Biggest Loss of The Month...

What's up everyone? All right, in today's episode, I'm going to break down my trades from the morning. Today was awful. I mean, it was simply awful. I fumbled. I missed a huge move, gave into FOMO, traded the backside of the move, went deep into the red, thought there was not a chance that I would recover, and then miraculously, we had a stock that actually started moving pretty nicely later in the trading session, beginning at about 10 of 9. And on that stock, I was able to not only chip away at the loss, but actually go all the way from red to green. So now I'm finishing the day in the green. And I'm beside myself. I'm grateful that I'm green, but also disappointed that I went as deep red as I had because if I had done things just a little bit differently, today would have been a $50,000 green day instead of what it is, which is a $8,400 green day. Hey, green is good. I shouldn't complain, but these types of unforced errors at the end of the month, at the end of the year, they add up. So, this is where being a trader full-time, you've got to constantly look at your performance and see where can I optimize, where can I be more efficient at capturing profit and cutting losses. Where can I do better? And today, there was a lot of room for improvement. So, we're going to go ahead and jump on the screen share and start breaking it down. There's the P&L. You can see it green. 34,000 on Vee E red $26,000 on PLSM. $26,000 and that was one trade. Just one trade and I lost 26 grand. What happened to breaking the ice with a small position? Well, that was out the window. And I'll explain why. So, in my small account, I had a couple different trades. Uh my first trade in my small account was an entry on PLSM down here. This was at 2,000 shares at $6.52. Prioritize the small account this morning over the big account. So, this is the current chart on PLSM. It's doing basically a round trip, which you don't like to see. Um, but when I first sat down this morning, so a little context, when I first sat down this morning, we had QTTB that was gapping up. This is the stock that I mentioned um from uh the the watch list yesterday. So, it squeezed up after hours Friday, pulled back a little bit pre-market, and then all of a sudden at 7 a.m., goes from 16 straight up to 21, pulls back, then goes back to 23, and I said, "Nope, I'm not touching it." First of all, when it started popping right at 6:59, I didn't realize it actually had a fresh headline. So, it actually had news that came out at 6:59 a.m. I'll click on this. And that headline was what caused that spike. So announces 659 positive 36-w week topline results from part B blah blah blah blah. So their previous headlines on Friday was that they were going to report these results and then they reported them here today. So all right, all of a sudden the stock squeezes up and you get this big move. However, I looked at the level two on it and I observed a couple things. number one because it's $167 a share and then eventually $20 a share. It had bigger spreads. I also noticed that it was easy to borrow. So, if I pull up the level two on this QTB and I drag this window up right here, you can see that it's easy to borrow. The green E right there is easy to borrow. The CB means it's on short sale restriction, which I don't have a problem with. Um, but being easy to borrow is a concern and having slightly bigger spreads is a concern. I don't typically do well on these higher price stocks. Now, I can sometimes have a grand slam on them, but I can also have a big strikeout. And so, I just said, "This is not the one. I'm not going to I'm not going to touch it because it's easy to borrow." If it hadn't been easy to borrow, I might have been more interested in considering it, but because of the easy to borrow status, I said, "Nope, I'm going to leave that one alone." So, didn't touch that one. Just left it alone completely. All right. So, that was QTTB. The second leading gapper we had um FTRK, cheaper stock, not interested in it. We also had Mimi moving up from after hours. MIMI, not interested in that. Yes, it pushed higher pre-market but then sold off. So, we were left after QTB with really nothing to trade until uh PLMS hits the scanners uh PLSM. So PLSM hits the scanners and starts popping up. And I look at it and I think, you know, this stock has this big red day from back here on June 24th. Hit a high of 1297. So this kind of feels like just a bounce in the shadow of that big move. I don't know if I can trust that. That was my gut feeling initially. I said, I don't know if I can trust it. But it started squeezing. And I also thought at the same time, you know what? A lot of traders right now, I think, have kind of short-term memory where they're just like, if this thing's moving, I'm jumping in it. So, as it squeezes up here, it goes to five, 550, up to six, up to 650. It dips down here, and that's where I punched it right there at 650 in my small account. Now, the small account recap I uploaded separately, but I'm just going to kind of mention it because these two trades sort of overlapped. So, I got that entry at 652 and then was taking profit off the table up here as it squeezed higher. So, I don't know why those orders kind of filled that way. But in any case, got out at 770. So, it ends up squeezing up here all the way to a high of eight. It dips down, pops up over eight, then dips down. I was thinking about getting back in, but I was a little too slow. Pops up to nine. I was like, "Wow." Okay. Well, now we've already had first pullback, second pullback, breaks nine, I miss it, ends up going up to 10, up to 11, all the way up to 12. And all of that right there was without me in both the small account and the big account. I just had this initial chip here and in my big account I was like, I don't know if I can break the ice. It's too extended. In the small account, I was like, I don't know if I should get back in. And then it sells off and drops back down. So, it dips back down here. It comes back up. And I drew this line at 959, the high of that candle. And as it went sideways, it dipped down and it came back up. And I just kept thinking that 959 levels in play. And so, what ended up happening was when it came back up right here, I punched it. and I punched it in my big account uh at about 930 and I got in in my small account as well for the break of 950. Now, it ends up, as you can see, hitting a high of 985 and then flushing back to 9. What I should have done is I should have just stopped out right there, but I decided to wait. And the reason that I waited was because in my big account, I was holding 30,000 shares and I thought, you know, I can't just jump in and out of this thing. I'm going to get slippage. So, I thought this thing was going to rip right here all the way back to the high. Now it's pulling back, but if it can hold it above VWAP, then maybe I'll give it a chance to do a one minute pullback and then we get that next candle higher and we continue on. So, wasn't planning on holding, but I'm adjusting my risk sort of mid trade to accommodate the fact that I probably bought too many shares on my first trade of the day because I've