Circular Calamities
Had another Pete's calamity today on CRCL. Calamities are hard to break down because I feel like I have to write 3 goddamn chapters on how I shifted from a conservative trade to an aggressive trade to a tilt trade and it's all very dumb. I did most of my review in my head. Here are some generalized pointers that I feel I did not adhere to. This probably won't make any sense to you so I suggest you stop reading.
Act in your own best interests I say this to myself all the time... it has a specific meaning to me. Sometimes I feel there are multiple guiding forces within me. There's this animal side who's willing to attack and go all-in and then there's this wiser voice who knows what not to do. And today they were in direct conflict. It's a tell when I think/write/say to someone "I WON'T DO THIS THING" and then the animal side takes over and does "the thing" five minutes later. Ugh. That's why I repeat to myself... act in my own best interests. When the wiser voice says something, you cannot go in direct violation of it. Doing this is so costly, more costly than the $-amount itself. It introduces all this cognitive dissonance. It tears you apart inside. You start to question future positions and it fucks up your commitment. There's probably some psychology hack to make this more effective for me than just some dumb 5 word mantra.
There was a moment in the trade where I went from trading 100-500 shares to 1000-4000 shares and that cost me a big chunk of money (about 20k) just on a paper cut loss (I call it a paper cut descriptively because the % move wasn't that significant). I didn't lose a single dollar on the front side as it went from 230 to 300 either. This has now happened... I don't know... a million times in my career. I was trading small for the right reason and trading big for the wrong reason (which I will keep private). At no point did my gut ever tell me "This is done, hold for a huge move."
That being said... I'm trying to be done with raking myself over the coals for it. I'm trying to be kinder to myself.
Again, don't read this because you're not meant to. It's personal again. This is something I just said to myself to make myself feel better.
When you go into trading for a career (excluding the salaried trader at institutions)... the odds are it won't end well. The 0-20th percentile long-term outcomes include:
- Bankruptcy
- Crippling debt
- Massive loss of existing wealth
- Cycles of addiction/depression
- Suicide
The 21-79th percentile long-term outcomes are a little less worse but not a success. Most people end their attempts at a career in this wide block of outcomes and your mileage may vary.
- Wasted your prime years doing nothing productive, making no money or losing a small amount
- Made some friends along the way
- Know how to execute trades, maybe you leveraged something out of that (social media/trader education/other finance job)
- You're still hacking away trying to be a successful trader but not quite yet doing it and don't know if you ever will do it.
The 80th percentile is okay money--the workman's scalper who can make $500/day or something like that. Nobody ever talks about them. Chances are though, they can't do this for an entire lifetime. It will just end and they will move on to something else without blowing up.
The 90th percentile is what people consider successful trader. Making well above what you could have otherwise done--being a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc. Achieved financial independence. Obviously, the more you get into the tiny tiny 99th percentile, the exponentially larger the earnings are. Academically, it's proven that it doesn't make you happier to be there than being in the 80th percentile.
I made it to the 90th percentile. The next loss won't take me out of that. The next ten losses won't take me out of that. If I'm retired today, I'm good. There's no reason to keep being mean to myself. Who really gives a fuck?