Hey, everyone All right. So in this episode, I'm going to talk about losing 150 000 day trading. Whoa. That's a lot of money.

Um, I want to put it in context a little bit. The topic is not as much about losing the money a little bit. it's more about how to recover. How to get yourself re-centered after a huge loss.

A catastrophic loss. Whatever that means for you, you may wonder just because you lose 150 000 day trading, what makes you qualified? What makes me qualified to talk about it and provide any insight about how to make back money or anything like that. So let me just put up my full screen here. So this is this: Uh, this month.

This month has been a disaster for me. Truly a disaster. But to give you context, this is my, uh, total trading gain in gross profit since 2016.. So that's about six.

well, 6.6 million dollars. But what I'm experiencing right now in this short period of time is a terrible cold streak. A terrible draw down. um, a bigger draw down than I than I've ever had.

Although I am fortunate that I had a really good month in December where I made, uh, actually, a little over seven hundred thousand dollars in gross profit. So being down 150 000 right now, relatively speaking, given that perspective, is certainly not the end of the world. but it is emotionally devastating. There's no doubt about it.

And being read: 150 000 on the month, uh, or some somewhere around there is a it's not great, it's there's nothing good about that. So you know wherever you're at in your trading. My hope is that this video will serve to help you. So if you've had, uh, a series of losses, perhaps you can't put things in context of say, well, I'm down 150 000 But at least I made 600 last month.

Perhaps you're just down 150 000? There's no. There's no way to say it. other than that, you're just down. Maybe it's fifty thousand.

Maybe it's a hundred thousand. Maybe it's a million. Whatever it is, you're down a large amount of money, whether it's in trading or investing, and you're trying to figure out how how can I even continue on. So from someone who has been through many periods of ups and downs over my uh, career as a trader and I call it a career, of course I've been doing this for long enough that you call it a career, but even if I just look at back at the last, well, I'll just look to April of 2020.

So let's just look here at this this equity curve and I'll just zoom in on this just a little bit so you can see here through this period of time. 4.8 million dollars in gross profit. Uh, obviously some periods here in the beginning where profit was kind of slow and then a couple of really nice hot streaks. Things cooled off a little bit and then heated back up.

Cooled off quite a bit through this period Here, this is about almost month and a six week period of really making not a lot open back up. Another slow period in here. Open back up, obviously a draw down right there and then opening back up again before coming into this draw down right now, which is sitting right here before today's trades and today's another red day. You actually will know how much I'm read.

I won't know because I have a piece of tape covering this P. L right here and I'll talk about why I'm doing that. um, during this episode. So I am definitely sitting on the biggest drawdown that I've had.

Uh, in my career, I've never had a red month as red as this one is. I've never had a year go this far in the red before. uh, going green. I've never had a red day as big as the red day I had just on, uh, on Tuesday.

So sixty Six thousand dollars. I mean, these are really big numbers that I'm that I'm dealing with here, but I have gone through periods of cold streaks and extended slow periods in the market and out of each one of them, I have recovered and so I want to talk about what my game plan is for myself to get out of this current slump that I'm in and I hope that this is something you'll be able to watch months or years from now that will also be able to help you. So first of all, let's acknowledge the fact that when you experience a loss in trading, experiencing financial loss triggers reactions in the same part of your brain where the fight-or-flight response comes from the amygdala. And the problem with that is that financial loss therefore triggers this primitive sort of reptilian brain.

If you want to call it that, that is very easily that part of your brain is where you have. That fight or flight response is where you start having emotionally fueled responses. You you become what we would call in this industry: emotionally hijacked, meaning that you're acting at that point. Once you're in that full fight or flight response, you're acting totally on emotion.

and so the typical response then is you experience loss and fight or flight comes out and the instinct is to fight and to try to revenge, trade, To try to make back that loss as quickly as possible. The feeling of loss is a feeling of discomfort. It's not one that any of us like and to immediately alleviate that feeling, the best way is to hit a big winner because then you're no longer experiencing a loss, you're back to all-time highs. and just like that, the feeling is gone.

And because certainly as a trader, you'll probably have had a time where you've done exactly that and and realized how good it feels to go from being read on the day to being green. You're very apt to fall into that habit of trying to revenge trade to dig yourself out of the hole. Unfortunately, throwing Hail Mary passes sometimes leads to an interception and the opposite team scores a touchdown and now you've just gone from, you know, maybe break even or whatever the case is. Uh, you know, tied to, uh, in pretty bad shape with only perhaps in this analogy, uh, two weeks left on on the month, or two, two minutes left in the game to try to get yourself back in the driver's seat.

