Gut panic

It's October 2023, I am starting to panic a little. Markets declined, and it's getting a bit painful, I begin moving cash into SL's, adjusted stop losses so far down that some reached prices not seen for a decade. I know it's a waste of capital I know the probability this is actually necessary is unlikely, and yet I am doing so, just so I can sleep better at night.

The market bottoms the next week and we have a huge move to the upside. That month, and the following, I did quite well. But I could have done so much better had I not panicked and used cash so stupidly, instead averaged down and purchased more. I was foolish to waste such capital.

It's April 2024, I once again panic. This time I even borrow cash from friends, empty my own bank account, just to extend stop losses to lows that are so absurd you can't help but not laugh - here is a chart to show where my stop loss was...

The market bottomed the next week, and we have a record move in small caps. I once again waste capital moving stop losses to levels just so ridiculous, wasting capital that could otherwise be expended buying the dip.

Skip to now, it's August 2024, I can't afford to push cash into my balance this month, I want to spend on a birthday for once and costs are already accounted for. I've not celebrated my own birthday in a decade, which is sort of sad given my youth.

Markets are panicking over some dumb Japanese carry trade which has caused a sizable sell off in effectively all stocks. It was a pretty terrible week to begin with, before levelling off and we almost ended flat, which is sort of amusing for all the panic.

And yet with that amusement, comes a stubborn unwavering concern that I am wrong. That the trades I have been holding for almost a year now to no success, will take another year, and perhaps another after that.

I can listen all I wish to people whom take the same opinion as me, the same trades or the same thesis, but that's just bias confirmation. I can only sit on my hands and wait.

I have closed some positions at a loss just to have that spare cash available to manage stop losses, and I have even added more positions to my sizable TNA, almost doubling the size to 400 shares, but I suspect I have rushed this all.

I fear a prolonged decline, forcing me to expend fees on biotech positions which is already sizable and costly, alongside an unrealised decline in my other positions, with TNA suffering from the inevitable decay the longer it waits for a stronger uptrend.

The time cost of my trades has become absurd, and I think i begin to regret the whole thesis, I can only afford to move my biotech SL's to the lows of covid, and yet somehow i feel this isn't enough.

In the last week I have made some additional daft, emotional decisions. I wasted funds on what I thought was a virtual account only to realise it was my real account, lost 5% of my available cash balance in a 30 second trade.

I even start to regret the time I have spent learning markets, and that hurts in a way I am not sure how to say. It's like being told everything you have ever enjoyed in life has been for nothing.

So I write this, to look back on how this ages, what my thoughts were and how much I laugh - or cry - at myself in the future.