those with a losing morning had a 31.2% chance of taking above-average risk that afternoon, against 27% after a winning morning. That study covered professionals, not retail clients; applying it to clients is our reading. Measures designed to slow the next decision, such as a coaching call that points the client back to their own plan, are built to push the other way. Whether either kind keeps clients longer is something a firm has to measure on its own clients.

### Do professional traders take more risk after a loss?

One large study found that they did. Joshua Coval and Tyler Shumway (Journal of Finance, 2005) studied Treasury-bond futures market makers trading their own accounts at the Chicago Board of Trade in 1998. Those with a losing morning had a 31.2% chance of taking above-average risk in the afternoon, against 27% after a winning morning: about 16% more likely. They also placed more and larger trades. The study observed professionals, not retail clients, and it shows a pattern in their trading, not a cause.

### What should a firm check before buying a retention tool?

Two things the vendor's own materials show. First, what the product counts as success: a tool reported on sessions or trades placed is built to raise activity. Second, what reaches a client after a losing trade: an invitation to a competition or an offer to try again is built to raise activity, and a question about the client's own plan is built to slow it. Neither check relies on the vendor's description of itself.


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This is a Markdown mirror of [https://discentra.ai/blog/which-way-does-your-retention-tool-push](https://discentra.ai/blog/which-way-does-your-retention-tool-push). Generated for LLM citation. © Discentra Ltd. Coaching, not financial advice.