You're about to hear the story of my most memorable trait, a trait that made me the humble traitor. Don't don't tell my mom hello my name is Shea AKA Humboldt Trader I'm a Trader and a YouTuber who talks about day trading? Let me introduce myself to my new viewers: I've been day trading for more than eight years now I Used to work a typical nine to seven job for many years, got fed up with it and then slowly prepared myself to quit my job to day trade full time. You probably heard about my immigrant stories. seeing my parents struggle with money, trying to adapt my life in North America and dealing with being bullied in school definitely built up a tough skin for me and showed me that I need to work hard to get a solid foundation under my feet.

But I never actually shared how I became the Humboldt Trader Why did I name myself and my YouTube channel like this? Well today I'll spill the beans and share my stories with you as long as you remember to smash the like button story time with Shay one was a beginner Trader I Was losing for almost two years before I started seeing any sorts of consistent green P L My P L curve in my first two years looked like the crypto chart starting from 2022. sorry bad joke I know I would make fifty dollars one day and the next day I'll lose a hundred the third day I would be so annoyed that would Revenge trade and lose another 60 dollars or even more. I Also joined many alert chat rooms if one didn't work. I will hop on to the next following.

others never worked. So yeah, my trading Journey was very much like most beginner. Traders I Don't know if it's just me, but day trading was more than just making money. It was like a computer game.

It was like trying to beat a gym leader at a high level. Pokemon Match I Knew I was terrible I knew I was not likely to win. but I also knew that if I keep on trying and keep training, my Pikachu I can slowly get better and eventually beating the gym leader for most beginner Traders Seeing old red Pmls after six months or even one year, they would have quit. However, while I did take many breaks, I always found myself wanting to come back to the market.

I was still very drawn to the challenge and all the market movements. Reflecting on my journey I figured that I did three things correctly in my beginner years. That eventually made me a better Trader The first thing I did was I kept my position sizing very small at 20 to 50 shares depending on the stock price. I was risking very little instead of swinging for fences and risking five hundred dollars or a thousand.

I was risking 20 bucks or 50 bucks per trade. The second best thing I did is that I kept my nine to seven job well started day trading even though I absolutely hated my job. but because of that employment income I never needed to make trading profits in order to live. In fact I kept on refunding my small account with my nine to seven paycheck.

The third thing which is also what matters most was that I didn't give up. My family and friends didn't understand how trading works and they thought I was insane. Insanity is repeating the same failure over and over again and to eventually become a profitable day trader? Yeah, you kind of have to be very insane at first. I mean when Elon Musk first started Tesla he was called crazy and insane many, many times Now 20 years later he's a genius.

He's a crazy genius. So with persistence and hard work, I finally started seeing some progress in year two. I was still losing, but I was losing less and less. and most importantly, my losses were a lot smaller than my profits.

Then I finally flipped my P L Yes my friends, you know I'm about to mention Risk Management Risk Management. Lack of Risk Management. Including Risk Management Risk Management. Risk Management.

Risk Management is the second most frequent thing that I mentioned on a channel. almost as frequent as Lamborghinis. I Only turned my trading around after implementing some strict risk management. And no, it didn't change my trading results overnight.

But just like going to the gym and working out, the results are noticeable only after a long period of time. Finally, near the end of year two, I went from red to green after losing around seventeen thousand dollars. At this point, you must be thinking okay, Shay so you lost seventeen thousand dollars and became profitable Trader after that is that why you were humbled? Oh no. I wish that was all the money I lost now I'm just getting into the juicy Parts Here Nine months after going red to Green I found consistency in trading and I was also making an average two times more than my nine to seven job.

I finally quit my Dreadful job to day trade full time. Everything seems great I finally accomplished my dream that I set out to do almost three years ago. Everything after going full time should be sunshines and rainbows and leading us straight to Lamborghini land. right? Well, it seems like I was on the way there until Snapchat stock showed up.

You're about to hear the story of my most memorable trade. A trade that made me the humble. Trader The Snapchat IPO was probably the hottest Topic in the beginning of 2017. Remember this is before there was such a thing called crypto meme stocks or specs for people to YOLO their money into all the Millennials and anyone watching the stock market was following the snap.

IPO I was waiting for two days after the IPO rang up and shorted a stock down after the huge rally. This is a classic momentum trade after the news event is done. As you can see on this chart after IPO at 24 dollars and selling off from the highs at 29. Snapchat, stock had continued a downtrend trajectory to a low of 11 and 12 dollars.