Now, with only two minutes left in the game with only two weeks left in the month now, I'm even more likely to throw a Hail Mary pass because truly, a Hail Mary pass that works is my only chance at recovering. And now you're starting to see a team flailing and next thing you know, a second interception. Boom right back down to another touchdown. And this is just getting humiliating.

Traders experiencing, experience it a sports team. athletes experience it. It's not. It's not by any means exclusive to trading, and so this, uh, this sort of behavioral behavioral response.

This emotional response is one that's really worth dialing into and trying to understand better if you want to become a better trader. Ultimately, for me, my goal at some point will be to experience loss, to have a red day like the second day of the month here where I gave back everything I gave and made in the previous day and not allow that because you can obviously see that on this day an emotional response was triggered. I took 75 trades, I was up 30 000 and finished the day at my all-time lows having multiple opportunities to walk away break even. now.

I knew that without even clicking on the day because I saw I took 75 trades. I can tell you that this was a bad day. This was not a great day and you know, some of these days maybe were okay, but this one actually was red and then I rallied to be green. It was not a great day either.

So generally speaking, um, this has not been a good well. generally speaking, it's been a terrible month. Um, but something that's important here when I start a month in the red. Immediately from that point forward, I'm measuring the month based on my P.

L. and I'm I know that I'm read on the month and so immediately I start to get into this mindset, feeling the loss of emotional trading and trying to recoup that loss as quickly as possible. And so if we look back, actually at November of 2020, I had a similar experience where I went red. Uh, right away.

On day one, I started. I tried on day two to get green. I really couldn't. Day three I I had another red day.

Day four I got really aggressive. I had a green day. day five. Back in the red, a nice stretch here and then a couple more red days and then back in the red and this right here.

This actually, I believe these two days put me back to break even on the month. With those two days, you know, Fourth Quarter, I'm We were in the lead and now we're tied. And that's when I started to get emotionally aggressive here and here and here and here. Look at that.

80 trades, 95 trades, I was grasping at straws. I was hoping for anything that could get me back into the driver's seat. On a month where I start strong, I build confidence and I often continue strong. And even on these two days here where I did take big losses, I was comforted by the fact that I was still up over a hundred thousand dollars on the year, even after those, or on the on the month even after those two losses.

And so because of that, even though I had a bit of an experience of feeling loss off the top uh, I, I was able to look at the glass half full and say yes, I've given back a little, but I'm still green, you know? So that's going from being 20 points in the lead to being only 10 points in the lead. We're still in the lead, so let's not get too bent out of shape. But that was not The case here for January. So for January, um, on these three days, I was battling every single day going red and then green.

or being green. and then red. And so each of those days that battle, so to speak, triggered that emotional fight. The fight to try to get green, and the fight, and and then the the temptation to try to throw a Hail Mary pass.

And so I would say these last 15 days or fit well 15 calendar days. But these last 10 trading days including today have been some of my most erratic and aggressive days of trading that I've probably ever had. I've taken massive positions with 50 and 100 000 shares. I've had some huge winners, but those were only Hail Mary passes that were getting me down a little bit less on the month, and I probably needed two or three of them to actually get me green.

and I've had a number of trades I had to trade today where I was holding a position. I was up 50 cents on it. I didn't take any off the table. I said, i'm I, I'm not selling it unless I get back to, you know, unless it goes over this price.

which means I'm going to be up this amount on the trade. And so now the trading starts to become erratic and irrational. And I'm sure that this relates to anyone who has been in the market as a trader for any period of time that you'll find yourself asking yourself, why am I trading like this? Why am I being so aggressive? Unfortunately, when you get into this position where you're in the red and you're trying to make back losses, that analytical and intellectual part of your mind has taken a back seat and is hijacked by that emotional, aggressive part of you part of me that is dealing with the fight or flight response and is trying desperately to recoup losses. So I'll go to split screen while I'm talking.

