Heart and Commitment
It takes heart and commitment to be a good position/conviction based trader (not so much for scalpers or system traders). My lack of it was completely exposed yesterday when I had zero short beta while the market plunged 3% on a sell-the-news reaction to Trump's "Liberation Day".
I keep asking you, dear reader, when will this SELL-THE-NEWS trade "stop" working? And why did I not try to take it myself? It's just a different version of fading Trump's stupid crypto summit. And I was shorting SPY (tiny) into the close as well, with thoughts it could trade to the lows at some point--and I almost never trade the market. I made a thousand bucks. The thoughts were there, the experience was there, the trade was even there. BUT... the heart and commitment was lacking. And thus there I was at 4:45pm, making dinner, watching TV, trying to feel good about a solid trade on CRWV and not trade anymore--only to see SPY plunge 25 handles from the announcement highs, about 20 minutes too late. It felt so obvious... so textbook... and I have zero short beta on the books I could have held some QBTS from 2 weeks ago or ethereum from 1 week ago, to at least capitalize by accident. But I didn't. I could have been Mr. Sell the News with a big weekly put position on. But I wasn't.
I don't have any excuses. I just suck.
I had a long, angry conversation with myself that lasted all night and existed solely within my own mind. I felt like a massive disappointment. The biggest sting is the fact that 60% of my liquid net worth is in index funds and some kind of position short to be hedged would have me feeling like a champ. Instead I'm just getting poorer while cynical finance bros, like the one below, keep telling me Trump is just playing 3d Chess of whatever.
Fuck this guy BTW. I hate how some people can be wrong all the time and still so shameless in their confidence. If I had read this beforehand, I would have had the emotion of SPITE and HATRED fueling me to trade the market. Sometimes that's what you need.
Anyway, this morning I am short BTC at 83k and CRWV at 56.40. Small positions and I'm just chasing while the market is in a big hole, which leaves me vulnerable to even a small rally. I'm playing catchup. I don't like it. Even if it works, I don't like it. Blah. Missed opportunity to be an obvious genius yesterday. Part of me just wants to not trade and pretend market doesn't exist today. Go watch a movie or some shit.
Oh and CRWV breakout trade update--I closed it out yesterday. Netted $70k across 2 days. Most of my exits were in the first ten minutes when it was skipping around points and I wasn't sure if the gap wanted to hold. Then it squeezed to 64 and amazingly round-tripped back to lows. Unfortunately couldn't make it above $60 with size. Good trade for me.