🚀 The Trade That Looked Genius (Until It Wasn’t)
It was earnings week. Tesla was about to report. The stock was coiling like a spring, and the forums were buzzing. I had seen this before — volatility crush, huge breakout, gamma squeeze. I knew the game. At least I thought I did.
I bought $7,200 worth of call options with an expiry just two weeks out, expecting a massive move. Two days later, I doubled down with another $800. Because — in my mind — I was right, and the market just hadn’t caught up.
Newsflash: I wasn’t right. And the market didn’t care.
Tesla dropped post-earnings. Not by much. But enough that my short-dated options, crushed by IV decay and theta, were worth pennies by the time I blinked.
🧠The Real Problem: My Brain, Not the Market
Here’s what nobody tells you on Reddit or Discord: The most dangerous part of options trading isn’t the Greeks — it’s the Greek inside your head: your ego.
I didn’t lose $8,000 because of Tesla’s chart.
I lost it because of confirmation bias, sunk cost fallacy, and a sprinkle of FOMO seasoned with too much caffeine.
Let me break down what was really going on inside my head during that trade:
1. I Mistook High Conviction for High Probability
I felt confident. I’d seen the setup before. I’d been right on Tesla before. That created overconfidence bias. I believed that “knowing the pattern” was the same as having an edge. It wasn’t.
Lesson: Confidence is not a strategy. Probability doesn't care how many times you've been right.
2. I Ignored My Own Risk Rules
I had a rule: no more than 3% of my capital on a single trade. I broke that rule because “this one was different.” That’s called exception bias — and it shows up right before the biggest losses.
Lesson: If you make exceptions, your rules don’t matter. Your system becomes noise.
3. I Added to a Losing Position Without a Plan
This was pure sunk cost fallacy. I’d already put in so much money, I figured one more trade would “average me down” and help me recover.
Lesson: Averaging down in options is often throwing gasoline on a dumpster fire.
4. I Was Trading to Feel Something
Sounds crazy, right? But I realized I wasn’t just trading the chart — I was chasing emotional validation. I wanted to “win big” so I could prove I was a serious trader.
Lesson: If you’re trading to fix your self-esteem, the market will humble you — brutally.
🔄 The Aftermath: Regret, Shame, and Rebuilding
That $8,000 didn’t just hurt my wallet. It wrecked my confidence, made me question my system, and forced me into a painful but necessary reset.
Here’s what I’ve done since:
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I journal every trade, including what I was feeling before entry.
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I set alerts instead of watching price every second.
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I created a “rage rule”: if I lose 2 trades in a row, I stop for 72 hours.
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I paper trade new strategies for 30 days before using real money.
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And I stopped idolizing stocks like Tesla or Nvidia. They’re not magical. They’re just tickers.
🙌 Final Thoughts: Trade the Market, Not Your Emotions
Most of us don’t blow up accounts because we “don’t know enough.” We blow them up because we think we’re immune to emotion. We’re not. The sooner you start trading with humility, the faster you’ll stop paying Wall Street tuition.
If this saved you even one painful trade, I hope it was worth the read.
And if you’ve been there — if you’ve blown a trade and felt like an idiot — you’re not alone. Just learn from it.
The market gives quizzes every day. And sometimes, the biggest lessons come with the highest price tags.
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