Last night, I screwed up another trade. After going back over it, it wasn’t really a direction problem—it was just my own hands being too eager. Seeing the K-line move fast, I was afraid of missing out, so I pushed a market order straight into a pool with very thin liquidity. I set the slippage too loosely, and as a result, the fill price ended up higher than what I’d been imagining in my head—by a whole notch. Even more awkwardly, later when I tried to add more to bring down my cost basis, there wasn’t enough depth; the more I bought, the more expensive it got. The pacing also fell apart, and in the end it turned into me just helping others lift the price.

To put it plainly, at times like this the most important thing is to slow down: first check whether the order book is thick enough, break it into several lots, and let the fills happen on their own—not “grab one second.” Lately, with memes plus celebrity calls, attention flips back and forth way too fast. Newcomers rushing in are very likely to end up taking the last baton, and even someone like me—an old hand—can still get dragged along by emotion. It’s pretty embarrassing… That’s it for now. I’m admitting defeat. What about you?