I need to tell you about something that happened to me this week.
It’s not pretty (it’s actually really cringe)…
But I’m still gonna tell you this story because I think it’s…
I notice a trend with my students. You see my big profit numbers and think the path to get there was smooth. You see the highlight trades and assume I’ve never had bad days, or even weeks.
But you’re wrong.
And that’s a dangerous way to think about trading.
One stock reminded me of that this week (in a way I’ll never forget).
The Losses
Avis Budget Group (NASDAQ: CAR)…
This stock has been one of the most brutal, most humbling, and ultimately most rewarding trades of my career.
For some background, for most of this year, CAR was a slow bleed. It drifted lower week after week, and by February it had broken below $100 a share.
And then at the end of March, out of nowhere, the stock started grinding up. By April, it broke through $200 and kept going. There was no fundamental reason for this stock’s climb.
Here’s the insane chart of CAR from the beginning of April…
So what was my obvious thought?
Everything that goes up must come down, right?. Time to short CAR.
And I did, starting on April 9th…
But the stock kept running. It was ugly.
And I kept shorting over the next two weeks (two long positions in there to try to recoup losses). I wasn’t giving up.
Between that first trade and this past Tuesday, I racked up over $900,000 in losses in a single ticker.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Those are enormous numbers.
My Tuesday loss was the biggest. Here’s what I posted to Tim Sykes’ other millionaire students:
That’s the kind of day that makes you question everything.
But I kept going.
What Most of You Would Have Done
Most of you would have walked away from CAR after the first big loss.
And honestly, guys? I’d understand that reaction. Nobody would blame you.
But after years of doing this, I’ve learned that when a stock is moving the way CAR was moving, with that kind of size, that kind of volatility, that kind of daily range, the opportunity doesn’t disappear just because you got hurt.
It’s still there. The setup is still there.
The question isn’t whether the stock is worth trading.
The question is whether you’ve learned enough from what went wrong to trade it better the next time.
The Come Back
April 22nd. Two trades.
$892,756 profit on the first. $895,159 profit on the second.
Three minutes apart. Nearly $1.8 million in combined profits in a single morning.
Total profits on CAR across the entire run: $638,025.31.
Let that sink in for a second…
After everything. After the $351,000 loss. After the $406,000 blowup. After days of getting absolutely beaten up by this stock, two trades on one morning turned the entire story around.
And it has nothing to do with luck. That’s preparation meeting opportunity after a brutal stretch of learning what the stock was doing and what it was capable of.
What This Really Means
I’m not sharing this to flex the numbers. The losses in this story are just as real as the wins, and I won’t pretend they aren’t.
I’m sharing it because maybe you’ve had a bad week. Maybe you’ve had a bad month. Maybe you’ve taken losses that made you question whether this is even worth continuing.
I’ve been there. Every serious trader has been there.
What the CAR trade taught me, again, because trading has a way of teaching you the same lessons over and over until they stick…
You don’t lose until you quit.
Every loss is information. Every bad trade is a data point. Every day you come back, review what happened, adjust your approach, and sit down at the screens again is a day you’re getting better.
CAR broke me more than once this month.
And then it gave me one of the best mornings of my career.
Study your losses. Keep your size appropriate. Protect your account.
And never, ever, let a string of bad trades convince you that the next opportunity isn’t coming.
– Jack Kellogg
