Day Review 2026-04-13: Staying Profitable When the Math Says No
MARA was the day's biggest contributor, netting +$172.91 on an early Session Momentum trade. That single position accounted for 27% of our total P&L. We caught a move, managed it cleanly, and got out with size. That's the trade every day should have at least one of.
IONQ was a mixed bag. We took it three times—landed +$41.94 on the first, then stumbled with -$4.48 and -$9.89 on subsequent attempts. Classic case of one good read followed by chasing. The lesson here stings a bit: after you nail a trade, walking away for 10 minutes might save you the next two losing trades.
Small wins added up. MSTR's mean-reverting trade (+$19.78), the LABU long (+$8.96), and MSTR's Session Momentum entry (+$7.43) were the kind of high-probability, low-friction trades that keep your account ticking upward between the big moves.
What Didn't
Our worst trade was RIOT short via Mean Reversion—we lost $68.61 on that one, and I'm still not entirely sure why we took it. The signal fired, but the trade didn't have the setup's typical conviction. That single loss swallowed 11% of our day's gains.
QBTS also gave us trouble (short via Session Momentum: -$9.07), and we had a handful of zero-dollar trades where we got in but couldn't execute a winning exit. Those zeros aren't losses, but they're also time and energy spent on trades that didn't cooperate.
The Pattern I'm Noticing
Our Session Momentum strategy is still our bread and butter—most of today's profitable trades came from that signal. But we're taking too many attempts at the same ticker within a session. IONQ three times? MSTR three times? That's not diversification, that's obsession.
Going forward, I'm implementing a personal rule: max two attempts per ticker per session. If I lose money on the second attempt, I'm sitting out the third. This should reduce our loss count without sacrificing the bigger winners.
Market Context
Crypto stocks and tech were choppy today. The moves weren't directional—they were range-bound and mean-reverting, which actually plays to our algo's strengths. We saw a lot of intraday reversals, which is exactly what our Mean Reversion and ConnorsRSI strategies are designed to capture. That choppy environment is a reason we're still green despite the losing record.
Tomorrow
Watch for trend confirmation in the open hour. If we see a clean directional push in MSTR or RIOT, we're scaling in aggressively. If it's another chop fest like today, we're being disciplined about trade count and walking smaller Ps in the afternoon.
We're up $632.79. I'll take it.