Wednesdays are going to go down as my worst day of the week for the month of December Last Wednesday I had my biggest loss of the entire year and here we are just a week later and it's another big red day. I'm red on three out of the three stocks I traded I'm a little frustrated I I I I'm reflecting already that there are some things I should have done differently today. So in this episode, we're going to kind of unpack the the trading that I did this morning. look at where things went wrong, how I dug myself, the hole that I've dug, and basically where that positions me Now for the rest of the week, the rest of the month, no, the rest of the year.

we only have 10 11 days left in the year and fewer trading days. So let's get organized and jump onto a screen share. I'll show you uh, basically my P&l so sort of the way it looks right now. So this is my uh, my last 90 days as you can see right here have been grinding up nicely, making some good progress.

I did have this draw down here in November which was about 20 ,000 and then came back up, dipped down a little bit, came back up, and then this was the loss I had last week. a $10,000 loss right here. So from 107 187,000 down to 177,000 and then I had two sort of sideways days. so if we zoom in on that, what it basically looks like was progress progress and then I lost, um, 10 grand and then the next day I lost another um 1,700 and then on Friday I made 1,700 and then on Monday I made like 600 so basically made nothing and then uh Tuesday I made one penny or lost a penny.

If you saw my um recap yesterday, you'll see how I was taking that one trade just to show you guys and now today I'm down another boom 10 grand. All right. So this is a problem because what am I doing I'm stair stepping down. That's exactly what I said I don't want to do I want to be flat, plateauing, sort of going flat and then curling back up.

So what I was hoping was um, that I'd be able to manage this draw down without a second leg down and I'd be able to have you know a couple more sideways days and then once I'd made back about half the loss I could start to step up to the plate and get more aggressive. Well unfortunately now I've dug the hole twice as deep. So now the teeny bit of progress I made is gone and I'm back to down here which was this was minus 10K this was- 9k. Well, but then there was $2,000 of profit.

So now I'm down like $177,000 You know, plus or minus, more or less and that's a draw down. it's two steps down. So now in order for me to get back to the point where I can start to step up to the plate I need to make back more like $99,000 And realistically since my daily goal is five grand, that's two really good days. So now the draw down is getting a little bit bigger and a little bit more extended Now, even though I put myself into a Trader rehab AB on Monday Monday I was disciplined I was like I'm only going to trade good quality setups.

there was basically nothing I made 600 bucks on a small trade. not nothing too exciting Tuesday there was nothing as well and then today to be honest I think I sat down feeling antsy, feeling like I need to make some progress I need to trade something and so I broke the Ice uh fairly early with my first trade on LG VN All right so here's my P&l You can see it right here. So my first trade of the day was a $432 loss on LG VN LG VN hits the scanners. it was squeezing up as you can see in this candle right here.

it goes from $2 all the way up to $38 and then it came all the way back down and now it's at A168. That's pretty bad all right. So on this trade I h bought a dip I bought the dip at uh $277 right here which was about $2 7 which was a dip off of volume weighted average price. So my thinking was I'll catch a bounce off Vwap and it should be good for 105 cents maybe more.

Uh did 3,000 shares and it flushed and so I stopped out of that with a you know, 13 14 Cent loss down $432 It didn't bounce, it just broke VAP I thought it was I thought it was going to bounce, it did not bounce All right. So being red 400 is no big deal. Uh then Lqr comes up. Lqr hits the scanners and this is another look at this.

total move up and then all the way back down. All right so you're seeing a pattern. Okay, so on this one, um I took my first trade. let's see, let me look back.

So I took my first trade at $536 which was, um, right, a dip in this area. Here it pops up. it dips down I Bought this dip here and as it squeezed up to 650 I made $2,000 I was up over $2,000 on Lqr I then proceeded to uh, give back all of those gains and dig myself. uh, a hole on the stock.

So let me go to the 10-second chart so we can look in a bit more detail. All right. So I did two things that were a little bit aggressive and both of them, um, were losses. So my first trade was uh, like right in this area on this pullback and this was a good trade.

and then I did a dip trade right here at about 625 I was looking for the curl up through the high and I took that trade with 10,000 shares and at that time I was up $2,000 and stopped out and I went to break even on the stock. That's frustrating. then not a minute later it comes right back up to 225 I got back in at this time 235 with 10,000 shares. I was looking for the break of uh two uh sorry 230 uh 635 I was looking for the break of 650 and I added somewhere up in this area and then it drops.

