Midday Update 2026-04-16: Rough Morning, Eyes on the Close
Not going to sugarcoat this one — we got punched in the mouth this morning. Thirty-nine trades, 46% win rate, and a $304 loss to show for it. Days like this sting, but they're also where the real learning happens.
Session Momentum took the biggest hit today. We were chasing direction too aggressively in some names, especially IONQ and MARA, which gave us multiple false signals. The IONQ short did recover late in the session (+$25.21), which kept things from getting worse, but MARA long positions kept bleeding out (−$8.2, −$6.62). That's the danger of stacking into the same ticker when the setup isn't there — we doubled down and paid for it.
ConnorsRSI wasn't much help either. COIN long and RGTI long both went underwater, with RGTI being particularly brutal at −$76.43. When a composite RSI signal fails that hard, it usually means volatility jumped in a way the indicator didn't anticipate. We'll be reviewing those entries.
The bright spot? Mean Reversion actually worked. That MARA mean reversion long picked up +$9.03 while our other MARA entries were drowning. It's a good reminder that fading extremes works better than chasing momentum in choppy markets — and this morning was definitely choppy.
We're sitting with 15 open positions right now, which is on the higher end. Some of these are still down, and we need to be disciplined about cutting losers if the afternoon doesn't provide a reversal. The market feels directionless, and that's when our systems struggle most.
Watching for the 2 p.m. ET timeframe. That's usually when institutional flows pick up, and we might see some clearer trending emerge — or at least some mean-reversion setups worth taking. If this stays rangebound, we'll probably trim back our position size and focus on higher-conviction trades only.
This is day two of a rougher week, but that's trading. The discipline to take losses and regroup is what separates people who quit from people who build something real. More on the close later.