This marks my third year of trading. I have executed quite a few trades from late 2023 up to the present, and I would like to briefly review the volatility and emotional rollercoaster of the past six months.
The story begins in late August. I had a fully invested portfolio in QQQ and TLT on Interactive Brokers (IBKR) for dividends, valued at around $30,000. My remaining liquid capital was roughly $60,000, split evenly between Futu (Moomoo) and Longbridge. I used Futu for stocks trading and Longbridge for options. While Futu offers superior charting and market data features, Longbridge has lower commission fees—about $0.30 cheaper per option contract. Consequently, I shifted my active trading to Longbridge.
Over the past six months, I traded roughly $1 million in notional volume across equities and options on this platform. This specific account suffered a massive drawdown, plunging from a peak return of 65% in September to its current standing at -83%. The account is essentially blown up, dragging my overall multi-year P&L (profit and loss) from the green into the red.
The performance of this account can be divided into one profitable phase and three loss-making phases.
The first phase aligned with the broader tech rally in September, fueled by Fed rate cuts and the AI boom. Early that month, cryptocurrencies surged, with Bitcoin (BTC) hitting an all-time high of over $120,000. My largest top-heavy position at the time was Robinhood (HOOD), which served as a proxy for BTC in the US stock market. Originally just a standard retail brokerage, HOOD gained prominence through its early adoption of crypto trading.
However, my bullish attitude for it wasn’t solely based on crypto. Since April 2025, HOOD’s valuation had deviated from its intrinsic value, given its revenue and profit margins, it was visibly undervalued. In late May, I began scaling into a long position, continuously accumulating call options with 3 to 6 month expirations. My conviction paid off in early September when HOOD was successfully included in the S&P 500 index. This catalyst triggered an approximate 15% intraday surge in the underlying stock, causing my options contracts to triple in value and pushing my account to an all-time high (ATH).
Afterwards, I descended into an unfortunate abyss. My next target after HOOD was TSMC (TSM). This semiconductor foundry’s valuation was also significantly depressed during the tariff period. By each quarter, TSM’s top-line revenue and forward guidance beat expectations. Yet, geopolitical headwinds, specifically the instability in the Taiwan Strait, caused the stock to trade in a volatile, range-bound chop.
Despite being the core manufacturer of advanced chips, TSM remained stagnant while other AI-related firms soared. I deemed this a clear market mispricing. For comprison, Tesla’s revenue and earnings were nowhere near TSM’s, yet it commanded a PE ratio of 400 and a $2 trillion market cap, whereas TSM sat at around $1.5 trillion. I started building my long position.
Unfortunately, in November, the Fed abruptly paused its rate-cutting cycle. Concurrently, Nvidia (NVDA) reaching a $5 trillion market cap ATH sparked intense market noise about AI overvaluation. Comparisons to the Dot-Com Bubble proliferated, and prominent short-sellers took to social media to push the “AI bubble” narrative. This macro shift dragged down top-tier tech companies, and TSM could not escape the collateral damage.
My call options yielded roughly a -50% return, wiping out one-third of my account equity. After I sold, since January of this year, TSM’s sales have continually hit record highs, capacity expansion is ongoing, and order backlogs are stretching further out. Within two months, the stock rallied from my entry price of $275 to $375, and eventually hit an ATH of $390. Had I held the position, I would have easily locked in a 10-bagger.
Following this, I made a highly aggressive and risky decision: I went all-in on IBKR.
IBKR, as mentioned before, is an American firm offering the lowest commissions. Platforms like Longbridge and Futu essentially act as second layer of brokers to IBKR, utilizing it as their upstream clearing firm while charging additional platform fees.
For context, the same option contract costs about $1.10 on IBKR, $1.95 on Longbridge, and $2.45 on Futu. IBKR is a traditional broker that excels fundamentally, especially in Forex trading, offering spot market rates which is incredibly convenient for my frequent EUR/USD and HKD conversions. While their client terminal is notoriously clunky, almost as if it were designed poorly on purpose to deter overtrading.
I have always been a long-term bull on IBKR. During the tariff period, I consistently bought the underlying shares. Pre-split, it traded around $200; post-4-for-1 split, it was near $50, and by November, it reached $62. After conducting thorough fundamental analysis on their recent earnings reports, I concluded it was undervalued with a theoretical price target of at least $80. I scaled in heavily.
Unexpectedly, starting in late November, IBKR was dragged into a market consolidation, chopping sideways for nearly two months before finally breaking out in January. Due to the nature of options, where sideways movement equals theta decay (time decay), my fully sized call positions expiring in January suffered at least a 30% drawdown. Needing liquidity before the end of the year, I capitulated and liquidated the position, resulting in another 33% haircut to my portfolio.
And then, the familiar script played out: right after I exited, IBKR recovered all its losses over two days around New Year’s, surging straight to an ATH of $82. Had I held on for just a few more days, I would have netted at least a 500% return.
The third phase encompasses the past month, characterized by absurdly bad luck. The stocks I buy will definitely fall and the stocks I short will definitely rise.
For instance, I had a strong bearish conviction on AppLovin (APP). After a short seller published a hit piece, the stock gapped down 10% in pre-market trading and I entered. Yet, during regular hours, institutional buying triggered a violent short squeeze, turning the stock green, which forced me to cover and close my position. Over the next three days, the stock cratered 40%. It’s mind-boggling that a mega-cap company with a $300 billion valuation could be manipulated so easily.
AMD, the leader in CPUs and the only other viable GPU player aside from NVDA. I initiated a long position. The very next day, news broke of a partnership between NVDA and Meta, causing AMD to dump 5% in sympathy. I stopped out. A mere two days later, AMD announced its own deal with Meta, and the stock rebounded.
Then there’s Microsoft (MSFT), another of my long-term bullish bets. They delivered a massive earnings beat, but due to Azure’s margin growth decelerating to single digits and slightly higher full-year CapEx guidance, the stock suffered a 10% post-earnings selloff and continued to make lower lows over the subsequent two weeks.
Regarding Apple (AAPL), I went long in August, only to face a barrage of daily bearish catalysts，a department head resigning one day, Apple Intelligence underperforming expectations the next. I eventually closed the position to stop the bleeding from theta decay. Days later, Tim Cook visited the White House with a gift for the President，a gold-inlaid pane of glass made by US Marine veterans at an American Apple factory. The stock ripped higher that night.
Examples like this are endless. It felt like the entire market was trading against me. This continued until the recent geopolitical conflicts catalyzed a broader market meltdown, rendering me an unfortunate collateral victim once again.
Looking at the entire journey, there were countless opportunities to turn a profit, and numerous decision points where I could have secured gains and protected my principal. Yet, everything backfired. I am struggling to pinpoint exactly where my execution failed, forced to chalk it up to sheer bad luck. How does one cope with a failure that feels predestined, completely detached from one’s own will and analysis?