So 2 days ago, I landed my first perfect trade on GEVO. I talked about it in this blogpost. I was early to the big move and got my biggest gain so far. It felt great. Even though I sold at $0.64 before the market close, and the stock touched $1.85 after hours, I was still happy. I made $129, while I could have made $1300 on a $500 investment. I still felt great.

However, yesterday, I fucked up big time. I think I made every god damn mistake anyone could make during trading. I want to write about these mistakes, so everybody can learn from it (that includes myself).

So yesterday, GEVO dipped premarket to $1.20. I made my watchlist (which I always post on my twitter account), and saw a potential trade in GEVO again. 

My watchlist literally said about GEVO: 

" HUGE volatility, got up to 1.85 premarket, all the way from the 0.60's. This could go anywhere. Rationality is gone on plays like this. I want to ride the momentum train. This has already dipped all the way to 1.00 premarket. If it opens above that, I might want to look to dip buy near that level again, but this can go both ways. I wonder if I'll be able to get decent R&R ratios here... hmm. If this opens above 1, I might go for a dip buy at premarket support at 1.00, but very carefull though. "

(writing these blogpost really helps me see my mistakes)

My plan was quite clear: buy if it dips at intraday support at 1-ish.

I'm from Europe, so I am always still at work when the market opens. Just as the market opened, I was called for a meeting. I came back from that meeting and saw that the stock did exactly what I wanted it to do. It dipped at premarket support at 1.00 and quickly bounced 20%. That should have been my trade! Okay, so far so good, nothing bad happened yet, I just missed a trade, but I did not lose any money yet. I should have stopped there.

However, I was eager to play this stock again. I was sure that I can not let an opportunity like this slip through my fingers. I saw the stock struggle at the HOD in the morning of $1.22 ish. Once it broke that level on volume, I impulsively bought 700 shares at 1.26, as it was making new HOD's. At this point I started making mistakes.

1. I entered a trade without a plan
2. I entered a trade impulsively
3. I was just finished with working and on my way to home, trading from my telephone
4. Because of the impulsiveness of the trade, I forgot to place a stop loss order as I entered

So you can see how I fucked it up already. In hindsight, I think the plan itself (to buy the intraday breakout) was not thad bad of a bad plan. I fucked up however, by not having a clear plan for this exact trade like I usually do. It was all very impulsive.

But I did not realise it yet. I saw the truly immense volume. The stock traded it's entire float within 1.5 hour. I really thought I was going to ride the momentum up anyway. I could have exited my trade minutes later as it was fighting resistance at 1.35 for a quick 5% gain. I did not exit though, as I was just afraid of this stock blowing up after I exited again without me. I left  $1300 on the table the day before, and I was afraid that something similar might happen again. Therefore, I kept on to the stock. 

5. FOMO, I did not exit because I was afraid of missing out. 

As I got home, the stock already faded back to $1.22, and I was stupid not to cut losses there. I had lots of chances to get out breakeven as well. I did not take them, as my vision was so blurred with the move it had made the day before. Stupid. I got super cocky and decided to hold and hope. I saw the volume, and reasoned that it would probably break the HOD later that day.

And that brings me to maybe my biggest mistake: I decided to run a half marathon... I'm training for a marathon and running is something I love. I planned this half marathon for quite some time, and I would not let GEVO stop me from running it. Before I went out, I set a stop loss at $1.14, underneath the intraday lows it had made by then. My reasoning was that I allowed the stock some breathing room. In my opinion, the stock could still go up a lot. I was quite sure that this stock would keep going, seeing the huge volume. In hindsight, I was just blind to the facts.

And off I went, I started my half marathon. And after a few kilometers I knew what an Idiot I had been. I realised almost all the things that I have written down now. I should not have been in this trade. I should have set a tighter stop loss. My risk was too big. I was afraid of missing out on a big move and I let that cloud my vision.

As I was running, my hopes of profiting from GEVO were slowly fading. I knew that chances were very small that I was going to profit from this trade. I made tons of mistakes getting into this trade. My biggest fear was that the stock would break the HOD briefly, and that I would miss a nice exit due to my half marathon. That made me run a little faster lol. I was super eager to go home and take a look at my position.

So that's what I did. I finished my half marathon, got back to my laptop and saw my loss of $105. My stop loss order took me out at 1.13, luckily. The stock has been fading since, and is now in the $0.90's.

So after the best trade I had the day before, I fucked it up big time yesterday. I gave back nearly all my profits, and now I'm in the red again. I don't care about that however. I care about the very good experience this has been for me. Luckily, I have learned a lot from these trades.

1. Don't let FOMO cloud your vision
2. Don't go in without a specific plan
3. Always set a tight stop loss
4. Don't trade if you're not able to stay at your computer
5. Don't hold and hope
6. Cut losses! 
7. Take profits when you can.
8. Don't get too confident. I'm still a total noob.

Hopefully, I can take this with me and make better judgements next time. Let's see what I can do!

On the bright side: I ran my personal best on that half marathon, lol. I finished in 1:43:27, my previous record was at 1:48:30, so GEVO made me run 5 minutes off my previous best. Luckily theres still some sort of happy ending to this blog post haha.

Happy trading everybody and stay safe! You have gotta make mistakes in order to become an expert. As long as you keep learning from your mistakes.