Um, so the question is I I guess regardless of how you got into this position, Uh, and I'm just going to pretend right now as if I'm not still green versus the last 90 days because that in a way, it's just it puts the loss in perspective. Uh, so if you are green in the last 90 days, but you know you've had two really big red days, then it is important to put it in perspective. But I also want to acknowledge that many of you watching this may not have the luxury of being able to put it in that type of perspective and you're just net negative. So I'm just going to say right now that I'm red on the year and I'm red on the month and red on the week.

and this is the worst two two-week stretch of trading that I've ever had. And just like probably anyone else that's in a performance based career, I feel that it is incredibly important for me to finish the year green obviously finish the month green hopefully and to turn this around really really quickly because this is not okay and what I'm doing is not working. So yesterday I tried to do something a little differently. There's a couple of different tools that I want to share with you to help get yourself re-centered after having this type of this type of rut or the being in this type of situation.

So the first one is what we call Trader Rehab. So Trader Rehab is something that I've done several times. I've put myself into Trader Rehab. The last time that I was in an official trade of Rehab was April of last year and during Trader Rehab I begin the usually it's in it happens that I finish a bad month and I'm like, okay, that's it, I had a red month.

I can't do this again next month. so you know, February 1st potentially could be day one of Trader Rehab. Although I could just start now. But let's just talk about what that is.

So during Trader Rehab I um, I adhere to a very strict set of rules regarding position size, share size, and max loss. And so I think the last time I did it, I set my max size at 6 000 or maybe 5 000 shares which for me is is quite small and I think I set my daily max loss at like a thousand dollars or something like that. So if I triggered the max loss, I wouldn't be able to take any more trades. And I there was no way I could take more than, uh, 5 000 shares.

Now the initial response. So we just sit for a moment. when I on a day like today, if I say, well, Ross, how about on Monday morning you restrict yourself to 6 000 shares? That fight or flight part of me is still in charge right now. and that part of me is saying no, no way.

And so I say, why are you resistant to trading with small size? Because if I trade with small size, I have no hope at making back this enormous loss by the end of the month. That may be true, and perhaps throwing a Hail Mary pass would be the only way to score a touchdown and possibly tie the game. Uh, but perhaps you're at a place where even tying the game is not realistic. So is it worth someone get? Is it worth a team member getting injured Or do we just throw in the towel and say this was a bad game? Let's just come back and regroup in the locker room, right? So the emotional part of me says no way, I would rather quit.

It's not. And that's now flight. I would rather walk away and stop trading And then trade with only 2 000 shares or 6 000 shares. You know how long it'll take me with 6 000 shares to make back 150, 000, right? That's that whole train of thought.

That's that conversation. Now that's obviously a very emotionally fueled perspective, and the intellectual part of me knows that what I really, really need right now is some space between this roller coaster, whirlwind, crazy trading. And you know, I just need some space between me and that. And the only thing that's going to really give me that space is time.

And so what I ultimately need is a period of a week or two weeks just to get some space from it so the emotions can come back down because the the P L equity curve that I've been experiencing here for these last. Um, that just for this this month? Um, 1, 1 21. Um, while my while this is happening, my emotions are going crazy. I mean they are just going all over the place.

It's and it's not healthy and it's not clearly producing good quality trading. So Trader Rehab is designed to give me and anyone else that prescribes to it some space between the pain of that loss because you need that space to let the emotions come back down so you can start to get re-centered Now, it may be true that trading with 2 000 shares or 6 000 shares will give me almost no hope of making back as much as I've lost this month or however much you're read in a period of you know, the next two weeks or something like that. And what's the motivation for trying to make it back that quickly? The motivation for trying to make it back that quickly is that the faster you make it back, the sooner you can stop feeling terrible about yourself. You think I feel good about myself right now? You think I feel good about doing a video about losing 150 000 and being read 150 grand? I don't.

The comments, no doubt are gonna be people saying you're an idiot. You're a terrible trader. You should be ashamed of yourself though. And those comments are my internal dialogue of my inner critic criticizing me.

Perhaps the comments will be positive of: you've got this man. You've done this before. You made five million dollars gross profit last year. What are you even worrying about? You know you're good.

You just have to wait till the market picks back up. Maybe there'll be a lot of positive comments? I don't know, but I hope there'll be some thumbs up for this video. I hope there'll be a lot of thumbs up for doing this type of video because I do genuinely hope it helps you and it's important for me to be transparent. Trading is risky and I showed you that in my disclaimer at the beginning and I'll I suppose put it up again.

