This is a record of one trade driven by emotion. Afterward came intense self-reproach and a period of doubt. Writing it down was a way to sort through the frustration and reset.

On February 25, 2019, the market had already been climbing for more than 30 days. It was not just rising—it had been surging. Many people were calling it a short squeeze of sentiment, the kind of market that pressures anyone on the sidelines to finally buy in.

At that point, the question became hard to escape: after such a big run, should you still buy? What if you buy and it drops immediately? And yet, in a market this strong, not buying feels unbearable. Missing out can feel worse than taking a loss. Logically, doing nothing means you do not lose money. So why does it create so much anxiety?

In extreme conditions like that, what matters most is not position sizing but self-management. That was exactly where I failed.

What happened in the trade

Before the open, I had a plan. I would keep buying Shanxi Securities, and regardless of whether it went up or down, I would sell by the close. The idea was to do a T+0 trade. My expectation was that the stock would still rally hard that day, but would face a pullback later. So I intended to increase my short-term exposure.

But during the session, Shanxi Securities started showing signs of downward movement. I panicked and sold. A little later, I realized I had sold at the day’s low. A flurry of action, and all I managed to do was hand myself a needless 2% loss.

I was furious with myself for making such a bad decision. Then came the usual trap: the more I wanted to make up for the mistake, the more urgently I wanted to trade again. In that state, I sold Inspur Information as well. By the close, it turned out that decision had cost me another 3% in missed profit. Looking back, neither choice came from calm judgment.

Greed, fear, and regret all at once

Greed wants to squeeze out the absolute maximum return.

Fear starts the moment an added position makes existing profit feel fragile.

Regret arrives when you realize doing nothing would have produced the better outcome.

That is why stock trading often feels like a fight against yourself.

Some time ago, I came across a line on Xueqiu: do not make decisions during trading hours. It sounds simple, but when emotions begin to swing, it becomes very hard to hold the line. Without any buffer, emotional reactions quickly turn into actual orders.

Making several decisions in a short span almost guarantees that some of them will be wrong. And the strange thing is that correct decisions rarely leave as strong an impression as bad ones. The satisfaction of being right is often weaker than the frustration of being wrong.

The same pattern shows up outside the market

I saw something similar while renovating my new home.

I handled the renovation myself under a partial-contract arrangement, which meant having to make one decision after another: design plans, the renovation company, doors, flooring, furniture, and more. Sometimes less than a day after choosing something, I would realize that the decision had cost me hundreds or even thousands. That kind of mistake brought the same self-blame.

Usually the reason was one of two things. Either I had not researched carefully enough and missed a hidden problem, or I had been influenced on the spot by the atmosphere created by the seller and ended up rushing the decision. But if you step back and look farther ahead, many of these things are not as significant as they feel in the moment.

Lowering the urge to trade

Li Xiaolai, known for claiming to be one of the largest Bitcoin holders in China, made a point in The Self-Cultivation of the Leek that stayed with me:

If you are not good at entertaining yourself, if you do not spend a large amount of time seriously living your life, then you have no way to reduce your trading frequency.

That observation gets at something important. If all attention stays locked on the market, every fluctuation begins to feel urgent. The obvious answer is to build interests outside trading and deliberately shift focus away from the screen.

What I took from this review

A trading plan should be made in advance, with at least an A plan and a B plan. It should not remain a vague idea in your head—write it down. Then follow it strictly and leave as little room as possible for emotion to interfere.