I’m going to tell you a simple but painful truth about trading.
No matter how successful you are…trading will always be a challenge.
The right tools make trading WAY simpler
With almost any other discipline, you can put in your 10,000 hours and pretty soon what used to be difficult becomes relatively easy.
But no matter how much experience and wisdom you gain, trading never gets easy for anyone.
And it’s designed that way. The stock market would cease to exist if trading were a skill you could master.
I’m not saying you can’t improve your trading.
You absolutely can improve virtually every aspect of your trading.
(and you better try…or you won’t last long)
The most frustrating part about learning to be a successful trader is the fact that for the most part, you learn from your mistakes.
And unfortunately, most traders will run out of money long before they’ve had the chance to lose that many trades.
Well guess what? I don’t usually brag about this but…
I’ve totaled over $45 million in total losses over my career.
That’s $45 million worth of lessons that I’m giving you for free every week.
And here’s another one for you…
Back in January, I bought a short squeeze on SPHL at $20.00 with a hard stop at $17.00.
It was a high-of-the-day breakout at 3:30 in the afternoon. The float was tiny.
I kept the position small. A stock like that moves far enough that you don’t need size for it to pay.
It worked almost immediately.
From my entry it ran to $21.50. Then $22.00. Then $22.50, $23.40, and up through $24.00.
I was calling every one of those prices out loud on a live webinar.
At $24.70 I moved my stop up to my break-even.
At that moment, my trading mentor and good friend Tim Sykes messaged me in the middle of the live stream:
“Nice work on a 3-4 dollar winner”
I remember thinking he’d be so annoyed if he knew I hadn’t sold a share yet…
The stock got to almost $25.00 before it reversed…
$23.00… $22.50…$22.00…
When it hit $20.00 my stop filled and my trade was dead.
I sat there watching my profits disappear….LIVE on camera
When I slid my stop to $20.00 I hadn’t protected a dollar of that four-dollar run.
Selling a third at $22-24 would have ensured I at least walked away with some gains.
But instead I held on too long, and watched all my profits bleed away.
You’d think after years of trading and millions in confirmed profits, that I would be immune to the kinds of mistakes that beginner traders make all the time.
But that’s the point I’m trying to illustrate. The mistakes become fewer, but you’d be shocked how often I still make those same mistakes I made back when my account was only $10,000.
And the reason is simple:
Trading is ****ing hard.
That’s the reality and it’s never going to change. The minute you forget that fact, the market will rub your nose in it.
So take every advantage you can get your hands on. You don’t have to learn every lesson the hard way.
Take it from my friend (and killer trader) Ben Sturgill. He’s launching a new live series airing every Tuesday that you don’t want to miss.
Stay Sharp,
Jack Kellogg
*Past performance does not indicate future results