Now, trading is very risky and it's challenging for a number of different reasons. Most beginner traders lose money for a number of different reasons. Um, but one of the big ones is because of the emotions. Uh, the emotional component of trading is the most difficult without without doubt.

So in April when I did a trade of Rehab, I actually had a really great two-week stretch here. so I was read in March and then over the course of two weeks trading with small size I did really well and then coming into this third week I started to allow myself to trade with bigger size Because you know what? At this point now, two weeks in and you know, two green weeks, eight green trading days I'm starting to feel more confident. I'm starting to feel so much better about myself and you know, the market was also starting to improve a little bit, something that's out of my control, but that happened to be the case. And so then I started trading with a little bit more size and I had a couple bigger green days, but again, the hot streak continued.

I finished the month in really good shape and going into May I said all right, I think you're ready to come out of Trader Rehab. I think you're ready to start opening things up a little bit more and being a little bit more aggressive. Coming into May I started to put on a little bit more share size. Again, had some into 25 000 days.

I ended up with over 200 000 of profit and then that rolled into the month of June. So where I sit right now is, uh, not a whole lot different than the month of March. I mean, the loss is actually bigger right now. But I started March in the Red.

Six consecutive red days, two red days at the end of February and four red days at the beginning of March. And so very similar to the other months that I've been read in the last. uh, year. starting November in the red and then just falling off the rails.

Starting January in the Red. Falling off the rails. Now, starting a New Year in the Red is even more emotionally damaging because of the psychological frustration of being read on the year and not having Anything that you can say is I'm Green. At least I'm Green on the year.

Still, I can't say that I could say that in December, no matter, pretty much what happened, but I can't say that right now. I'm read on the year. So my goal and the goal of a Trader Rehab program is whatever restrictions you decide to set on yourself. You know that's that's ultimately up to you in terms of share size and everything else.

But initially, you're going to be resistant to it, just like I am. I don't want to do it. I feel that it's almost worthless to do it, but it is. It is one tool that you can use.

A second tool that you can use is to hide your P L given the fact. and so that's why I have a piece of painters tape covering this right now and actually did this yesterday and yesterday I traded in the morning. I took a number of trades and I had no idea how much I made or lost, but I was pretty sure I was green because I felt like I had a pretty good day. I and I probably would have guessed around five thousand dollars if I if I was gonna guess.

I didn't think it was a huge green day but I I was pretty sure as a green day and I I walked away. I came back a little while later. I I took a few trades on my laptop, then I switched to my main computer, took a few more trades, I walked away again. I came back to do my recap and realized I had left a trade open and was now deep in the red.

That is the second time that's happened to me in my entire career. It was the worst possible time that could have happened to me and instinctually without even thinking about it, I checked my I checked my P L which was displayed. let's see, let me show you it was right down here. I checked it right there and I saw how uh how red I was and I I took away this column.

you have this this column right here I guess But I saw how red I was and I was like oh my God God dang it And at that moment I decided to jump into another stock immediately to try to recoup that loss. Uh I actually made some money on it but then I got back in at the top for continuation and flushed down went red and uh because that now at that point I was just watching my P L. so you know I I was back to just trading my P L trading my emotions and I finished down 24 grand and then I was done for the day. Today I came back and I said all right I'm putting the painters tape back on and I am taking out the column on this window that shows my position.

So if I click on it because the way I have this set up is like this basically so that column was right here and I would check it but I would try not to look at it but obviously I was still looking at it sometimes. So anyways um I took that column off of my closed P L so I would have no idea what it was and um today as I started trading I um I felt a little frustrated. I had a a trade out of the gates that I took smaller share size on because I told myself to restrict my share size and ended up going up about 50 cents. but I knew I only had small size and so I was like you know what, I'm not gonna sell it, I'm not up that much on it so I held it comes back down to break.

Even so now I'm like god dang it I'm now. I feel like this share size restriction is holding me back because if I trade with my normal share size I would have ripped. That trade had a great trade and that was on Bngo which um anyways so I got back in Bngo then as it ripped back up and then took a good size loss on it and I don't know where I finished the damn Bngo. it's at the top of my list which usually means it's the stock I'm up the most on or in the case of today perhaps down the least on.

but um anyway so I i I didn't trade that very well and on my trading platform I had put painters tape and I'll just I'll show you where this is right here. So I put painters tape right here on my computer and right here I was showing my my P L on the day and I was covering it but under the very bottom of the painters tape appeared a green comma and so with that I knew I was up more than a thousand bucks. Took another another couple trades, the green comma was gone. So now I knew I was between minus a thousand and plus a thousand took another trade.

