Max Loss Red Day...

What's up, everyone? All right, well,
today is a red day recap, the first red
day for the month of July. So, I'm
grateful for that, but it's also a
bigger red day, and I'm red in the small
account. So, today, red, frustrated,
and here's what happened. Today was one
of those days where we had no action
during the pre-market session. So, I sat
down quarter of 7:00, was watching 7:00,
7:30, 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30. There was
nothing moving. Coming into 7:00 a.m.,
our leading gainer was only up about
40%. And so, this is the type of day
that I'm really susceptible to falling
victim to FOMO. When a stock randomly
squeezes up $15 a share after the
opening bell, and that's exactly what
happened. DFNS pops up just after the
opening bell, and I'm going to show you
the chart on it. So, before we do that,
this is my P&L for the month of July.
Well, actually, it's not the full. This
goes into June a little bit. Uh but for
the month of July, which started right
about here, uh I was up about $247,000
on the month coming into today. That
includes the profit from yesterday,
which was $32,199.15.
Today, I'm down $32,384.82,
I'm now down about $185 on the week. On
the one hand, easy come, easy go. The
profits from Monday gone on Tuesday. So,
I'm back to where I was 48 hours ago. I
didn't really celebrate my win from
yesterday, because it wasn't anything
that exciting. I didn't spend the money
from yesterday. So,
uh my account is basically the way it
was on Sunday. It's kind of easy just to
sort of brush that under the carpet,
forget about it, and move forward. On
the other hand, before moving forward,
it probably makes sense to take a little
bit of a deep dive into what went wrong
today, so I can avoid doing it again
tomorrow, or again anytime in the next,
you know, few weeks. No doubt, there'll
be another red day in my future, but
uh I'd like to try to keep them spaced
out as far apart as I can. And I did
have a nice streak here of green days. I
wasn't counting, but uh that was a nice
stretch there of just consecutive green
days. The last red day being on um July
20 or June 26th. So, about, you know,
about a month uh since my last red day.
So, I'd say that's that's pretty good.
Uh anyways, um so, the loss, as you can
see as is on INLF. But, we're going to
start by looking at DFNS cuz this is the
one that kind of gave me the case of
FOMO. So, DFNS uh squeezes up yesterday
pre-market after hours, then it squeezes
up pre-market yesterday, pulls back, and
didn't really give any opportunity. And
that just starts grinding into the
afternoon. And then it squeezes into
after hours, goes up to 17 18, pulls
back, goes up to 19 and $20 a share,
sells off, and then at 4:00 in the
morning, rallies back up. And although I
was watching it here at 7:00 a.m., um I
felt that it didn't really make sense to
take a trade on it in this area. The
volume was light, the spreads were
bigger. I just felt that I could make
too big of a mistake, and I said, "No,
I'm just going to leave this alone. I I
don't think I'm going to mess with it."
So, sure enough, it ends up halting up
once and then twice and going from $20
to $26 a share. Then it goes from 28 to
32, from 32 to 34, and hits a high of
$37 a share before halting down. Drops
down lower, then rallies back up, isn't
able to break through that high of day,
and then it starts to unwind. But, I I I
sat here feeling like, "You just missed
a $14 per share move." Well, why were
you even watching? Oh, I was getting
ready to record my recap, which was that
it was a no-trade day. And as I was
recording it,
I started talking about how DFNS was
halted, and then I noticed uh how IN uh
what was it? INLF was also halted. And I
said, "Now, this one's kind of
interesting, actually." And so, I
stopped recording the recap, and I said,
"You know, it halted up once, halted up
twice, sold off, then rallied up again
and again. And I thought, you know, I I
think that there might be something
here. And on INLF, I felt like this one
had an interesting daily chart, which
I'm going to show you in just a moment.
So, INLF has a lot of room on the daily
to curl. It's dropped heavily, reverse
split, and now looking for that curl.
So, as it started to squeeze higher, I
was sort of like, you know what? Um I'm
kind of liking the look of this. And so,
initially, it's halts up twice, then
halts down, rallies back up, pulls back,
halts up again at 6:10, and I'm watching
it here for resumption. It opens and
goes up to seven,
and then it flushes down. So, I was
like, huh, I guess that didn't really
work. Pulls back a little bit, then it
rallies back up and halts up at 7:20.
And when it resumes, it dips right here,
it sells off, it rallies back up,
and I get in right about 7:80 for the
break through 8:20. Now, it ends up
pulling back right here. I'm holding.
I'm looking for this to rally through
the high, and then it flushes into a
halt down.
And I'm holding 25,000
shares. It goes a little bit lower. I
add another 4,000 shares.
And then I have to cut the loss, and I
take the loss of $32,000.
We just had a stock that went up 180%
and I bought 20 cents off the high. Now,
on the one hand, you could say, Ross,
that was stupid. You bought the high of
the day. Well, I wouldn't be so stupid
if this thing went to $10 or $12 a
share, which it easily could have done.