got a little FOMO and frustration that I missed this move. So, I'm in it with 30,000 shares right here and I finally cut it right here as it flushes. And on that trade, I lost almost a dollar a share in my big account right there. And in the small account, I'm in at 957 and I'm out at eight. So, was sloppy there as well. Very sloppy. Not good. You do not like to see a trade like that. That's just ugly. I could have should should have sold it way way sooner and I just held and went down with the ship. I got stubborn. That's not a good habit to be in. So, now my small account has gone from green 2,300 to red 500 on the day. And um my big account is down 26 grand. This day has just fallen apart. You know, it was one thing to be green, you know, red in the well, it was one thing to have no trades in the big account, but I at least have a good day in the small account. You know, at least I got the small account. But then I had neither. So, at that point, I thought it was sort of hopeless. We had CMND that popped up. This stock always pops up in reverses. There was another stock that popped up in reverse. I don't remember the ticker right now. and AEN was grinding higher but also easy to borrow so I wasn't interested in that. And then VE, this is a stock that historically has popped up and sold off a bunch of times. However, they put out news this morning that they're divesting part of their company and doing a merger, which is very interesting. So, all of a sudden, it starts squeezing up and it goes from six up to 7 up to 8 to 9 to 10, etc., etc. And so, on this one, I broke the ice in the main account and the small account. I was like, "You're down 500 bucks today. Whatever. I'm just going to put you on the side for right now." Focused on the main account. And I took my first trade actually very early on. Um, as soon as it started popping up right here, we got this initial pop, this pullback, and right away we're getting a curl back through seven all the way up to eight. First trade right there, made $6,000. All right, decent. Pulls back. I got back in here for the break of VWAP. This time, got out, took the profit, made another 2 or 3,000 bucks. So now I'm down 15,000 on the day. Squeezes back up. I get back in here. Adding right here. We get this push up to 950. Now I'm down 8,000 on the day. Pulls back. Consolidation. Little dip right there. Take that trade. Down 11,000 on the day. 8,000 on the day. Whatever. It's kind of chipping away. Then I had a couple losses. Gave back a little profit here. Was back to a little deeper red, but not too bad. It pulls back. And then coming into the open, we rally back up and I punched it right here. Or no, it was a little lower than that, but I punched it kind of right in this area. Similar trade except this was above VWAP the whole time. And then a micro pullback right here. And with that, I went from red on the day back to green. We extend a little bit higher. And I take my final trade at the open, buying the dip off 12 and selling into 13 and finishing at $8,430 of profit on the day. 34,000 in the green on V and 26,000 in the red on PLSM. PLSM was not a good trade and V I had to trade fairly aggressively. Thank thankfully it was moving nicely, but um you know if I had traded if I had traded PLSM that aggressively in my main account on the front side of the move, I'm sure I would have made 25,000 on it and I'd be up 50 grand on the day. It could have easily happened. But instead, you know, I'm trading the small account, kind of have a good trade on it, but I'm unsatisfied because my big account was left sort of, you know, with nothing. So then I try to compensate for it by being really aggressive in my main account. Well, that fails. And I also add in my small account because I was so sort of biased that this thing was going to definitely work. So then I lose in both of them. And then finally V is the recovery. So what's the the moral of the story? Well, I suppose the moral of the story is that trading in multiple accounts at the same time creates a real challenge. One could be green, the other can be red and you don't know how to feel. You know, one's green and the other's got nothing and you feel disappointment. You know, especially when you know if you traded in the bigger account, you would have done really well. Many of you guys trade in multiple accounts because of the way you can sync them using brokers like Schwab where you execute an order and executes in two accounts at the same time. So, for that reason, you know, this is a challenge. It's not really the intention that the small account challenge will be a challenge of dividing my attention. But the reality is if I focused exclusively on the small account, I would make far less than I would make if I just traded my big account, right? So like last month, my big account was up $570,000. The small account was up like 18 grand. So would I have been willing to sacrifice nearly $600,000 to do a small account challenge? And the answer is no. I I I'm not in a position where I can do that. That's not the right decision. So, I try to spread my attention and do both. I want to do small account challenges because I understand that you guys enjoy watching them. And so, I do them, but I'm trying to juggle and it's not easy. And sometimes you drop the ball. And today, I dropped the ball. And so, I could try to forgive myself and be a little bit more gentle with myself and say, "Look, this is just part of the deal. And it's the cost of doing the small account challenge. And I know I just lost more in one trade than I've made during the entire small account challenge, which also calls into question whether I should even be doing it. Um, but at the same time, um, you know, there's things that you guys are learning during this challenge. And so I've kept up with it. How long should I keep trading in it? I I really don't know the answer to that question. I've been thinking about it. This is not the first time I've had this kind of fumble. I've had a couple in the last month uh that have resulted in bigger red days or bigger losses in my main account. So, it's not a sustainable practice to trade this way, you know, forever. But for right now, um, you know, I I'm I'm continuing. So, today's day 18 of the small account challenge. The big account suffered and got the short end of the stick. In fact, both of them ended up suffering today because the small account's only up 200 bucks um you know, after um after all is said and done. So, this was a this was a tricky day, a tricky start to the week. The good news is that we had two stocks that made big moves. VE nice big move there and PLSM made a nice move. Even though it gave it back, we still had a couple candles of really clean price action and that's good to see as well. So, with that, I'm going to live to trade another day. I will be back at it first thing tomorrow morning streaming as always at 7 a.m. And if you guys have any questions, please don't hesitate to throw them in the comments down below. I love answering questions. And I'll remind you that trading is risky. My results aren't typical. So, please manage your risk, take it slow, and I'll see you first thing tomorrow morning.