Now I see a red comma. God dang it. So now I I'm so now. and this so much speaks to how the intellectual mind is trying to um, set things up so I can avoid emotional triggers.

And then as soon as the emotional trigger happens, now I am again emotionally hijacked. Right now I will tell you that my willpower is very very limited. and it's because I'm so. I'm in this emotional spiral where my fuse is super short.

You know it would take just one little thing for me to pick up this laptop and throw it through the glass window like I'm just. I'm right on the edge and so the only way for me to sort of d you know, bring things down, de-escalate things is again for a period of time for me to get re-centered to regain my bearings. So I took that uh P L off so I could just take this piece of tape off here and I don't need that for Monday or whatever. But um yeah.

so anyways, um not looking at the P L yesterday felt like uh a good start to the day I was. I was like good for you man, you know you didn't look at your P L I I have no idea where I sit right now. Today will be the first day in my entire career as a trader that I do not know where I sit on the day. I know I'm read, but I don't know by how much and I really want to look why.

I want to put a number to the pain and what does that mean? I'm going to add that to whatever I'm currently down. and now that's the new number of how much I need to get back to get back to square, back to flat, to not feel like a loser anymore. to not be a loser anymore at least on the month. And so it's taking a pretty tremendous amount of willpower and discipline for me to not allow myself to look at it Now because of the way my account is.

I know one account, one of them is below the ten thousand dollar max loss because it showed me I couldn't take any more trades in it and the other one is not. so I know it's I know it's not a great day and I'm presuming I'm down around 150 000 on the month. But um, you know, yesterday I was off to a good start and then things fell off the rail real quick. Today I was kind of off to a good start and then I realized I could see that comma that little like four by four Pixel got me back into feeling like oh no, I was green.

Now I'm red. Can I get back to green and frustration? And the fact is, I mean the very fact is there's something going on that's outside of my control and that's the overall market. The market is not as hot right now as it was in December and the market in November was not as high as October and the market in March was not as high as February. That is a fact.

So why do I when it starts to rain to throw another analogy at you, Why do I keep speeding around the racetrack trying to set a record lap time when it's drizzling? Because what happens is I spin off the track. I come to a total dead stop. Fortunately, I don't hit the wall. Let's just say I come back on the track.

But now I'm 10 cars back and now I'm having to take even bigger risks to try to get back into the lead. And this isn't the time to be taking big risks. And maybe I catch up a couple cars, but I have to go all out. I have to put it all on the line just to get back to third or second.

And now the stakes are high and the risk and reward is high and it goes wrong. And now I'm off the track and I've crashed the car and I'm done. and that's essentially what's happened this month is. I've gone.

You know, rather than reading the market early on and being like wow, the first day of the month started down about thirty thousand dollars. Not great. Instead of saying okay, you got a lucky trade there and that I guarantee you right There was being super aggressive, but okay, you got out of the hole. let's try to hold on to that.

Nope. Gone. Gone on Tuesday. Completely.

Gone Wednesday. Okay, better. I guess. Gone on Thursday.

Friday is gone. My two weeks. These are identical. Green Red Green Red Red Green Red Green Red Red.

I can't wait for next Monday and Wednesday. and let's just pray for Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. But um, I don't. I think that I can.

Well, I want to see if I can break out of that streak. I want to see if I can have two red days, Two sorry, two green days in a row for the first time this year. And I I will. It's it's not, It'll happen.

So right now the the question is, how long, How long, What if I what if and I'm just throwing this out there. Um, I I genuinely believe not looking at your P L while trading can be very beneficial because when you let's say are up ten thousand on the day and then you lose half of it, you feel like if I could just make back that five thousand. Now if you have had six good trades in a row and then you have one trade that you know was a pretty good size loss, but you don't attribute the number to it, then your intellectual analytical mind I think and this is again a little bit of hypothesis I'm playing out, but it's from some experience that that part is better able to retain control to not allow the emotions to get hijacked because while the emotions are like, oh, you just had a loss, not attributing an exact number to it and then doing the math of well, if I just lost four grand and I was up ten grand, then I'm six. Only six grand.

