Got smoked last couple days on CODX. what was a swing short play that I was almost done with, just a few hundred dollars in the red, and an average price of 3.30 turned into 15 and 18 dollar covers. I lost $ 11,000 today. Went under PDT and I'm in shock. The whole day I felt like I was going to blow up, and when the stock came down to 11 dollars I felt relief, like it was over and then it did the slow grind upward. The emotional trauma I put myself through was outrageous. The timing of this blowout is incredible. Just a few days after I started that short swing, I realized that short swings are my biggest losers and that I'm not going to do them anymore. I closed out all but my CODX swing. This is a huge setback financially for me. I was pulling out money regularly to pay my bills. Strange how upbeat I feel right now. Maybe I'm in shock. I just started lifting weights again and running 5 miles/day and the endorphins have been making me feel incredible. Also been doing the intermittent dieting since mid Dec. So getting close to being shredded has also been making me feel pretty good. Well, I know what I won't do anymore after this huge loss, now it's just taking it day by day. I put in a request to get me out of the PDT 95 day hold. Not sure if I should put a couple thousand in to get above PDT, but really what's the rush ? Probably should take some time and really let the gravity of what just happened sink in.

After learning the teachings of my secret mentor, it is painfully obvious that my biggest issue is not setting and respecting my stop-loss. Scaling into a position exacerbates swinging a big loser and when price action slowly grinds to or hovers near my stop-loss. I then almost always try to give it more room and end up losing much more than what was agreed upon in my plan.

It's so hard to accept that 12 months of success from last 0ct 2018, I've been cashing in, making plenty of profits, up over 160% until September 2019 when my luck ran out. Add, add, adding to loser stopped working, and I'm still trying to do the same thing that worked before, but I just keep losing money. I was up over $60K and now down to 35K. Yeah, I did pull out 22K to pay bills and basically just pay myself, that was gradual and I was up over 60K with taking those profits. I've been listening to Trading in the Zone over and over again, and it seems so simple to find a statistical edge and trade robotically. But I'm so used to focusing on making money and not giving a damn about process, that with taking this huge loss and now trying to slow way, way down to figure out my edge and learn how to trade it methodically, well I'd be lying if I said I wasn't depressed. It's a huge blow to go 12 months making money, thinking you've arrived, planned on quitting my day job soon, to have that all taken away in a matter of a few months. I almost joined IU like 3 times with the annual membership. It's so tempting to keep right on doing what I've been doing, money, money, but it's not working, and if I keep it up, I'll lose it all. I know what I have to do, but it feels so hard. The reason ? I'm addicted to gambling and that feeling of winning. I recently listened to "How we Decide", and those dopamine neurons giving me pleasurable feelings with being right. I have to be right nearly all the time with the way I've been trading since the beginning. The stress that causes me, holding on to losers and adding, well my elbows and arms are giving me nerve (damage) issues, because I flex my arms all the time without realizing it. This is the stress of holding on. It' not only destroying my account, but my health as well. I'm tracking my setup to trade, and perfecting my volume forecast model, but the real obstacle is not waking up early, looking for the runner, or looking for any opportunities to get short or long. I mean I don't take my small losses, so I have no business taking or even looking at those trades. The only thing that will save me, is to only trade my one setup and trade it mechanically, like an algo.

3 dangerous scenarios under one umbrella. I short the frontside, it goes against me and I don't take it off. The top finally arrives and it starts to tank, it gets closer to my breakeven, but I'm still down 1R on the day and decided not to take any off. This is almost always a mistake. Now it starts to grind back up slowly, higher lows are being created, but I won't take it off because I want to get to breakeven and also become emotional because I could have taken a lot of it off earlier. Now only when it threatens to reach previous highs do I consider taking it off. In this case, watching my P&L kept me from sizing down when the chart made a pullback. Stocks almost always move in waves, and I almost always regret not altering position size on crests and valleys of a chart. Scenario 2. I stop out on the frontside with a big loss and when the backside arrives I get short again. My goal is to get back to breakeven, and again watching my P&L and having that goal keeps me from taking anything off when the chart pulls back further. It grinds back up and now I'm using hope as my strategy. It's still hard for me to accept that the number one goal should be capital preservation. And because my goal is almost always to make money, it leads me down that path of those flaws when a trade starts acting up. The goal of making money or making money back, gets in the way of taking a trade off when it's not doing what I thought it should. scenario 3. When I've made money on a stock and I want to make more, and it starts putting in higher lows, this is a dangerous scenario for me. I get upset that now my profits are being reversed and now threaten going red on the day if I don't pull my head out of my ass.

