Stopping Out with a Big Loss... transcript

What's up everyone? All right. Well, I'm going to do a recap and get it done because I'm not too happy today. [music] It's a red day recap. I'm finishing down about 2x the cold market daily goal. I mean, grand scheme of things, it's nothing. But the context is that this week has been a struggle. The whole week has been a struggle. And it feels like every day this week I've gone green and then gone red and then struggled to get back to green.

I don't think that's been true every single day, but it feels that way. And today I got green on the first trade and on the second trade I was at 2x the daily goal. I took a third trade and on that third trade I gave back 3x my daily goal and went from green to red, which is where I sit right now. And it's a tough way to finish the week, you know, and there's nothing I can do about it. It is what it is, you know. I could I could keep trading.

Is that a good idea? No, because now I'm emotionally triggered. I'm emotionally compromised because I'm frustrated. I'm annoyed. So, that's not a good place to trade from. What that's going to do statistically is double the loss. And then it gets bigger and bigger. Now, probably the best thing I did this week was keep my share size in check. So, the total scope of the green days, I was never up more than 3x. The total scope of the red days, I was never down more than 3x.

So, I kept everything within a pretty tight range of cold market daily goals, which is good. I mean, I think that that's improvement, but nonetheless, I'm in the red and I'm discouraged about it. Kit, this one got me. You know, I I don't know what to say. I I jumped on it. First trade on it was a um was a nice winner. 1x the daily cold market goal. Jumped in uh right here on this micro pullback. Boom. Punch that. Ends up going up over a dollar a share.

So, I get in at 550. It goes up to 650. I sell. Instant winner. I get back in for the break of 7 $ 750. It goes up to a high of$839 and then flushes right here down to 561 and I've got a 730 average. I'm down almost $2 a share. It bounces back up for a second, but with 10,000 shares, I flip from green to red on it. And it is what it is. I lost $1.80 80 cents a share basically uh or on 10,000 shares. I guess maybe I had more at one point, but it it doesn't matter.

And look at this. Just kind of does this slow unwind. So, it's a it's a tough finish to the week. Um I never like to finish the week kind of walking away with my tail between my legs, but um that is how it is today. So, Wheeler uh was the first stock I traded this morning. Give you context, big picture. Um yesterday the market was pretty cold. We didn't have a lot going on. You know, that was discouraging. INLF. Um, you know, this one started after hours, continues to pre-market, and to me it looks more like a grinder.

You know, it's moving higher, but it's clearly got ascending resistance. It's not super clear. And um, you know, it just it just is the way it is. So, I said no trades for that one. MGLD, this was a buyout at $2 a share. So, trade sideways. A IFF, this one's a little cheaper. So, uh, popped up, dipped down, back up here. There's nothing really for me on that one. Um, Apus continuation, but remember how difficult it was yesterday.

It kept having these, um, topping tails and it did it again today. So, I wasn't interested in that. And when Wheeler popped up, I thought, I don't know about this. It's a Isn't this just a bounce off the low on the daily chart? Switch back to the daily here. uh had the big move on uh Wednesday, but that was also in sympathy to Jag X. But nonetheless, Wheeler popped up and so I broke the ice on Wheeler. I took my first trade on it and I got in, let's see, where was this?

Um, so I got in right here at six. That was my entry. Boom. Right there. Pops up to seven. I'm in and out. That was my profit. Done. That was it. Got in, got out. Wheeler pulled back, curled back up a little bit. I did try one uh second trade down here at about 580 for a dip and a curl. Didn't work. Got back out basically flat. And so that was Wheeler. Jag X then starts to pop up and I said, you know, I don't think Jag X is going to work so well because look at Wheeler.

It popped and then gave it all back. Uh and then so I had no other trades. And then when KITT popped up at 9:00 a.m. I thought, okay, boom, this is squeezing at 9. To be honest, I think this was a little bit of a trap because in fact, there was no news at 9:00 a.m., but it started popping right at 9:00 a.m. So, it starts popping up. All of a sudden, it's up 70% on the day, which makes it our second leading gainer. I jump in right there for the breakthrough 550 for a squeeze to six.