I've got to make back four grand plus fifty dollars in commission. Then then that part starts to take control And if I can prevent that and keep the analytical part the the healthy trader mind in the driver's seat, then I can say you know what and this is what I actually did on uh, yesterday before my freak accident. I was able to say you know what I I'm I had two losses in a row, I think it was two and I say you know what I'm done, I'm just I'm done Guys, I'm done. I don't know where I sit today but I'm done.

I shut it down. I walked away and then I got a message. I got a message. um that hey Dtss is ripping.

I saw it and I thought, well holy smokes immediately Fomo, I can't afford to miss a stock. Finally Ripping. I'm red on the month I need this Winner! I jumped back in and that's when I took a trade on my laptop, switched to this computer and I think it was through switching that I didn't realize that I still had trades open in one account because I have my main account and my Ira account and I again, it's the first time it's ever happened to me. I can't believe it happened.

But anyways, after that happened and I made money on it, I made money on it. Uh and then I was doing the recap and I was gonna be like yeah, this is my recap. I don't know where I sit on the day but I know it's a good day and then holding a huge position the other one and that was devastating for me. So um, so yesterday was a good example of that self-control Up until that moment, today was not as great of an example of the self-control Uh, because I I think I think at this point I am just too emotionally charged and I didn't want to take the profit when I had it because I was like oh, it's compared to what I lost, it's not even worth it.

So I was still in my head and and this all speaks to you know, are you centered when you're coming into trade? Are you being? Are you trading? Are you your best self today? If you're not your best self, someone else in the market is going to be better than you. And you're not going to have good reads on the market. And you're you're going to do stupid stuff. And it's embarrassing to say all this and to admit all this.

I'm a teacher. I'm supposed to be a role model. I'm supposed to be a leader. But this is the reality of where I am and where I'm at.

And I think that this is the truth of what it is to be a traitor, that it is a constant struggle, and that there will be periods like if I start the month in the green and I'm in a hot streak. None of this emotional stuff seems to come up because I'm immediately in the driver's seat. I feel confident. I feel good, even if I have a loss, I can kind of justify.

Well, I'm still green on the month and I just keep rolling. The analytical, intellectual, aggressive part stays in charge for the most part, but when I start to spin out and go off the rails and and experience some losses, this part just. there's this shift that happens where I start grasping for straws, throwing hail Mary passes, taking a huge position, 50 or 100 000 shares being up. you know, 40 50 cents on it, not taking any off the table because I need the full dollar a share to get back.

Xyz and I'm just fueling that emotional spiral. Now this is a this is a bad one for me, but talking about it I think is somewhat therapeutic for me. So thank you for letting me do this and listening and my hope as a teacher is that there is some something that you can learn from my mistakes. Doesn't mean you won't make some of your own mistakes.

you probably will. Nine out of 10 traders lose money. but perhaps this does help you in your pursuit to try to become a better trader if if nothing else. Hopefully it's entertaining.

But yeah, so the question for me now is, um, I do. I do have a little bit of a hard time trading without seeing where I'm at on the day because I what if I have a day where you know in three trades I'm just I'm killing it. What if I'm up 25 or 30 000 and that's the day where because I'm up that much I can afford to take more risk and typically I would and then that becomes the bigger move and the bigger winner. Well I think that two things number one.

this is not a permanent decision. This is A This is a tool to not look at my P L This is a tool that I use. Essentially, it's a coping mechanism to help me cope with higher levels of emotion in my trading. Trading with smaller size is also coping mechanism that I can use.

However, as we learned today, trading with smaller size also can create unintended consequences of Fomo and somewhat erratic trading because, well, with only 100 shares or whatever the size is for you, I who cares that I'm up 50 cents, right? And then you're not taking it off the table when you really should. and then it goes back to break even and become more frustrating. So I think my focus right now is actually one less on share size and more on um, trying to reduce the emotional sort of hijack that that is happening to me. And so by not looking at my P.

L, that's certainly a step. I do think that it's important for me to trade with generally smaller share size, just simply due to the fact that the market is not very hot right now. If the market was hotter then you know big big share size would be fine. But right now you know, like on some of these trades, the trade that I took on um, this stock.

Not this one. Uh man, look at that rejection. Look at that drop. but on um, Pola.

