I missed out on $150,000 in gains today -- the secret to not beating yourself up when you miss a trade
There was a 20-40x trade planned using my targets but I missed it.
Have you ever beat yourself up/mentally punish yourself for a trade you missed for missing an entry on or selling too soon or perhaps too late?
I did today, and I was ready to join a monastery, strip down, and pursue self-flagellation. Why? Well I knew I planned to make over $100k using $5k today. The plan was to join a failed breakdown reversal trade. Once positioned, sell 50% at 5x and then ride the rest into close. (Basically a rinse repeat of yesterday but for 20-40x instead of 10x) and using 5k instead of 1k.
If I executed correctly and got the fill I wanted on SPX 4770c for 0.20. (placed order when it was 0.80). Let’s do the math.. That is 250 contracts at 0.20. Selling at $1 for would have secured $10k and a worst case $7500 gain. If I got the $18 target, that would have been approximately $200k gain on 125 contracts. So yes I’m a bit pissed at myself. How things played out is when I alerted last exits at $15, would have likely been closer to $100-150k.
Instead of beating myself I decided to go to work. I’m not going to go over how I planned the trade, but instead dealing with the aftermath and what could I have done differently.
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What went wrong?
Issue #1: I overslept. so I wasn’t able to enter as we based and bounced off 469. I was back at desk at 1:45 instead of my 1:15 as I had hoped.
Issue #2: There was no dip to give me the fill I wanted.
Issue #3: Not taking $5k worth of contracts on the 475 backtest at $2.80. I had an order at $1.80 but didn’t get enough of a dip. $5k and selling from $3—>12 average exit would still have yielded approximately $18k
How to not beat yourself up over it
First identify the issues as I did and then define constructive steps to support you for next time. Every athlete out there has missed game winning shots. The way the got to be the best is they practice, self-reflect, get up and shoot their shot again. But the key is the self-reflection and taking action to doing incrementally better next time.
So lets review my plan for addressing the issues above:
Overslept, not showing up on time. I’ve been going to sleep at 10pm but waking up. at 12 or 1am. And then am up all night and tired when its time to perform. So the key actions here:
Go to drug store tonight for sleep aids
Hit the gym and train hard until complete exhaustion
Go to bed without laptop and phone in bedroom.
Accept that I can’t control this and I’m not going to get the dip. That I placed the orders as I should, I still took chase size entry long, but made less than 10% of what I planned. I doubled checked my trade plan with Edge Trade Planner using the what if mode at various times. What I did was correct. If we don’t get the dip for the desired fill, there is nothing I can do about it. To get a 100k+ gain, Am I willing to risk 20k AND ride a possible $15k drawdown before it works? I’m not. So it’s OK.
When SPX 4770 hit $8 I placed orders at $2. 20 contracts. I know I wanted to do 25, but I wanted to leave some room. It only dipped to 2.50. so as it bounced I quickly grabbed a few contracts at 2.80 and added at 3.50. But I didn’t want to allocate more than $5k. So the sizing overall was kind of small. Would I dont anythng different here realistically speaking.not really. With 0DTE, I typically don’t like to take large positions. So I accept the behavior.
So the secret to not beating yourself up is Acceptance. I accept the following:
I accept I was tired and didn’t fix my sleep issues earlier. I will going forward.
I accept that the market was so strong and didn’t give a dip that would allow me to enter for a 30x+ gain after 1:20pm today. That is going to happen.
I accept that I am comfortable that I positioned “late” according the risk/reward profile I am comfortable with.
I ACCEPT THAT THERE WILL BE MORE OPPORTUNITIES. There will be more chances for me to take my shot
The last one is the most important. Lately, I find 10-20x trades at least twice a month and sometimes multiple times in a week. Knowing I can shoot my shot again, and that I can find these trades again is huge. There is no reason to beat myself up and there is every reason to take constructive action.
I hope this post helps. Please like and share if your think someone else will benefit from it.
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Have a great evening. See you tomorrow.