When people hear about Elon’s trillion dollar fortune, it’s very important they understand that fortune is comprised of things like factories, and rockets, and satellites, and data centers - things that cannot be easily converted into healthcare or food for the homeless
I spent over two decades as a full time futures trader and scalper, and I learned your edge isn’t just your strategy. It’s your focus.
It’s the amount of hyperfocus it takes every single day. Blocking everything out, slowing your heart rate down, staying calm, believing in your homework, executing at a high level. Trading has to be your number one focus each day. So if you’re learning to become a successful trader, here are three things you may be focusing on that are working against you.
First, other people’s money. Stop looking at how much everyone else is making. That’s the number one thing you have to look away from. I was around thousands of traders on the floor and I barely remember us talking about money. It was private. The goal was to build a life. It felt blue collar. Today everyone talks about what they make, trying to prove someone wrong about the market. It’s a different place, and a lot harder for a new trader to block the noise out.
Second, the access. Overnight used to just be overnight, where you managed a position if you had one. Set time to start, set time to break, set time to come back. We traded mornings, skipped midday, came back for the close. Now the access never stops, and it’s spread everyone’s focus too thin to stay locked in.
Third, understanding the market environment. We move between environments at a very rapid rate. We go from trending higher with no signs of a pullback, buy the dip and hold on, straight into sell off mode. Trying to guess what those days will be like going into them is very difficult. You have to stay open minded and understand how quickly the tape can change. Last Friday was the perfect example. A market runs higher a lot further than most thought, then unravels all at once. It’s the same psychology we see in traders. They stay in their own trend for only so long, then unravel all at once. If you’re not focused, or you’re clinging too hard to one market environment as you move into the next, you aren’t allowing things to be what they are. You’re fighting them for what they were.
So here’s the simple part. Slow everything down. Survive a game where you pay your bills and stay in long enough to make a living. There will be moments this business really pays you, and you won’t choose them. They choose you. The rest is grinding, surviving, enjoying the process. Arguing with people on social media is a time waster, and the people who do it are usually unhappy in their own lives. Spend your time wisely.
Focus is the whole game. Protect it like your account depends on it, because it does.
Enjoy your life. Have fun. This is the greatest business in the world if you let it be. And it’ll be the worst, and destroy your life, if you let it.
Cheers, DELI
I keep seeing a pattern in trading psychology advice: some successful traders, and some just loud ones, reverse-engineer their own nervous system. “I prep, I'm calm → anxiety means you didn't prep properly."
They miss the real edge: baseline neurobiology. A regulated nervous system, a wide window of tolerance, secure attachment, and resilient stress response.
These invisible substrates carry performance, not the visible routines. The successful ones take their preparation and discipline for granted, attributing success to these factors. The loud ones are pattern-matching from chaos, packaging hope as expertise.
For anxious‑attached perfectionists, hearing "just do what I do" adds another "should" to the system, often creating shame loops, anxiety, and self‑doubt. Most high performers don't even understand why they work; they see the visible prep, discipline, or routines, but miss the invisible neurobiology that carries them.
The pattern to watch for: anyone telling you their visible routines will fix your invisible wiring. If advice makes you feel more anxious or ashamed, that's data not about your discipline, but about the mismatch between their system and yours.
Your baseline neurobiology cannot be altered through willpower. The question isn't "what should I do?" but "what does my nervous system need to come back online?"
That's the work.
Clear the air My view on $MSTR
I own BTC via $IBIT since 69420
At a small allocation of my wealth. I prefer gold
I have been bearish MNAV of $MSTR since 11/20/2024. The MNAV has fallen massively and now rests at 1.09. That is NOT ridiculously rich at all.
However the company is pursuing a strategy which will likely keep pressure on MNAV going forward. That pressure is offering $STRC at a decent size discount to fair value. By selling STRC at par particularly like today when it is full to the brim with dividends the company is selling this security at a 1-3% discount to fair value. Honestly that's not a bad thing for the company to do given the modest discount to fair value and the high proceeds they are taking in. BUT it does harm the common shareholders in two ways. 1. The discount itself is paid by the common shareholders to the preferred holders and 2. The preferred dividend (given that BTC/the companies asset pays no yield) represents forward issuance or forward BTC sales which are bad for the company's shareholders
You may notice I've repeatedly said that the company is selling STRC at a discount. That explicitly means that the investor in STRC is getting to buy something cheap!!!! As an investor you have to like STRC. It's cheap! I am not a bear on STRC. I simply don't like it vs what it does to the common shareholders. My view on STRC is it is highly likely to generate pretty nice returns if BTC doesn't get crushed. Its risk is simple. BTC gets crushed and issuance liquidity for MSTR in all its forms falls and BTC sales become necessary to pay dividends. Fwiw that seems well prepared for given the fiat cash reserves the company has built up. So STRC is pretty sweet as a thing with probably 200bp per year of excess dividends vs fair with a substantial but unlikely left tail risk. BUT it's not good for shareholder MNAV
Let's jump into MNAV dynamics. 1.09X is not that interesting as a short AT ALL.
As long as the company has access to preferreds issaunce even at this 1-3% discount it can avoid issuing common shares or manage to issue just a bit.
There are literally NO arbs short MSTR long BTC today at current prices and no downward pressure likely from new arbs going short. Why would they at 1.09?
Could frustrated BTC investors with long equity positions in US equities (NDX) also sell their long MSTR such that it would go to an MNAV discount ? Sure. But with BTC anywhere within 40,000 of current spot the company has infinite flexibility to manage its issuance such that it won't trade at a sizable MNAV discount for much time. For instance let's say it traded at a .9MNAV while STRC traded at par. That would be the best arb of all time. Saylor could sell STRC and buy $MSTR back
Basically with BTC doing fine my picture of the company is a slow convergence to MNAV of 1.0 and ongoing STRC chilling at par.
The elephant in the room is the true believers in the common shares who still truly believe that the MNAV can massively expand back to its former glory or 2+.
That time has past. Saylor will sell infinite shares at 1.5 if he has the ability to. And there is essentially infinite capital to do the short MSTR long BTC arb at levels like that. The MNAV expansion is a delusion built on meme stock experience where "the faithful" can stick it to "the man". STRC and the growing dividend expense makes the arb even more attractive than ever.
Anyway that's where I stand.
The Thomas Massie primary is truly insane. We are looking at the most expensive U.S. House primary in history, with spending pushing toward $35 million.
Massie's opponent, Ed Gallrein, has raised just $2 million on his own. The rest of the money, over $14 million, is coming from outside Super PACs who desperately want Massie gone.
On top of that, Pete Hegseth is being deployed to Kentucky to campaign against him. Stephen Miller & Con Inc. have been on massive Twitter tirades attacking him. And there was a highly coordinated smear campaign of unfounded allegations launched this week by Con Inc. influencers.
When the establishment is willing to spend $35M+ and go to these lengths to take one man down, it really makes you wonder why.
Whether you like Massie or not, this election will determine whether or not we as voters actually have a voice anymore. If outside special-interest money can successfully buy a seat and sway an election like this, we have a serious, serious problem.
@BeardoTrader It's the most important thing you can realize and internalize. It took me a long time because at the end of the day, most action IS chop. The amount of truly opportune time for day-trading is far less than what it appears when you first start trading.