So this is the one that kind of drove me to the to the brink today. Um, I took a big position on it right here. Break back over volume weight average price I was at 13.16 Oops. So right about there it goes up to 48.

I don't take any off. the table goes up right here to a high of 70. I don't take any off the table. I was looking for 14.

it drops right down here to 43 and I had to cut the loss. I was down 50 cents a share. Cut the loss in the 70s and the 50s. it bounces back up.

Look at this. Oh boy. but that rejection so that doesn't happen as often. in a hot market.

This is more cold market stuff. The choppiness. The break there 1550. a false breakout on the one minute dropping back down.

The fault. the topping tail, candle, even this candle here. This is all choppy market stuff. While this did make relatively good move big moves, the cleanest moves were early, and even on some of those moves early, I still lost on it.

I had a trade around 14 here or something like that that I lost on and it was choppy. So this is choppy market stuff. You know, again, in a hot market. We look at some of the charts from hot markets and it's like oh my god.

why am I even bothering with this stuff? Why am I even trying save the big share size for the real momentum? I mean oh my goodness, this is. this is just a waste of my time. So yeah, I dug myself a good size hole. Well, I don't know, I don't Again, I don't know exactly how much I lost on it, but I know that that was a good size loss there.

So anyways, um yeah, my goal right now is to try to have you know a week of kind of mellow or trading to try to bring down the emotions a little bit and that will probably be that that will require. I would think not looking at my profit um and and maybe getting through all of next week doing recaps for you and being like I don't know how much I made today. You know you know something? I don't know, you know, but I don't know. I genuinely don't know how much I made or lost today.

So today's the first day ever and I'm going to see how I feel about continuing that for the rest of next week. on the question of share size. I at my discretion like on Bngo today, I wanted to buy 50 000 shares of this thing right here at 880. but I couldn't do it because I had the cap on my share size.

That was absolutely the right move and I was furious that I didn't make 20 000 bucks on it. So you know on the share size I I feel like I can. I obviously in that in that moment I was still making really good decisions. That was before I went off the rails.

So if I can, um, if I can continue to make good decisions by not getting emotionally hijacked which is being caused more by looking at my P L, then perhaps I can trade with regular share size whether it's 15 000 or 30 000 and still be still be grounded. But I don't know that for sure. So I'm not totally sure where I have to sit on share size because you know at the end of next week I'm like, well, I don't know how. I don't know how I did, but I'm pretty sure I probably had five red days in a row.

I'm probably only gonna feel more frustrated and then I will be absolutely forced to go into Trader Rehab because I can't have five more red days trading with this type of share size. It's that's just not gonna work. Um, so I could just cut that off at the pass and say going into tomorrow or going into next week? I'll just go ahead and do both. I'll use both of these tools that have helped me in the past.

One is restricting my share size because then even if I do have four more red days, the losses will be much much smaller, right? So I'm you know, kind of stopping or slowing the bleeding. Um, and you know if the market does pick back up then okay, maybe I will feel a little fomo. but at least it's the. The downside is worse than the upside is good.

I think in this case and then going into the following week I could reevaluate. So I would say that that's probably the right thing to do, but I'm resistant to doing it. Um, partially because of the opportunity missed on Bngo today. But again, you know we're not in a really hot market, so it's just not a good time to be sizing up with big size right now.

And I think what I have to do is accept the reality that I will close January Red. I was read last January of 2020 and I maybe should just accept that I will be read this month and by accepting it and trying to find peace within being okay with it that that then kind of frees me of the desperate attempt to try to get back to Green. uh, that's that's kind of what I'm thinking. Uh, so maybe to maybe you know, Monday or whatever should be first day of uh, traitor rehab for me.

And um, these first two days of attempting to not look at my P L obviously didn't work super well, so I would have been better off these last two days if I had stuck with small size the whole day through. Uh I, I, I don't know it's it's a tough one. It's a very it's a very tough decision. but ultimately we don't know how strong the market will be.

But if we presume it could be choppy or weak, we have to control and minimize our downside risk of loss. And the two ways you can do that are reducing your account size and reducing your share size. so reducing my share size is the easiest one to do. And um, yeah, so those are the sort of the two tools that I look at hiding the P L to hot to tricks to stop that emotional trigger when you see the number of the loss.

and um, reducing share size so that the amount of win and loss is just smaller. So your emotions come back down and try to just see it through. And you know what? If I could do that for the next two weeks and get myself re-centered then I'll be going into the new month with probably a bit more confidence and maybe by that point the market will be starting to improve and there's a really good chance that four weeks from now, five weeks from now, six weeks, or eight weeks from now, I will be. All of this will be totally water under the bridge.