What was stupid was that I didn't sell
sooner. Number one, I should have sold
sooner. I ended up holding into a halt
down. That was stupid. Number one.
Number two, it was a mistake to trade
this late in the day because if you make
a mistake, there's not much time to
recover, and there hasn't been anything
to recover on, and so I just have to
accept the fact that I'm down $32,000 on
one trade.
So, the biggest mistake was that
uh you know, I didn't trade it in these
areas here because I was like, "Well, I
don't usually trade during this time of
day." And then I didn't finally break
the ice until it was really moving. And
just as it turned out by that time, that
was the high and that was the top. Had
it Could it have kept going? We've had
others in the last couple of weeks that
did keep going. This one didn't. No
rhyme, no reason. It's just the way it
goes. And if I traded all of them, then
I'd probably be net positive from all of
them. But I didn't. I only happen to
trade this one and I got smoked. So, now
on the one hand, I've dug myself a hole
of $32,000, which is probably going to
take a couple of decent days to make
back. On the other hand, I really just
gave back what I made yesterday, which
makes it a lot easier to tolerate. The
small account is a different story. The
small account, I gave back everything
from yesterday, plus I gave back profit
from last week. So, the small account is
going to take more like a week to make
back the loss. This account, I could end
up making it back tomorrow. I might not.
I'm not trying to, but this isn't so big
that it's
really as upsetting. So, I'm actually
interestingly more upset about a $7,000
loss in the small account than I am
about a $32,000 loss in the big account.
And that speaks to the challenge that I
face when I'm doing small account
challenges, that different accounts have
different risk profiles and, you know,
they've got different track records,
different um you know, types of stocks
that I trade and I trade different
frequencies. And so, I'm sort of trading
two variations of my strategy at the
same time. And I'm left sometimes green
in one account, red in the other, or
green in both, or red in both, or you
know, on one really in a bad spot and on
the other, ah it's not really that big
of a deal. And so, that's kind of a a a
funny thing to um wrestle with. Should I
be upset today, or should I be like,
"Well, it's not really that big of a
deal." In the big account, I didn't
really, you know, I I spiral. It was
just one bad trade. So, it's like, well,
hey, it is what it is. It's easy to kind
of chalk that up to, you know, that's
just part of trading. The small account
is like, well, again, it's just a little
mistake and a little setback, but I'm
going to be thinking about it in the
small account for probably the rest of
the week and in the next week cuz it's
just going to take longer to recover.
And now my small account no longer has
as much buying power, so I won't be able
to take as big of positions, which will
further hurt my ability to recover.
Whereas in my big account, you know, I I
didn't take
I This isn't a big enough loss that it
has any of those consequences. So, um
you know, the challenge of losing in the
small account is different than when
you've got a big cushion, and that's
that's reality. So, I'm sort of feeling
conflicted about the day. I'm I'm not
thrilled, but um
I also feel uh pretty strongly that
number one, well, today should have just
been a no trade day. And uh I'd have
certainly more money in my pocket as a
result. Uh but, I took some trades. It
is what it is, and
man, it just unfortunately hurts my
metrics of performance after the opening
bell. Getting caught in halts. Um you
know, I was actually starting to during
the recap talk about
how trading halts creates this
additional challenge that in an instant
you could be down a dollar a share, and
there's nothing you could do about it.
And that happened to me today, you know,
it just in an in an instant I'm in a
halt down, and now I'm
looking at a lower resumption, and I'm
just going to get smoked. And there's
nothing I can do about it. So, trading
pre-market, there's the liquidity to get
in and out without those halts, which is
why I find it generally is better. So,
if we look at um you know, my my year or
we I mean, this year or even in the last
30 days, I really would say I haven't
taken many trades past the opening bell
at all. Um we can look at the time of
day.
So, yeah, I didn't take anything past my
30-minute mark. Uh well, I had a $7,000
loss. So, I mean, it's a distribution of
trades as well. I'm not trading past the
9:30 opening bell for the most part, but
I traded it today, and so now we're
going to have a big loss right there.
And so, you'll see that on my metrics,
and you'll probably think, "Well, you
know what you should do next month is
not trade anything past that window, and
you would make, you know, $40,000 more
money."
Uh and you'd be right. So, anyways, um
today
a little bit of a setback, but um you
you know me, I'll be back at it first
thing tomorrow morning, and hopefully uh
we've got some good opportunities here
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, so I can uh
finish the week, at least in my main
account, and finish the month of August
or the month of July, um you know, kind
of back at my highs. Um and I think
there's a good chance I'll be able to do
that. And in the small account, well,
I'm going to be in the trenches for a
little bit, but that's kind of the way
it is, and so that's just uh where I'm
at. So, reminder as always, easy come,
easy go. Trading is risky. My results
aren't typical, so manage your risk,
take it slow, and I'll be back at it
first thing tomorrow morning at 7:00
a.m.