I stopped out on this candle here and I stopped out at about you know, $6 So 10,000 shares 30 Cent loss is three grand so boom I'm I'm read 3,000 on Lqr. You know it happens fast I went from up 3,000 or 2,000 on it to down 3,000 on it. That's a big swing and it happened in two losses. It happened right here and it happened.

you know, right in here. So a real shame. Uh I went from Green to Red now going from Green to Red Uh for for a lot of people it's a trigger and it is for me as well. I The you know I could have now now what time was this this was at um uh, this was at 8:58 that I went from Green to Red So at 858 I could have at that point said I'm going to stop here break even on the day and in hindsight I'd have $10,000 more in my pocket than I have right now.

so in hindsight, that would have been the right move. um I have a rule that I if I give back half my profit, I'll walk away but I really only follow that once I hit my daily goal being up 2,000 then giving back a th000 it. It's usually not quite enough that I feel like I should walk away. but today I think what I underestimated was how easy it was to get triggered.

My fuse is shorter because I'm already dealing with the frustration of being in a draw down. So you know a $2,000 Green Day You know if we went back to to sort of this um drawing here, you know another $2,000 Green Day I would have been right up here right? So now it's like okay, you're doing great man, you're almost out of the out of the hole and then to have that go back to to Flat is frustrating and then even more frustrating for it to now go. you know, down like this. So so this is a place this whole area where emotions are running higher and I I fell victim to that today.

So I took the second trade I took on Lqr that 10,000 share position at 625 that was aggressive. that was that was pushing it. That was pretty aggressive and I lost three grand on it or whatever it was. and then I got right back in.

basically the same price that I was in before, even a little higher. and then I lost another three grand. Now I'm really triggered and this is where things got bad. all right.

So now I'm triggered and when Adil pops up on the scan, Adil pops up on the scan and as soon as I saw it hitting the scan, uh, it dipped for a second and I got in right here at two at about $2 I got in at $2 and I bought 10,000 shares of it. So now I'm punching with bigger orders and it pops up here to 220. pops up here for a second to 220 and then flushes to A150. Look at that and I actually added uh, a little higher when it started to pop up.

So there you go. That's how it happens. That's how fast it happens right there. Um, once again I I think that that trade was, um, a bit impulsive I was feeling frustrated I was already feeling triggered from just having had this trade on Lqr from feeling this sort of frustration of being in the hole.

and when I'm feeling that frustration that desperation I see something else pop up and I could be quick to jump on it I'm like, oh, I'll jump on this. This looks good. This is going to be the one that bails me out, right? and many of you probably can relate to this. You've probably experienced this in your own trading so even after all these years of trading I still have these feelings.

They don't go away. What gets better in time is your ability to recognize those feelings and to not act on them. but it's they could be very sneaky and it can creep up on you and all of a sudden. Next thing you know you're in a 10,000 share position and it was like what did I just do I just made a terrible mistake and now I'm down $5,000 on the stock and now I've just oh my God this is really spiraled out of control and it could be a lot worse.

Um, of course you know I could have taken a fourth and a fifth and a sixth trade and be down 20 3040 $50,000 if I wanted to. U stocks continue to trade, but I'm choosing to step back. Three strikes. you're out down more than 5,000 you know for me, I I've I'm just disappointed.

Uh, I'm disappointed that I didn't have the discipline on my side today. So now I kind of have this issue where I feel like Okay um I have now gone into a second step down, right? This is what I was talking about wanting to avoid. So now I've got this second step down here and now I'm at this level obviously I do not want to take a third step down and lose another 10 grand next Wednesday or whatever it is I need to start building back up slow and steady and unfortunately at this point I think it's going to require um, a bit more um intervention for me to be able to stay focused on these small goals. You know it's the whole thing with the Trader Rehab program that I've talked about and that I that I teach and that I prescribe to myself because you know I have these draw downs and these periods where I get more emotionally activated and I need to put the guard rails on to kind of rain things back in to hold things together.

So you know the guard rails that I'm putting on have been a share size but I increased that on I can't remember what day it was I think it was Friday because I was Tra trading a cheaper stock and then today I increased it again on a cheaper stock and let myself go up and I didn't expect a cheaper stock to drop 50 cents a share. but I need to get better at expecting the unexpected in this market. Okay, so I I also I I don't have my hot keys on those are still off my keyboard but I am being too quick to jump on stocks that are moving up right now. I'm just being too quick to jump on them and it's so tough because you know Lqr I wish I was faster to jump on it because it went from $4 to $6 and I didn't get until 538.