It's very easy to forget. It's very easy to forget how painful the struggle was, how frustrated you felt and just being the joy of trading a hot market until it cools off again and you're back to where you were before and you forgot how to trade in a cold market and how to emotionally handle days or weeks that are just brutally slow and just not working. So anyways, I'd say that's about it for me. I hope this is helpful for you.

as you can tell I'm still a little bit. Um, you know. I fortunately have a three-day weekend here, so I have some time to sort of process and meditate and get back to set. Try to get back to center a little bit that forces a little bit of space for me.

and when I come back on Tuesday, I'm gonna have to think carefully about the question of share size. I don't really have any question about not looking at my P. L. I feel pretty confident about that, especially given the fact that I was in good control both yesterday and today before I started looking.

And today, even though it was just that comma, that was enough. so I feel good about that one at the least. But the share size I'm not as sure about. and and maybe that will be something that you know ultimately.

Um, you know you want to get to the place where you can you. you're so in charge in that kind of intellectual part. That's that's the part that's driving your decision making. That you can say.

Well, Tuesday, maybe I trade a small size because the Gap scanner doesn't look good. You know. Today, the Gap scanner didn't look good yesterday. It was not that great either actually.

So you know perhaps that an ability to make that decision you know on the day of and say, listen Today based on what I'm seeing right now based on yesterday, let's just cut it at 6 000 shares and not go higher than that. Or okay, we've got a leading Gap up 225 percent. The right thing to do in this scenario is to be aggressive and then that starts to get back into really trading the market you're in. Uh, and that's where you want to be.

But sometimes you have to put on these bumpers when things start getting a little out of control and off the rails. and so that's where I'm at right now. Please feel free to comment below any thoughts that you have. Suggestions, tips, tricks, You know.

I think I'm the type of person that um, and maybe I'm using this as a little bit of a um, escape go, But because I've always had um, problems with anxiety and panic attacks and things like that, I feel like I already have a hyper fight-or-flight response. And given the science that experiencing financial loss triggers that same part of your brain, I feel that I may be more predisposed to having a emotional response and becoming an emotional traitor and that the struggle for me is bigger. I see for some traitors and I admire their ability to seem so calm and grounded. I am just like wow, that's will I ever get there and I hope that I will It's something I have to keep working towards.

But for those of you that are like me or maybe you're even worse than me, I hope that this is helpful and I. I would also end by saying that as good as a strategy is and I think my strategy is very good. Ultimately it's up to the person that's trading it to produce the profit and so what you see here. I wouldn't say as a flaw in my strategy that I teach in the classes.

I would say what you're seeing here is a flaw in my own character and in my own ability to maintain composure and that's something that for me to really get to the next level in my trading I will need to. I will need to be able to master. I will want to get to a place where I can see the P L going up and down and I can maybe feel the emotional response and say all right you know what? This is the moment where I'm going to step back and say I'm done for the day and I'm not there yet. So I've got some work to do.

But seeing the path in front of you is sometimes half the battle and I do see that path but I struggle to stay on it and then and really it's it's a struggle it is. So anyways that's it for me. Thank you guys for uh, watching this. I hope it's been helpful and um, this is my I guess week in review.

worst week of my trading career right now. and hopefully this is something that years from now. you can still watch and look back on and and see value in. And maybe I'll look back on and during a hot streak and be grateful that I'm finally on a hot streak because of how bad it can get.

But I hope that I can try to improve and not continue to be back in this same exact spot every two months. or three months, or six months or whatever it is. Um, you know that's uh, it's frustrating because it sometimes feels like back in the same spot. But hey, having been here many times before, I know I'll get out because I've done it before.

So that's it for me. Thank you guys for watching. Please hit the thumbs up If you haven't already, please subscribe if you haven't already. The thumbs up is a vote for transparency, which is something that's really important to me.

My broker statements go on the website at the end of the month. we're always in this short month end kind of. Each month stands on its own and that creates some pressure for me. But um, you know, I post the green months, I post the red month so you guys see it all.

and I thank you guys for tuning in. So that's it for me and I'll see you guys all next week! Bye everyone.