It's been a few years now, but the memory of trying to play the $NG_F spikes during a particularly cold winter still grates. The setup seemed simple enough: frigid temperatures across a large swathe of the US, forecasts showing demand surging, and historical data suggesting strong price reactions to such conditions. My mistake wasn't necessarily in the initial read, but in the subsequent execution and, more critically, position sizing.
I was trading leveraged ETFs and futures contracts, convinced that each dip was just a minor retracement before the next leg up. What happened instead was a series of volatile swings that, while initially moving in my favor, ultimately whipsawed me out. I kept adding on the dips, effectively averaging down into a moving target without a clear re-evaluation of the underlying supply dynamics that were, in fact, beginning to catch up. The market simply didn't run as far or as fast as my projections, which were probably too heavily weighted on historical exceptional events rather than current market structure. I ended up giving back most of the gains from the initial good entry and then some, purely due to the overconfidence in chasing the tail end of the move and a complete lack of discipline on stop placement and adherence. Just a textbook example of how a good idea can turn south with poor risk management and an emotional attachment to the trade.