We get the the big squeeze. I jump in and add back. Adding back. That was the mistake. But how do you know? You know, when your first trade's a good winner, I typically will add back. That's usually the right move. it wasn't the right move today and I I lacked the presence of mind to hold myself back from adding back but you know fortunately when I did add back um you know I I didn't go heavier than I did and I was able to you know I mean look again like grand scheme of things and I think this is always important is take a step back look at the big picture so you know this is where I'm at for this week um you know this is or this is like the last week and a half whatever So, you know, those are some big red days.

Really big. Um, in fact, I feel I feel the same level of frustration I felt on those days. Perhaps even more. I don't know why. Um, maybe because the last seven days or eight days have been such a grind. Um, this week has been such a grind that it's like, you know, struggling kind of just to get some decent trades and not go red on the day. You know, so many of these days I've uh you know, you could see green to red and then the recovery.

It's like h come on this here, green to red, then the recovery. Um I think that was the same with maybe this day here as well. No, that was just a decent day. Well, at least there was one decent day this week. Uh let's It doesn't matter anyways. Let's go check Monday, but I went back too far. So, yeah, this week. Um well, why don't we why don't we go ahead and just look at the last seven days. Um, so last seven days accuracy is pretty decent, but the profit loss ratio is terrible, right?

So the average losers are much bigger. And that's kind of what's happening is that I'm occasionally catching these big losses. Um, and that happened today. You know, small winners and then one loss wipes it out. So even though I only took like four trades today, I'm red. And that's a little bit um and even though I had decent accuracy today, green on three out of the four trades, I'm red because of the one outlier loss.

And that's been a big challenge in this market where we've been seeing such big swings that it's really easy to get caught on the wrong side and suddenly be down one or$2 dollars a share. And you know, that's the reason that I scaled back share size. Um, you know, towards the end of last week, I was like, you know what? I got to just tighten it up for next week. And, uh, to be honest, I should I tighten it up even more for for the week ahead?

Um, I don't see any reason I should increase my share size based on this week. I really don't. Uh, I don't see any reason at all. So, I I kind of think I probably should tighten it up. Um, bring it down a little bit more. I just don't I don't see right now the justification uh to trade with bigger size right now. I it's just not there. Uh there are times when absolutely I got to size up. Now the one issue this week was that we had uh was it Pmax?

We had the cheaper stock that No, it wasn't PMAX. This is the one that was halted yesterday. It doesn't matter though. We had the cheaper stock this week and on that one I was trading 50 60,000 share positions cuz it was so cheap and I was making like 3 and 4 cents a share 1,500 bucks 2,000 bucks. Ended up being up 22 on that on the day on that. Now that offset the 22 loss on IMCC. So they cancel each other out. Finish the day only small green.

But um yeah, we're not in a market that justifies uh trading big size. So, to be totally honest, I should probably take a bunch of money out of my account. That's typically what I would do after a month like September. I would just say, you know what? I'm going to draw the balance down because the extra cash sitting there isn't doing me any favors. It's not helping me. I don't need that buying power. It's allowing me to be more aggressive than I probably should um you know, in a moment of emotional compromise.

Not that that happened today, but just in general. Uh, so, you know, take the money out, you know, put it somewhere else. And so maybe, um, although Lightseed's not going to like it and I'm going to transfer out a ton of money, um, you know, maybe I'll maybe I'll just do that and drop the balance back down. And, uh, sometimes what I'll do when things are really uh, kind of tricky like this is I'll do a small account challenge.

You know, I'll just bring the account way back down and and I kind of say, look, I'm just going to sort of press the reset button here and go back to basics. Um, you know, I just finished the small account challenge last week, the 2K to 100K, so I'm not really thinking that I'm going to reset for like Monday or anything like that, but um but I I think right now we're in the trenches and I'm grateful that this year has been um you know, overall year to date as good as it's been.

Um we've got a lot to be grateful for. uh you know, but obviously the last um the last couple weeks, uh you know, end of August, whatever, September, um has been a little bit of a grind. Let's see. So, you know what? I've been noticing this. So, this is showing 23. Um so, it's not actually I got to refresh this. I don't know what they did. They did something where it's just like sometimes doesn't refresh. Um so, yeah, that's been the year.

