Week 1: The Ghost of Christmas Past and the FOMO of New Year’s Present!
The Day Trading Dad3 min read·Just now--
Happy... May? Yeah, I know.
It’s taken me five months to write a recap of the first week of January. If you’re wondering why, you’ve clearly never had to spend three weeks de-tinselling a living room or explaining to a four-year-old why we can’t have "Christmas Dinner" every single night until July.
Between the sugar crashes and the herculean effort of taking down a tree that had become a structural part of our home, I finally sat down at the charts.
My goal for 2026?
Financial freedom.
My reality?
Hiding in the home office so I didn’t have to build any more LEGO sets.
Here is the raw, unpolished breakdown of my first "week" back (and by week, I mean the two days I actually managed to trade before the chaos reclaimed me).
The Stats
Total Trades: 2
Wins: 1
Losses: 1
Weekly Total: -$28
Okay, 50% accuracy isn’t too bad is it? Let’s see what really happened…
Thursday, Jan 8th: The "I’m a Trading God" Phase
I started the year with the discipline of a monk. I saw a setup that screamed "FOMO", felt that familiar itch in my clicking finger, and I actually ignored it. I waited for a perfect micro pullback. It was beautiful. It was textbook. I walked away with $29 profit.
I closed my laptop, kissed my wife, and probably walked around the house with a bit too much swagger. I thought, "I’ve cracked the code. By February, we’re buying a boat!”
… but then came, the very next day!
Friday, Jan 9th: The "Dad Brain" Disaster
You know that feeling when you haven’t had enough sleep because a toddler decided 3:00 AM was the optimal time to discuss the plot of Bluey? That was my Friday.
I sat down at the desk and all that "monk-like discipline" from Thursday evaporated.
So what was the error?
I let FOMO win.
I jumped into a trade without a setup just because the price was moving and I didn’t want to be left behind. Funnily, it was actually the same stock on continuation from Thursday!
Talk about FOMO eh?
The blind spot? I completely ignored the higher timeframes. I was so zoomed in I missed a massive, obvious resistance level at $7. This thing tapped that level multiple times and rejected it as much as my kids reject the thought of bath time!
Then came the cardinal sin! Instead of cutting the loss when I knew I was wrong, I held it. I "hoped" it would come back. (Note: "Hope" is a great parenting strategy for potty training, but it’s a death sentence for a trading account).
I turned that $29 gain upside down with a $57 loss that day.
Ending the week $28 in the red is a humbling reminder that trading is exactly like parenting: one day you’ve got it all figured out because everyone ate their vegetables, and the next day you’re cleaning jam out of the carpet wondering where it all went wrong.
The takeaway this week then is that the trend is your friend, but the higher timeframe is your boss.
See you next week (or, given my track record, in another five months).