However, your girl here decided to start putting on a swing short position here after this huge multi-month sell-off My thesis was at the time was that the company had extremely inflated market cap. Despite the underlying business not looking so great, they were burning cash faster than Jerome Powell could have printed them and was further convinced that the stock is going back to single digits after some extremely terrible earnings in August and November of 2017. So I entered my swing short position around the 1550s average in late November and was ready to kick back collect my profits with a price target of eight to nine dollars. And at first my trade worked out according to plan You can see on the charts here the stock tanked from 15 to 14.

despite the small bounds, it tanked after earnings down to 12 dollars. but instead of taking some partial profits, I added even more at around 13 because I really believe that the stock should be trading in single digits. This mistake put me at a greater risk than I originally intended. While it turned out I was right on my thesis and price Target but I was just one whole year too early.

almost right after I added more position shorts, the stock bounced huge. It went right back to 15 and traded around sixteen dollars. This is the area where I really should have just stopped out because now my average is in the mid 14. Not only did I not cut the loss, I continued to add even more short positions and covering some for a loss in order to average up at the same time I Had to move sunlight funds for my day trading to swing trading accounts in order to maintain my margin.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the worst combo meal you could have ordered. bag holding plus adding on to a losing position for months I couldn't sleep at night I was extremely stressed and they were just weak so I just stared at the Snapchat stock charts the entire day I couldn't concentrate on my day trade I didn't want to go out I didn't want to talk to anyone else I just stayed at home glued to my computer praying that snap would tank. I Remember in February 2018, the market was tanking hard and selling off. It was around the break-even point with my existing Snapchat position at around 1370s, but keep in mind I covered some for a loss much earlier on around 15 and 14s in my mind I thought hey, the Market's selling off.

That should help with my short position I knew that was an excuse I should have covered my remaining position for basically Break Even but I was so stubborn and I didn't want to admit that I was wrong On the evening of February 5th Snapchats reported earnings and they blew it out of the park. The revenue was up as well as the user growth. The stock absolutely rallied after hours. That was the moment I knew Oh my.

God I blew it. So the next morning I was margin called and forced to cover at 19. A margin call is when a broker closes down your positions for you because of the unrealized loss is breaching margin maintenance of 25 percent I was so exhausted from bag holding the last four months I Remember just closing down that trade, liquidated all my other positions at the same time, and shut down everything, and went back to bed as if that could allow myself to escape reality I Remember logging back into my account one whole week later, adding in all the previous transactions I lost I had lost a total of forty seven thousand dollars on the swing short position on Snapchat Don't tell my mom, forty seven thousand dollars was more than half of my trading account balance at the time. my pre-planned risk on the swing trade was only ten thousand dollars.

I Was extremely disappointed in myself for going down this downward spiral of breaking rule after rule for so many months and ignoring all the principles that follow strictly to allow myself to go red to green and became consistently profitable I got too complacent and thought finally now as a full-time day trader making six figures and still growing I was better than the market but clearly I let my pride get the best of me and I paid some Hefty price for this huge mistake. Even though this loss isn't the biggest loss of my trading career, I think it's still by far the most memorable because of the amount of time I spent back holding the stock and how much toll that took on my emotional health and ultimately affected my life and my relationships in real life. Maybe that's why I really swing shorts anymore Nowadays The pain of getting short squeezed for months left me traumatized. I was extremely humbled after that experience and I want to make sure I share my painful story and all the lessons I learned with other Traders hence the name Humboldt Trader this name will serve as a reminder for myself that if you forego risk management and your discipline, the market will catch up with you and the punishment will not be fun.

My trading Journey continued after the Snapchat loss. later that year I met some traders who were seeking guidance on Reddit together with Oren who was my trading Mentor at the time we created a private and free group for Traders I Also slowly recovered my confidence enough to help more and more beginners. Based on my experience at the time, Orang had a nickname called The Oracle. While I was wondering what my nickname should be, it was these trading group members who joined me since day one who inspired me to pick up the name Humboldt Trader and eventually giving birth to my very own humble Trader Community Today, the Humble Trader Community is supported by over seven trading coaches and over 900 members.

Of course, risk management stays as the number one rule in our community. Hopefully my story of being really humbled by the market can remind you and all the Traders watching this to respect risk management, your process and discipline. Remember those things will be your key to consistent profitability. Thank you guys so much for watching! As always, I'm the Humble Trader and I'll see you guys next time Foreign.

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