YTD - February 2026

Lotus

— 4 min read

February review

Up 5.99% for the month, bringing the YTD returns to 48.53%.

This month was tough for me, and it was made more painful by the fact that I made and repeated a lot of mistakes that should really have been avoided.

Markets felt volatile, and emotionally it was a bit of a rollercoaster, with constant feelings of annoyance and regret.

Some thoughts

  • Patience - I need to give setups more time to... set up. I am setting alerts on moving averages and levels, and the moment they go off, I am trying to find a way into the position via the 5 minute chart. It doesn't happen all the time, but more than it should.
  • With all the geopolitical news, I feel that I have been quite fast to get exposure to themes which I think will play out over the short term. Initial ideas are typically from services I subscribe to, coupled with my own verification (mostly with the help of Gemini nowadays). I then have to decide whether I think the trade makes sense, when/where I should enter/exit, and how to size the trade. Depending on the month, I will feel like different areas need improving, and this month, it was probably in the filtering of trades, as well as where to exit.
  • Poor sleep hygiene - Being in Asia, the market opens at 10:30pm. In recent weeks, I have been sleeping around 2am, and I can feel the tiredness building up, even with 7 hours of sleep. I reckon I can cut my market screen time in half, and pack up a couple hours after the open. This would allow me to wake up at a more normal time, which would be better for my health in the long run. With US daylight savings coming, market opens will change to 9:30pm. Looking forward to that.
  • Too many small positions that don't move the needle. These are often what I feel are lower probability trades. Best thing would be to either stick to higher probability trades - but if I can't help myself - keep these positions on a short leash and lock in profits (or losses) fast.
  • Longer term positions - I thought I would be ok with having a few of these in the portfolio, but having a mismatch of time frame in the portfolio and seeing a bunch of red really bothers me. I will be closing these off, so that this account is almost exclusively trading.

Optimizing for Return on Effort

I write here about my main trading account, but I also have a couple other accounts for cash flow and to hold longer term names.

A few days ago, I noticed that an account that I check on average just once a day has done almost as well as my main account, which I watch for at least a couple of hours every night. I figured that there should be a lesson in there somewhere. After some thinking, these are the main differences:

  • The account is much smaller (10% of main account), which is likely the reason I am not compelled to watch the intraday moves.
  • I only enter higher conviction trades. Reason: because it is a smaller account, I need to have position sizes that aren't too small relative to my whole portfolio. This means I usually only have about 3-4 positions on. As such, I tend to only put on positions that have more confluence and stronger fundamentals.
  • Trades are closed more quickly - when it hits a certain profit level I am happy with, I just close and wait for the next trade.
  • I don't feel an urge to deploy cash when it has a high cash allocation. I attribute this to the smaller account size too - I probably don't like like there is opportunity cost because the amounts are smaller.
  • I only trade value stocks that I am comfortable with, which sometimes results in me holding through larger pullbacks (although not often)
  • No options, and rarely any growth stocks, as it is an account that I don't pay a lot of attention to, and I feel better holding "value" names.

Contrast this with my main account:

  • Always looking for new themes and stories to get exposure to.
  • Starting to dabble more in growth stocks and other faster moving names, even though I may not believe in the long term story or the high valuations.
  • Exposure via options to try to get more asymmetry.
  • Different time horizon trades (e.g. value stocks, junior miners etc) .

Knowing myself, I don't think I will ever simplify my trading to the point where it's like the smaller account. I will always be trying to find a better way to put on a trade or idea. The main lesson for me however would be:

  • Be patient with entries (again)
  • To reduce screen time, I should finish my market preparation and reading before the market open. After the market opens, try to focus on just the trades I identified earlier - and not keep scanning for new trades by endlessly going through my watchlists or X. Spend my time reading a book or something.
  • Be comfortable booking profits and moving on to the next trade (especially in names I have strong conviction in). Another way to look at this is to remember that I value a smooth equity curve, and to view trades and active positions daily in terms of probabilities, and ask myself daily whether the name is more likely to go up or slow down - and re-allocate to higher conviction setups.
  • Patience (again) in terms of deploying cash - don't get sucked into trades just because something breaks out on the 5m chart. Wait for support to establish over multiple sessions.

Summary

All in all, I am grateful to just end the month green. A recurring theme in my trading is that I need to be more patient. I feel I have improved a lot, but as always, there is more work to do. Looking forward to the next month!

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