On May 16th 2019 I got caught on OTLK. I need a few checks before the bell: Is the volume less than 10-25% of the float max ? And how far away is my average price from pm hod. That needs to be my stop. And I need to know how much I'm going to lose by stopping at that level. I get sloppy and just think I'll add and add slowly or small, but as OTLK showed me, even with that Idea I can get wrecked, If I don't stop out. it was a 3 day push on super heavy volume, and the 4th day in pm it made it's highest price. I was down 19.5R because I 1. didn't want to take a big loss. 2. I kept adding to my position. 3 I never had a stop level. So stopping out on breach of pm highs will be my safeguard. Note, I've also been remiss with shorting super micro floats and even swinging them DFFN, this needs to stop.

Some really great or serendipitous events have taken place since I last posted. Since the new year I have developed my niche. And my style hasn't changed much. Instead of using stop-losses most of the time, I am using appropriate size as my risk management. This hasn't worked in the past because I was trading too many setups, and different market cap types. The micro cap market has been going crazy since the first of the year, and because it has been so wild, it kept my focus on this one niche. Shorting micro floats that are over extended is my niche. paying attention to dilution in place (atms, warrants, purachase agreements etc..) is a big part of my setups. The smaller the float and higher the volume, the better. With all of these things in place, this stock will fall. However, if it doesn't come all the way back down and stalls for a few days, (EYES, PLAG, ZSAN) then I take if off on the next dip. There is no edge when this happens, so why chance it. There are plenty more on the way that will come back to zero in just a day or two. Keeping my size small relative to the price action has been a great development for safety. If a stock started at 2 dollars has taken all day to get to 4 dollars with 30 mil shares traded, This thing isn't going to 8 or 12 today. These things follow a pattern. someone has a plan/system for making this stock move, and volume and price range tell you their parameters. On the other hand, if you have a stock that's moving several dollars per hour on insane volume, most likely its float is less than 3 mil and I wouldn't want to touch it until the dilution starts. Sometimes I get caught and it takes me for a ride, but my size is small enough to ride it out, and I'm only in it because dilution is in place. but again if it holds for more than a few days, especially with deteriorating volume, that is a sign to take the loss or look for the nearest exit. That's it in a nutshell. There is a lot more to it, and pattern recognition and trend lines have a big part of it, as do emas and different time frames. Also, another huge part of my sudden success has to do with my LOA habbits, affirmations, visualizations etc... My understanding of these principles is on another level. I won't go into details here, but I am aligned to achieve success, and one big factor of this process is staying in a positive frame of mind.

I profited a few grand on MICT as the tender offer is now in the works and should be finalized in a few weeks. I sold most of my shares and then re-baught some above a dollar. It's now at .70 and I have 16K shares again and am down 4K. Me doing swings is just hopeless for now. Also. I got short WATT today, and got my face ripped off. I held because I was stubborn and now am about $500 down instead of 2,500. New year's resolution to only take Jeff trades, is on deck.

I'm still short CHS and waiting for this thing to tank, but it's still strong. Also I'm still taking trades outside of a back-tested system. This means I am gambling, and obviously addicted to the setups, that I refuse to use a stop-loss. I keep telling myself, I won't take any more indiscriminate trades, but here I am.

There is so much wrong with adding to a loser: 1. My average price is never near the top trend break, so when that correction happens, I still need much further correction to break even. 2. I am so relieved that it has corrected, but worried that it will go back up, that I cover for a loss and feel thankful 3. I never hold to make a profit, because The stress relief just to be done with it is too great. 4. Adding to a loser is for losers 5. trading without a stop is guaranteed to end your account

My MICT trade got down to neg $23 K unrealized. I just kept adding long from 1.60 and it went down all the way to 30 cents. I sold most on a lucky pop, but still lost 11K , basically most of my gains from the last month and a half. But was a huge wake up call, that trading without a stop-loss and or adding to a loser, will keep me from consistency.