> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.rotstrading.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The market taught me some hard lessons today - URL: https://www.rotstrading.com/the-market-taught-me-some-hard-lessons-today/ - Published: 2026-10-16T00:37:35.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-16T00:39:52.000Z - Description: The market taught me hard lessons in risk management and patience today. I reviewed my trades in FOTO, SPCX, BMNR and CRCL below - Author: Wynand Voigt - Tags: Lessons, Trade Files Today the market taught me some hard lessons in risk management and patience, or more honestly, today was simply the day it all came to a head and handed me the biggest loss I have taken in a while. Partly through impatience and mostly through risk management that I let slide. I trade two accounts. One is a margin account where I run my swing trading strategy, which I call the Velocity account and the other is a registered retirement account I use for longer term position trading, which I call the Anchor account. Over the past few weeks I bought BMNR, SPCX and FOTO in the Anchor account, and today I was stopped out of all three. Looking back at them now, none of it needed to happen, because every one of those stops was avoidable if I had held to my own rules instead of growing complacent with positions I had stopped watching properly. I will go through each of them below. Firstly, **FOTO**: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/28/0e/280e0f0b-fef3-4d9a-bdeb-4763594fc562/content/images/2026/10/FOTO-1792108090262.png) FOTO - Daily Timeframe A couple of weeks ago the Photonics theme was running hot. I've been keeping my eye on this ETF rather than going in on one specific stock, so I decided to buy when the price broke the downtrend. Needless to say, market conditions once again turned around and the price started to drop. Where my complacency came in is that I said to myself, this is a longer term hold and I should give it room to move..... well I gave it ROOM alright.... so much so that it jumped off a cliff. My mistake was not acting fast enough. In a heathy environment, healthy price action would've been to come down and retest the cluster of moving averages before moving higher. But in this case it did not and fell straight through. That was my sign that I should've exited. Had I done that, the loss would've only been 5%, instead I held and took a 20% loss. The biggest single trade loss since January / February. Secondly, **SPCX:** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/28/0e/280e0f0b-fef3-4d9a-bdeb-4763594fc562/content/images/2026/10/SPCX-1792108739974.png) SPCX - Daily Timeframe I waited patiently for this one and entered when it broke out of the range. Once again, this market has been brutal for breakouts and I've actually seen very few breakouts that followed through. It did turn out to be a fakeout and instead of cutting the loss sooner, I decided to give it a bit more room and eventually had to take a bigger loss that expected. When trading in my swing trading account (Velocity), I'm a lot better at cutting the losers faster and taking small losses, but for some reason the mentality is a bit different for this account (Anchor). It's something that I would need to work on. Thirdly, **BMNR:** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/28/0e/280e0f0b-fef3-4d9a-bdeb-4763594fc562/content/images/2026/10/BMNR-1792109435732.png) BMNR - Daily Timeframe This is one that I'm really kicking myself for. I did not take a loss here, but was stopped out at breakeven. I gave up a lot of profit. I was up 30% at one point. But the biggest lesson for me here, is risk management again. I need to find the balance between wanting to give the stocks enough time to run and cutting them quicker when I see weakness in the price. The signs were there, last week price gapped lower on the open and did not close the gap but continued lower. I should've closed the trade right there. Lastly, **CRCL:** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/28/0e/280e0f0b-fef3-4d9a-bdeb-4763594fc562/content/images/2026/10/CRCL-1792109859025.png) CRCL - Daily Timeframe ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/28/0e/280e0f0b-fef3-4d9a-bdeb-4763594fc562/content/images/2026/10/CRCL-1792109962816.png) CRCL - 5min Timeframe I've been trying this one a couple of times lately, it's getting ready for a big move, but I'm just not patient enough. And that really came to light on this trade today. I entered the trade 2 days ago with a really tight stop loss which got triggered yesterday with the drop. But instead of waiting for the open to see what price did, I decided to buy at the low of the day with a tight stop. Well, price decided to gap down overnight, so it stopped me out with a bigger loss than I hoped and reversed higher without me. The 5-min timeframe shows it clearly. The lesson here is PATIENCE..... I have the right idea and the right thesis. I am not wrong about the stock, I was just horribly wrong in my execution. **Lessons:** Today's losses stung..... but there is nothing I can do about it other than learning from it, and that's the reason I'm writing about it here. I think it's absolutely critical to do post-mortems of my trades so that I can learn from it and put the right measures in place to keep it from happening again OR cement the process where I did something right. In these 4 trades of today, there are alot of takeaways and it's related to mostly 2 things: **Risk Management and Patience.** I have to guard against complacency, and make sure I cut losers faster. And also, be more patient!! The market will always give me enough time to enter, there will always be an opportunity and if I missed an entry in one stock there are thousands more. --- *This is my own trading journal. It is not investment advice, it is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and it is not tailored to your circumstances, your objectives or your risk tolerance. I am not registered as an investment adviser, dealer or representative with any securities regulator. Trading involves substantial risk of loss and most active traders lose money. Do your own work and speak with a registered professional before acting on anything you read here.* [*Full disclaimer.*](https://www.rotstrading.com/disclaimer/)