But then the one that I was quick to jump on ends up failing. So you know at at the end of the day, no reason to fix what's not really broken. Having you, you know and and when we're talking about is it, is it broken and and what's the grand scheme of things here. this is the grand scheme of things.

Okay, red days happen. there's slow patches in the market. Maybe there's not a lot more to read into it. Okay, so this is going to be another dip down here, but then most likely we're going to look a few months from now and we're going to see that.

I You know, maybe I went a little further, but then I you know, recouped back up because that's you know that's just kind of the way it always is and I've been doing this for a really long time, but I also am a believer in reflecting on the losses, doing a bit of a deep dive and asking myself if I can make changes to reduce the the loss to to reduce how big the draw Down's going to be right? You know it's like you know why, Why dig yourself a deeper hole right? You know if you see someone who's getting stuck and they just start spinning their wheels and they just keep spinning them more and more. It's like you are literally digging yourself a deeper rut into whatever you're stuck in, you're going to make it harder to get out and that comes sometimes from some fear, some desperation I don't want to be stuck. Oh no. and then all of a sudden, Well, now the Situation's a lot worse.

So I I Think for me, it's important for me to look closely at these losses and ask myself what can I do tomorrow to try to be a little bit of a better Trader to try to keep the losses a little smaller now I may be out tomorrow or Friday I'm not sure which day um I have something that I have something that's going on and I have to attend to it. it's with my son Anyways, it's fine. but anyways, I I have to do it. So so that's going to be I don't know which day if it's Thursday or Friday.

Um, so that and that family is first. but uh, it does mean that I'm probably going to have to sit kind of where I'm at for a day or two. Uh, and then of course Monday is the holiday. So realistically, I'm not going to make most likely any significant progress on recouping this loss or kind of reentering myself until next week.

So now I Kind of have to sit with being in the red and being a little discom a little uncomfortable and and I think sitting with that discomfort is what has gotten me to a bit of a shorter fuse because I've been sitting with this discomfort for a week. It was a week ago that I had my big red day and usually I bounced back pretty quickly. So now I've been sitting kind of in the red off my all-time highs for like a week now. Big Picture is $12.4 million a profit being down 10 grand.

Who cares? being down 15, 20 grand, 30 grand, 100 Grand doesn't matter Yeah, unless you're the type of person like me who's real numbers person and it's kind of a perfectionist and is like this feels like it's just gets under my skin and it's like no I need to recoup the loss that perfectionism um I think is something I don't like about myself but it's something I have to be grateful for because it's what's Driven me to keep getting better because I'm not satisfied. But even at this place of all the profit I have a small draw down I still have that feeling of it needs to be fixed. that's kind of like it's like a little obsessive compulsive kind of like, but you know these are some of the attributes that may be negative in other aspects. but it can also become your best friend and you can harness some of these things to help motivate and Propel you.

as long as you're pointing in the right direction. So I'd rather harness this OCD or perfectionism towards my trading than towards you know, lining up the carpet fibers, the car, you know, on the floor in the living room. so at least I've applied it in a somewhat productive way. But um, but it is tough and then you can get into this state of overthinking short views, frustrated and the market doesn't care about any of that.

The market is indifferent to your emotions, how you feel. The Market's going to do what it, what it does. it's going to be choppy. some days it's going to be really hot other days and it's up to you to bring your best performance each day.

And today I wasn't able to bring my best performance and that's frustrating. It's good to be able to reflect that and realize that and articulate. it is helpful, but it is a little bit disappointing. So you know going into the rest of the week it's a little uncertain what my schedule's going to look like, so most likely this week is just kind of a wash.

Coming into Christmas next week is probably not going to be a lot better because it's a sort of a holiday week you know, market closed on Monday short week and then after that coming into January that's usually when we're sort of back in the saddle and actually I I began my trading Journey as a New Year's resolution, it was a New Year's resolution that I made that I was going to get up every morning and start studying the market because I I felt I saw potential in the market and I wanted to better my life I wanted to understand the market and see if I could make some money off of it. and that meant at that time that I needed to build it into my schedule and have the discipline to do it. It's kind of like having the discipline to get up early and exercise or something like that. and for me, it was having the discipline to get up and look at those scanner.

Well, I wasn't using scanners yet, but you know to look at the market and try to figure out what's moving today and to just spend a few hours each morning trying to figure it out. So I think there's a lot of people that will do that and I think coming in January we're going to see a lot more people in the market. We're going to see a lot more participants, We're going to see uh, more volume, We're going to see bigger movers, higher relative volume, and January usually is a pretty solid month so you know past results, not future results. You know who knows what next month will be.

