“Understanding the potentialities and risks of [a] strategic move can prove crucial in your life. Use it carefully, and understand that even with the best care it may fail” —Avinash K. Dixit and Barry J. Nalebuff, The Art of Strategy
If you told me 5 years ago that I would be writing a blog about trading stocks and financial markets, I probably would have laughed and asked what that even means. But while still an undeniable amateur on paper, I do feel I have come a long way over the last 5 years or so, not only admitting defeat with trying to be a “full-time” options trader (and that’s a whole other story), but to just have enough self-control to not throw all of my hard-earned money away on risky trades every week while being sucked in to the minute-by-minute of the market that gets totally overplayed.
But the play-by-play is like 90% of the fun of it though, which makes it so hard to not check obsessively. Having social media and friends on Discord and Twitter to shoot the shit about stocks; every trading day it’s something with the stock market, and even if there’s nothing going on really, we’re all talking about how it’s a down day or endless chop.
And look, I am so grateful for all of the connections I’ve made (and the inevitable foes of course, given the innate nature), but I have to say when I stepped back from the intraday noise I slowly felt the stress and anxiety alleviate my body back into normalcy (similarly to the way drug addicts feel when they stop using, I assume).
“FinTwit” or “FinX”—whatever you will—has its perks; I know there’s TONS of unique and equally talented minds out there. However, when I started seeing things differently as my own skills had grown exponentially, I realized that I was the only person who was going to save myself.
Not to mention, when the online stuff starts spilling into your real life (like the girl with the Discord who called my RE brokerage 15 times because I don’t agree with luring new traders in charging money for options trades, or the guy that flat out stole my trade I told him about and lied and said he made the same trade on his Twitter page, and more FinTwit shenanigans), this was getting more stressful beyond ways you could ever imagine; if people cannot stomach a little shit talk online, how are they managing their alleged sized trades? Also, how was any of this really verifiable if all people are doing is posting a vague screenshot that has zero to do with performance?
So while it felt really good to have a sort of “community” with all of this, I actually think the best thing you can do as a trader or investor is somewhat of the opposite: get off social media, start studying, read books, find a few select people you can trust to talk, don’t pay anyone a dime who is trying to sell you something, and just try not to rush anything; assume you will fail with this. You are only human; you do not need to make $1 million next week (OK maybe I do, but you know).
Looking at my own options trading performance and seeing just how bad I had allowed myself to get for allegedly being soOoOoO smart VS merely holding my longs (poor risk management, risky trades, no exit strategy, straight up not caring honestly at times), I saw how I was missing gains choosing options VS shares, getting too greedy when I was up, and just a painful experience of losses that put me in kind of a depression because I was actually doing really well at one point in 2024 and even had some killer ideas that ended up panning out in ways I didn’t think was possible. There was no reason why a person as relatively intelligent as me should be losing money like this (especially after being up).
So I took yet another step back from active trading and focused on what was working: and that was me staying busy and applying mainly two strategies that required an incredible amount of patience and a hard stomach to follow holding through down periods, dollar cost averaging, and having a set plan in place of entries and exits followed by various confirmations and also other factors like the 10/50/200 DMA which basically transformed my ways of thinking about how I view stocks in general.
I realize for sure I am not meant for scalping (I admit it! I am a horrible day trader!), I hate SPY 0DTE (RIP my SPY day trading days, but I’ll still always love it for a swing and have studied that chart for no joke thousands of hours), and after literally years of sitting and watching charts, I was growing kind of tired of it all as I have always worked out in the field with clients or in hospitality meeting with people; I began to feel a bit isolated from life and “real” work.
With all of that being said and looking in hindsight at my last year’s “picks”—if I would have just continuously evenly DCA’ed into my own ideas which were good—I’d be up way more than say: 100s of stupid trades and hours wasted staring at a screen, when my mind could have been creating new ideas or working on more profitable ventures.
I also find that when my mind is active and I’m out around, I am witnessing in real time what people are doing, wearing, seeing—constantly getting inspired for the next trade or god forbid another small business startup idea. This act of being away from the market is actually inversely positive for macro performance VS sitting at a computer all day getting lost in the charts and not getting external views (also: fresh air is good, you guys!).
Looking at last year’s picks performance:
SOFI +60%
HOOD +189%
HIMS +221%
NIO -46.79%
DKNG +7%
You know, we don’t give ourselves enough credit! Either that, or sometimes this stuff just seems easy. Regardless, you might just surprise yourself by some simple observation / thesis / DD and come up with a 200% trade. And that is what happened to me last year when I kept seeing Hims and Hers advertisements at the end of 2023. With a little more digging around, I was convinced this stock was the next thing. Cannot say the same for Nio an DraftKings performance (come on, degenerate gamblers!), but who’s going to nail 5/5? Cut me some slack.
What’s to come for 2025:
If I had a crystal ball to rub and see the future, it honestly looks like the movie Soylent Green meets the book Brave New World (meets the movie Mad Max: Fury Road!): resources are limited, climate is changing, pollution is increasing, tensions are high, there’s freaking UFOs flying around in the sky, and we’re all just on our phones watching it all go down while day trading Fartcoin on Robinhood (I’m joking, I have no clue if Fartcoin even trades on Robinhood).
At this point I do gotta say though that even with a catastrophic world event, investors have grown quite the stomach for volatility and I don’t think anything phases them really now; I would be surprised to see if there was even a large gap down or that prices would remain relatively high on the macro (imagine if SPY dipped to $400s again, would we even freak out really?)
Top 5 for 2025:
OXY – $60-65 target – of course Buffett has been adding, so I could hardly take credit for being the OG on this. Also it has the manufacturing theme I was outlining earlier in 2024.
HIMS – $35-40 target – this is my fav stock of 2025 and was a big winner last year; if something is working, why not? While there are inherently many risks with stocks of course, HIMS price action has been super volatile and seems to be trading on news of the weight loss drug shortage situation. I’m bullish anything above $20-25. Below to $16 is also possible.
PYPL – 105-110 target – everyone hates, but PayPal has been on a consistently bullish trend slowly but surely since about August 2024. The rebrand might have not been as climactic as hoped, but they do at the end of the day own Venmo and I am bullish.
NVDA – 150-160 target – one of the greatest companies in the world and while it is not “cheap” per se, the price post-split does make it attractive here for investors and why I remain bullish on it. I could see, if market corrects, a chance to buy again at $111, *IF* it happens.
HOOD – 50-55 target – let’s face it, Robinhood made up for the AMC x GME x meme stock debacle, and this platform is one of the best in my opinion as far as layout. Let’s go. It still has all the way up to the original IPO high of $85, although I would not go that far for this year and I remain modest with $55.
Remind me of this in a year everyone, and I am wishing everyone the best with their trading and investing journey moving forward. I’m not perfect, I am definitely not a financial advisor, and I will continue to post for the love of the game.