Zero Pain Tolerance

Rating my Post-Election moves + Lessons Learned

I wasn't feeling very good last night and decided to go to bed early. I didn't make any overnight moves. Not sure there were any good ones because last night didn't feature a lot of reversals unlike 2020. Trump took the lead early and ending up with a start-to-finish steam roll of Kamala--including a shocking popular vote victory of 5 million citizens.

It wasn't the politics that made me a sick, it was one key misstep I made in my election moves... I sold my long-term bitcoin out of panic at 68.3k because I didn't want to stomach the election volatility on it. I didn't like that it was an election trade at all and my gut just said get out and get back in later, so I got punished by having to chase the highs again. I did not anticipate a Trump win generating such outsized moves on multiple major markets. I figured there would be some sell-the-news effect there (maybe that play out until Friday, who knows). Chasing back in cost me about 50k in cost basis.

7:45pm EST: there were a TON of big spikes in every market. Major scalping opportunities there but I don't really look for scalps anymore. I was also trying to put my daughter to sleep at the time. I did think about longing DJT at 35-36 to hedge any possible weirdo moves like that... but didn't of course. Seeing these crazy moves just added to my irritation, in a way that's hard to explain.

DJT also spiked to 50... which I expected and accepted as a risk. But in conjunction with said btc disappointment, it was hard to manage that worry as well. I started having to do math on how much I would be down if DJT opened above 50. In the end, I never got to see my pnl in the red because my short straddle made money from 9:30 and onward. They should all expire to 0 by Friday for me to make 100k. I also took some stock short at 44-45. Classic sell the news setups that I might do on a trade breakdown on my real blog.

I will say this. Even though I had the idea nailed dead-on, I'd probably tell another trader to go at different than I did. You could short unlimited on the Wednesday open with defined risk and just make your money that way. Shorting calls like I did is nerve-wracking.

Polymarket trades... I lost 10k on Kamala popular YES and I made 3k on Trump Iowa YES. So a net of -7k. In the end I'm glad I bet small because I didn't feel a lot of confidence. I didn't see any convincing data that said Trump wouldn't outperform the polls like he did the past 2 cycles--they all seemed like assumptions from other people who were hoping that would be the case. I didn't see any convincing data that said women would have exceptional turnout for Kamala either. I probably should have just cut my losses or exited for a small 10% profit but I let myself have a little gamble into election day for the fun of it. It's kind of funny looking back how much the market cared about one Selzer poll--it's just Iowa and only 800 people sampled. It didn't end catching a narrowed margin in Iowa, as Trump still won by +13. I'm glad I faded it but I was too small. It's hard for me to bet a lot just to collect a little, even if it's the right play.

Other random thoughts on the analysis I saw: Lichtman's keys were wrong. Nate Silver meaningless 50-50 conclusion. Harry Crane right in having Trump as a sticky favorite for most of the year. Chris Camilo's speculative tweet about Kamala's strong ground game had some impact ended up being a nothing burger. French bettor "Freddi" banked despite ultra rudimentary analysis (he also just took the baseline Trump thesis that he'd outperform the polls, rather than any inside info, at least that's what he wanted us to believe in his interview). Most Kamala bettors had an interesting narrative but not enough good data behind them.

All in all--some good, some bad. Mixed bag of a day for me. Going back to retirement because I felt a lot of negative emotions that reminded me why I'm not up to being a full-time trader at the moment. I felt locked in my own head and unable to do anything but just watch when I should be "head on a swivel" mode looking for opportunities. I don't know how to get past that and I don't even feel particularly motivated to try.

My goal for today: live real life. Eat a good meal, get fresh air. Don't get caught up in internet for all the post-hoc analysis and grandstanding.