But um, at this point I think a realistic goal for me to end the month of Uh December is to try not to dig the hole deeper. So if I go flat, that would be fine. um if I can make a little bit of progress up, that would be fine. Um, you know, hopefully without too many dips I I just you know yeah I'd like I'd like to start to get back up here I'd like to be able to recoup today's l lo you know, but it's been a week I didn't make any progress really on recouping that loss.

Now a second week to recoup this one and then this one so you know it might not be till the first week of January that I'm back up at my highs. Uh, but you know I I like to buy the dip when it comes to trading and I would buy the dip on my own Equity curve if I um if I could invest in it because it has a strong track record of recovering those losses and making moves back to the high. So uh, a little bit bit of a grind right now, but you know this is um, this is the game. this is trading.

This is what we signed up for. Easy Come Easy Go it is risky. um my son was asking me today. oh yesterday we were driving.

um what did he say he said uh I'm trying to remember he asked if trading was risky but well because I said it's risky and he say why is it risky but what what what came up before that um I'm trying to remember so we were in the car um we were driving we're driving South I remember the sun was like slightly in my eyes what was it that he asked me um uh like trying to remember oh I remember so he said so I asked him uh what do you want to do when you grow up I like to ask um both my boys this on a somewhat regular basis and get get different answers. So for a long long time um my my oldest son has wanted to be uh do shampoo and conditioner as his job he he loves mixing in the you know shower and shampoo and conditioner so he's has wanted to run a shampoo and conditioner shop so I'm like that's awesome and then about a year ago he introduced that he also wanted to do ice cream shop so it' be like shampoo, conditioner and ice cream I'm like great and then he said he wanted to run a museum and have dinosaurs but still have ice cream, shampoo and conditioner so I'm like okay this becoming pretty big but okay and so I asked him yesterday what do you want to what do you want to do when you grow up and and he says well I I want to know all the jobs before I decide and I was like that's great That's a great way to think of it I'd love yeah all the jobs he's like so what are all the jobs and I was like okay well uh so we start kind of going through. we were started driving by so we drove by high school and I'm like there's High School teachers you could be a teacher. you could be an elementary school high school college teacher and then we drive by the fire station.

you could be a firefighter. there's a police station, you be you could be a police officer we drive by McDonald's I was like yeah you could you could be a you could be a chef you could work at UH um McDonald's uh kind of like brushed over that one and then what do we drive by um drove by the gas station I was like you can work at the gas station, you work behind the register grocery store. you could work at the grocery store and then we went by the investment. um you know some like Investment Bank and I was like oh there you could be a you know a banker, work at the regular bank or here's the Investment Bank um you know they're kind of a Trader kind of like being a Trader but uh, but a little less risky.

I was like trading is risky and then I and then I was like you know, just remember, trading is risky. My results aren't typical. don't blindly follow me or anyone else and he's like huh and I was like H just you know what's what I say and he's like why is trading risky and I was like well I was like I I was like here's the thing: um I don't trade with large amounts of money even though I've made a lot of money I don't trade with large amounts of money I only have like a 100 Grand in my trading account right now you say only 100 Grand Ross it's a huge amount of money yeah, but I've made over12 million Trading I don't keep all 12 million in my trading account to take bigger and bigger positions I diversify my risk because I understand that trading is risky and I said well the thing with trading is that um, these the he says why is it risky I was like, well because we're trading things are very volatile and the investment banker he's buying smaller positions, he's going to hold them for a long, long time. But for us I take relatively larger positions so I can profit from these little moves and he's like huh and I was like yeah, no but that's what I do uh so you know it it is.

it is riskier. um now I can't remember why I started telling you the story I feel bad I' I've LED you into this story but there's no ending. um I do apologize I Guess the moral of story is that trading is risky. This is the game that we signed up for.

Even my son knows that he's five years old and um, you know, easy come easy go. that's that's just the way it is. So right now I'm in a little bit of a draw down, but big picture. life is good and the strategy works.

It's just a matter of being able to be a little bit better at easing off the throttle and to hold that self-awareness So when you start to kind of spiral and the losses get bigger, you can recognize it and you can slow down. I I do apologize for not bringing that story back around I Just don't remember um why I brought it up exactly Anyways, um that's it for me I Hope you have a great day and I'll see you back at it first thing, uh, tomorrow morning. hopefully tomorrow morning. If I miss a recap it's because I'm out for the day, but I'll be back probably the next day.

Okay, see you soon.