Doing nothing; narratives; two books

Catch the rally by dodging the sell-off

"The best way to catch a rally is to have dodged the sell-off." You control only your positioning, not reclaims or rallies. During a 4-month −60% downtrend he made no redundant bullish arguments, so he wasn't traumatized when the reclaim came. "Being early is being wrong": an alt-season thesis that is down 60% is no "I told you so".

▶ Doing Nothing 0:00 ▶ Doing Nothing 0:24 ▶ Doing Nothing 1:08 ▶ Doing Nothing 1:22 ▶ Doing Nothing 11:55 both

99% of the time: waiting

Out of a position, you wait for a reclaim, strength, a HH or a daily structure shift. In one, you wait for invalidation or TP. There are no real forecasters: signals "fall into our lap". Set red flags (break below the 4H 200s, a range forms, a break below the range) and do something else until one fires. "I want to be as lazy… as possible."

▶ Doing Nothing 10:44 ▶ Doing Nothing 10:58 ▶ Doing Nothing 15:36 ▶ Doing Nothing 16:02 ▶ Appreciation 7:48 ▶ Appreciation 7:58 ▶ Appreciation 8:36 both

Exit on the system you entered on

Don't enter on the 4H 200s / HTF trend / structure and then exit on a liquidity sweep, an RSI bear div or high OI ("people want to be long in a bull market… who would have thought"). Accept your system's good, bad and ugly: a 4H 200s invalidation 20% below a +50% rip is slow, and you knew that going in, so handle it with TPs at key regions. De-risking for election week is cope: you knew it was coming.

flowchart LR
  E[Entry: 4H 200s + daily structure] --> X[Exit: 4H 200s lost + daily LL
or TP at key level]
  F[RSI bear div · liquidity sweep
high OI · election week · news] -.-> N[Not an exit signal]
    

▶ Doing Nothing 2:04 ▶ Doing Nothing 2:44 ▶ Doing Nothing 3:11 ▶ Doing Nothing 4:10 ▶ Doing Nothing 4:25 ▶ Doing Nothing 16:27 both

In an uptrend, know what not to do

Trend lines are subjective. "How do you know that your trend lines are alpha?" Wicky "top" candles print all through a bull market, and 3/4 to 4/5 of them are false positives. RSI bear divs in an uptrend were wrong 7 times, then "right" 3 months and +40% later. "Turn the RSI off." Bet on the 20-0 boxer: he loses eventually, but after 40 wins it doesn't matter. The edge is the discretion to know what not to do.

▶ Not To Do 1:21 ▶ Not To Do 3:54 ▶ Not To Do 4:40 ▶ Not To Do 7:27 ▶ Not To Do 9:59 ▶ Not To Do 11:24 ▶ Not To Do 12:55 both

His greatest trade came from doing nothing

After the 4H 200s breakdown, the weekly printed a LH (critics: "nobody trades the weekly"). An LH/LL sequence followed, then a HL "because I did nothing". Weakness is only called a LH in hindsight, and strength a HL. Then came the HH and price discovery.

▶ Doing Nothing 12:25 ▶ Doing Nothing 12:52 ▶ Doing Nothing 13:46 ▶ Doing Nothing 14:08 ▶ Doing Nothing 14:51 investor

Narratives follow price

"Show me the charts, I'll tell you the news." On the way down it was "FUD is priced in", "Fed pivot", "merge supply shock". On the way up came the bearish merge takes. "It's so easy to fall victim to a narrative." Let the chart tell you which narrative to abide by. He'd believe "a koala stuck in a tree… is bullish" if price agrees. Use narratives only as confluence. The TA is "the equivalent of crayons, and it works".

▶ TA vs Fund. 8:28 ▶ TA vs Fund. 10:58 ▶ TA vs Fund. 11:09 ▶ TA vs Fund. 11:59 ▶ TA vs Fund. 12:35 ▶ TA vs Fund. 12:48 both

Two books, never mixed

He keeps pre-positioned spot "just sitting there" in a Ledger. He DCA'd it 2017 → Q1 2022, never took profit, and ate the 2022 drawdown as an accepted con. The trading account runs the system. Net worth hit an ATH despite −80% on the investor bucket. Mix them and you land in limbo: "every time the market goes up you're a shitty investor… every time it goes down you're a shitty trader." "Once you start to mix the two… you quickly start to fall into a downward spiral."

flowchart TB
  subgraph INV[Investor book · cold storage]
    direction LR
    I1[DCA at support, over years] --> I2[Untouched: no TP, no stop] --> I3[Drawdown = accepted con]
  end
  subgraph TRD[Trader book · exchange]
    direction LR
    T1[200s + structure setup] --> T2[Stop at invalidation] --> T3[TP at levels · exit on trend break]
  end
  INV -. mixing .-> L[Limbo: under-invested on rallies,
under-hedged on dumps]
  TRD -. mixing .-> L
    

▶ This Mistake 1:42 ▶ This Mistake 2:20 ▶ This Mistake 2:39 ▶ This Mistake 14:57 ▶ Bottom Buying 10:18 ▶ Bottom Buying 23:58 ▶ Bottom Buying 24:26 both

Nurses with a 401k out-trade you

The greatest investors are labor: 401k/403b DCA, where "their main variable is time" and the entry price matters less over time. If your 2–3-year return is below theirs (~30%), "you got out traded by someone who doesn't even know what… they're doing". It takes humility to admit you'd sometimes be better off doing nothing.

▶ Appreciation 3:35 ▶ Appreciation 4:24 ▶ Appreciation 5:41 ▶ Appreciation 7:08 investor