These past two days my mentality has collapsed—I lost 850U out of the hard-earned 1,100U I made this month in one go.

To be honest, money made by luck will eventually be lost by your own lack of skill. This time I lost fair and square: I over-leveraged my positions, rushed in whenever I saw an opportunity, and ended up either buying at the top and getting stuck or trying to catch the bottom and buying halfway down the slope, only to get liquidated by a single pullback. The most fatal mistake—I didn’t even set a stop-loss!

Losing money isn’t scary; what’s scary is losing all your principal and having to leave the table. Without chips, you’re completely out of the game.

After some painful reflection, I’ve set a few iron rules for myself:

Don’t trade during the day. No matter how tempting the market is, hold off and only check the charts after 8 PM.

Look for entry points between 11:00 and 11:30 PM, and only use a quarter of my principal for each trade—always leave room to maneuver.

Strictly keep stop-losses within 10 points, with a maximum leverage of 15x—it’s better to make small gains than take big losses.

Take profit based on the day’s volatility—run after at least 15 points, don’t get greedy for more.

If I lose, pull out immediately—never chase losses.

Going from 260U to now, this tuition fee has been expensive enough. But as long as I’m still at the table, there’s still a chance to turn things around.