The top only looks obvious afterwards

Everyone wants to sell the top because every chart makes it look incredibly easy.

You look at a six-month chart, point to the highest candle and wonder how anyone could have missed it. But at the actual top, things usually feel amazing.

Your PNL is at an all-time high, everyone who sold earlier looks stupid, the timeline is full of higher targets and every dip has been bought for weeks.

That is exactly why it becomes the top. I’d much rather sell around the top than spend my entire trading life trying to sell the top.

Conclusion

The more I trade, the less impressed I am by perfect entries if the person doesn’t know how to leave. Catching PONS at $4.5M average entry is obviously insane, but the part of AvgJoes’ trade that I’m trying to learn from now is what happened after he was already right.

He didn’t have to decide between dumping everything and becoming a forever holder. He slowly turned part of the position into realized profit while leaving enough exposure for the trade to keep changing his life if it continued higher.

That sounds simple until it’s your own PNL on the screen btw.

I’ve sold things too early and watched them continue without me. I’ve also refused to sell because I remembered how much the first situation hurt, only to watch the profit disappear completely. I’m trying to stop treating either outcome as proof that the decision was wrong.

The goal is to know why I entered, what would prove me wrong and how I’m going to reduce risk if I’m right. Some sells will be too early, some will be too late and hopefully once in a while I’ll keep a small piece of something that goes completely insane. I can live with all three.

What I don’t want to do anymore is be completely right about a trade and still walk away with nothing. You don’t make money when the number on the screen goes up. You make money when you actually manage to leave with some of it.

Please remember that.