When a 'dip' becomes a swimming pool: My lesson from the DAX

I've been in the game long enough to know better, yet last month, watching the DAX dip, I thought I was seeing a classic buying opportunity. Instead of sticking to my pre-planned sizing for a recovery, I doubled down after the first leg down, then again on the second, convinced the bounce was 'imminent'. What I effectively did was turn a calculated entry into a slow-motion leverage increase into a falling knife. The market, as it often does, had a different agenda, and my average entry looked less like a dip-buy and more like a high-altitude jump into an empty pool. The lesson, again, is that conviction doesn't replace the tape, and you can't out-stubborn the trend, especially when it's just getting started.