Max Loss Red Day... transcript

What's up everyone? All right, well, today's day 43 of my small account challenge of growing a $2,000 account using Charles Schwab as my broker and it is a red day recap max loss. I'm currently trading from inside my mobile command center. This is a 4x4 Sprinter with a Starlink mounted on the roof, two solar panels, and a battery bank right under this bench, 24-in monitors hanging right here under the bed so I can [music] trade from pretty much anywhere that I can drive to.

Right now, I'm off-grid in northern Canada. And you know, I've been having a a good trip. I haven't taken as many trades in the small account this past week because the market hasn't been that strong. And so why did I take a trade today? Well, I'm asking myself that same question in fact. I'll I'll try to answer it as we go through this recap. There were there was justification for the trade that I took. It did not work out well.

I am down more than $8,000 on this trade, which is very discouraging considering that my account was at $99,400, just $600 shy of crossing over 100 grand. And now I'm back down to, you know, 91,500 or whatever it is. So yeah, that's a setback. Financial setback, sure. Also mental setback, but that's trading is constantly getting dealt with these mental setbacks and then being able to get back on the horse. And as you've seen me go through this challenge, this is certainly not my first red day and it's not my biggest red day either.

I've had a number of decent size red days that have each been, you know, very discouraging in their own right and so today's is as well. It's also a red day in my main account. So I'm double red today. Oh, bummer. All right, let's get into it and start breaking it down. So as always, all the profits from these small account account challenges get donated charity and the red days are even that much more disappointing because it's less money that I have in the account that I'll be able to donate.

So, right now we've raised $494,000 for charity. I've already donated $495,000, and we donated 50 children's hospitals across the country, one for each state, plus we did Puerto Rico, DC, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands, which is pretty special. So, today coming into day 43, our top gainer scanner was pretty abysmal. We had MIMI, which is a 75 million share volume stock, as you can see right here, trading with a 12 million share float.

But unfortunately, the problem that I had with MIMI was that it was just too cheap. So, at a dollar and 12 cents, I had no interest in it. So, no trades on that. GELS, same same issue, it's too cheap. Now, TYT LYs, this one's kind of interesting. It's got a 15 million share float. I'll pull up the chart on it really quickly. TLYs And what you can see on this one is that it had a move after hours, then it pulled back, then it pops up here, and then it pulls back again.

So, very volatile, nothing really that I felt that I could trust on that one. And then we have GIPR and a few others, none of which were particularly interesting. So, all of a sudden at about 7 9:17, we get a scanner alert of AEHL. And I had already been watching AEHL because it had in fact popped up earlier today. So, AEHL had put in a squeeze a bit earlier in the morning, and I sat here patiently not trading it. And this is the same as yesterday, sitting patiently, waiting, waiting, waiting.

And yesterday at about 9:15, we had BIAF that popped up right here yesterday at 9:15, and then goes from $7 all the way up to 11. And so, what I I of started thinking was that maybe we'd have a repeat of that today. A stock that suddenly pops up, traders jump on it, and that becomes the one trade. Because often traders get into this pattern where if it works, you know, if a setup works during this time, then they go for the next one at the same time, the next similar stock.

And so, as AEHL started to break through this pivot about um let's see. What was it? Seven 750 right right back in this area. I thought, "Okay, you know, I think this one uh is going to be the one." And so, we get this squeeze here on it all the way up to the high of uh what was it? Goes up to uh 869. And then once again, we have a chart where the stock goes you know, straight up. Makes a great move. And that's it. That's it.

We didn't get any more opportunities than that. And that makes it it makes it really hard, and it makes it really frustrating. And so, the stock did meet my five pillars of stock selection based on how much it was up on the day, the relative volume. It did not have news, so about four out of the five. The price was fine, and the float was fine. And so, I end up um getting a trade right through here. And in my small account, I bought this little pullback.