As of right now, all things considered, I'd say it's a pretty solid year. Uh 2.1 2.2 too uh you know take away eight from today. So yeah, it's not really worth getting too bent out of shape, but uh I think it's it's clearly not the dollar amount that's getting me frustrated. There's something more, right? Is it the feeling of losing? The feeling of being wrong, the disappointment, the feeling of spinning my wheels, just sort of not making any progress.

Maybe those are bigger emotional contributors than the dollar amount in total. I know some of you guys trade with very small um you know position sizes, so your up ups and downs aren't really financially significant, but they can be still very emotional. So, uh there's always opportunity to kind of look a little below the surface and try to figure out what's really driving this feeling of anger, frustration or disappointment. and um you know is there something I can do there to help myself cope with it better?

Um, you know, it's look, everyone gets frustrated, you know, and it doesn't matter what what your job is. You know, you have a job, uh, I don't know, let's say you're building a stone wall or whatever, and you've been building it all week, but I don't know, [clears throat] the weather's not great. You know, you've got a limited window in the summer to get work done, and now you've got a week of bad weather. You're doing the best you can.

It's miserable. And then, you know, on Friday you maybe you're being a little sloppy, whatever, whatever. You break a piece of equipment and that's going to cost you five grand. You know, you break, I don't know, whatever it is. It's a blade on a saw or something like that. And now you're like, well, gosh darn, I just made a bad situation worse. And you come home, you're thinking, it was just a rough week. It was a bad day.

And so, we all have those feelings. Um, now I usually try to muscle through it, you know. I mean, I show up every day. I just, you know, you just keep, you just keep working. You just keep showing up. You get through it. And, you know, you get to the other side. And when it's tough, it doesn't last forever. And when it's hot, it doesn't last forever either, right? So, you won't always lose, but you won't always win. And so, you know, days like today, um, in the grand scheme of things, I won't remember this day, uh, in in terms of the gains or losses probably even a month from now.

So, you know, this is just part of the ups and downs of being a trader and you got to be able, you know, to let it go. And so this these recaps are helpful for me uh personally journaling. It's a way of journaling essentially where I you know kind of talk through what I did and um you know upload it and then it I put it behind me and I let it be watered under the bridge whether I'm green on the day or I'm red on the day.

Now it's watered under the bridge and I move on. So, the last thing that I want to do is finish this recap and then pull back up my level two and get back into trying to trade something that's moving because then what I'm going to do is I'm going to put myself right back in the emotional state I was in when I began this recap where I was feeling frustrated, right? And I'm going to go back to trying to recoup what I lost and you know, you anchor yourself to the number and now you're focusing on your P&L, not on trading the market that's in front of you.

The market in front of us today is is a is a challenge and it's been a challenge this week, but August and September are typically my worst months of the year. And so this is not really a shock that it's, you know, this year is proving to be challenging during this time. Um, if I do my overview and my year and month, um, let's see. You know, this is where we're at right now. So, not of course including today's gains or losses.

So, April was the worst uh before September and we only have 3 days left in the month of September. So, you know, look, who knows? Maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday next week are great. We got a nice rally. Beginning of the week typically is better than the end of the week. So, it might end up being tied more or less with April. But compared to June, it's a real fall from uh those gains. But this is the way it's always been.

You know, I look at any other year. Um, let's see. We'll go to um Oh, I'll just I was going to go to a different year. So, we go to like 2024. I don't know. 2024. Let's look at this. So, 2024, um, you know, it was March that was the worst. And then things got kind of better and better going into the end of the year. It was impressive. 2023, 2023, it was March also. you know, September and August were a little slower.

Um, so, you know, you you just never know. There's always going to be a tough month. There it was April. Um, here it was the beginning of the year, January and February, November. Um, March and October. What was this one? February and August and September, which was more typical. August and September, April, September, February, May. So, you know, look, it's just the way it goes. Anyways, um I hope you guys had a better week than I did, but um even if it was a little bit of a challenge for you as well, keep your head up, do your journaling, and then reset and let's be back at it bright and early on Monday morning.

I'll remind you guys as always that trading is risky and my results aren't typical. And I'll see you guys streaming at 7 a.m. on Monday. Please take it slow and always practice in a simulator before putting real money on the line.