My trading system is basically a machine for ignoring my brain. My brain wants to sell the bottom, chase the top, and 'improve' things on quiet Tuesdays. The system just says no. Best employee I've ever hired.

CNBC yesterday, Bloomberg today. The only real difference is the font on the doom banner. My system doesn't watch TV. It reads closing prices. The houseplant/portfolio remains unbothered.

The goal was never to stop losing money. It's to lose it in small, boring, pre-approved amounts. My system has a budget for being wrong. My ego never did, which is exactly why the system does the trading. Traders who refuse to take small losses don't avoid losses. They just save them up and take them all at once.

Want to trade without ever losing money? Great. So did everyone who doesn't trade anymore.

Death by a thousand tweaks. The market rarely kills a good system. Its owner does, one quiet Tuesday at a time

Do you want to be rich, or do you want to be right? Every stop you move, every exit you override, every 'it'll come back' is you choosing right. The market is very generous about letting you make that choice. Repeatedly.

Tried CNBC this morning. Lasted 12 seconds. The S&P moved 0.1% pre market and they'd already booked three experts, two narratives, and a red banner. My portfolio didn't notice. It's a houseplant. It doesn't have cable.

People ask how I manage my portfolio. I don't. I manage me. The portfolio is a houseplant: follows the rules, grows quietly, and the only way I can kill it is by overwatering.

Nobody warns you the hardest part of systematic trading isn't the drawdowns. It's the boredom.

Turns out the most expensive thing in my portfolio was never fees or slippage. It was the excitement. Systematized everything. Trading got boring. Results didn't.

I don't care how health conscious you are. It's finished in port wine barrels, which makes it fruit, and I'm not taking questions.

Everyone who asks my CAGR gets the same question back: what's your max drawdown? Half of them don't answer. The other half look it up for the first time. Max drawdown is the number that decides whether you're still posting in five years.

Every blown-up retail account has the same autopsy: the position was sized for the outcome they wanted instead of the one they could survive. That's one calculation. Nobody does it. The systematic edge in one sentence - you can't be talked out of a rule by a candle.

The market gives you a reason to touch it every single day. The backtest already tested that reason and said no. So you do nothing, again, and nothing is the whole edge. Thrilling stuff. Welcome to boredom. 🤪

Sold into a green candle on September 8. Every instinct said the day was bullish. The rule said leave. Market's down 3% since and the instinct is still mad about it.

Downside-efficient means the ugly days are priced in before you click. Retail prices the ugly days after the margin call, which is a fascinating order of operations. 🤷‍♂️

If you can’t say what the trade loses when it’s wrong, you’re not on the frontier. You’re in the parking lot, pointing at the building. Retail traders in a nutshell.

Every day the market gives you a reason to touch the system. Every day the backtest reminds you that the reason was already in the data, and the data said don't. Boredom is just discipline with nothing to do.

People ask what I did in the market today. I checked whether a number was above another number. It was. Same as yesterday. Then I walked the dog, who also had no view on the 10-year.

Bloomberg TV this morning: AI is going to kill us all, diesel is at a record, Hollywood is back, and Canada is joining the EU. There is absolutely a trading strategy in there and it's called turning off Bloomberg.