Well, actually, I bought um more like right up here where I thought it was about to break and push higher. And it didn't happen. It just stalled out and went sideways. And then I I actually stopped out um right at the open right here into this big red candle. I wanted to wait to the open cuz I thought maybe this would pop here through 850. And of course, it didn't. And so, this is just a classic one pop. That's it. And then sideways, which is very hard to manage risk on, it's very hard to trade.

And so, down 8,200 in my big account, down 8,400 in the small account. And it's discouraging. It's a setback, you know, it I mean, look, obviously you guys have seen me have some incredible green days. Of course, I can make this back in one good day. That's it's not a a loss where I'm like, "Oh gosh, will I ever recover?" It's nothing like that, but it's discouraging. And it's frustrating. I think one of the hardest parts about trading, obviously, are red days.

And during And then the second hardest part is trading through colder markets. Because during a colder market, you feel like I'm doing all the things that worked so well last month. What's going on? Why are these pullbacks not working? Why are they not going higher? And the shift is that there's it is is bigger than you. It's not that there's anything wrong with those patterns, exactly. It's that sentiment across the board has softened.

And that's the reality. Sentiment has softened. And um typically, what I do during these periods is I take money out of my account. You know, I just say, "You know what? I'm I'm not messing with this. I'm just I'm taking money out of my account. I'm going to drop it down to a smaller account balance." That way, if I get frustrated or stubborn, I really don't have the buying power to go that heavy anyways. Um and I haven't done that.

You know, I've been letting the account grow so I have the buying power to continue trading, um sort of increasingly aggressively. And that works as long as the market continues to be pretty strong. But we're now having our first real cold stretch um since Well, jeez, I guess probably since the spring. Uh and even though it's only been like a week and a half, we don't know how long it'll last. It might be several weeks.

It might only be, you know, a couple more days, but it could be longer. So, in the meantime, I don't want to continue to bleed red days like this day after day after day. That's not going to work so well. You know, I'm just going to deplete my account. So, my options are sit on the sidelines and be patient knowing that I had some great profit from when the market was hot and those profits can tide me over while it's colder and no doubt things will pick up again.

Um trade with very small size just to kind of keep myself in the mindset of being active. Uh but I can still that can still lead to frustration and and you know, disappointment and then sometimes a bigger loss is the result because once you break the ice then next thing you know, it's like I'll just keep trading and you go from being down 600 to being down 8,500 or 10,000 or whatever it is. So, the safer thing is to sit on the sidelines and to wait it out.

And once you see see stocks starting to go up, you know, 80 100 150% again, you know, then that's the cue that okay, the sentiment has shifted back to the buy side. Now we are seeing a tailwind. And that's exactly what it feels like. It feels right now like swimming against the current. There's just this resistance on you know, everything it feels like. And when it's hot, it feels like you're swimming with the current.

It just everything is going in your direction, which is a great feeling. But um you know, that doesn't last forever, but neither does this. So, uh being able to adjust to these shifts in the market is one of the most important skills to learn and I'm grateful that I've been able to, you know, keep my risk in check as much as I have uh but I still feel like I have room for improvement here. This is a bigger red day than I would have liked to have taken, especially with the account being so close to crossing over $100,000.

Mm, bummer. All right, well, looks like I'm going to be uh still at this challenge for a little while longer. So, that's it for me and I'll remind you guys um for those of you who haven't already checked out our two-week trial, you can actually watch over my shoulder as I'm trading. You see the ups, but you also see the downs. I make mistakes. I'm human. There are days where, you know, things don't work out the way I'd like them to and it's a red day.

But you get to see that and you get to learn from it. So, I hope you guys check out the 2-week trial. The link's pinned at the top of the comments. And I'll remind you as always that trading is risky. My results aren't typical and there is no guarantee I'll find success whether you trade with me or you learn on your own. So, your best bet is to always practice in a simulator before putting real money on the line. With that, I'll see you guys back at it bright and early for day 44 tomorrow.