#education Did you pay attention, or did you get probed like an inmate at Guantánamo? All I see is people trying to justify buying a semi name, selling it for a few bucks and calling it a great trade while it's downtrending. These are the SAME people who wouldn't touch anything else because semis were the only thing worth buying when they were trending earlier this year and shat on people that talked about anything else. Do you see a problem? Because I sure as hell do. Let's be honest. If semis had bounced harder, half of them wouldn't have sold shit. They'd be posting rocket emojis and pretending they had a master plan. And how they are rewriting history to make a mediocre trade look like Warren Buffett himself handed you a trophy. Toxicity and selective memory. What a fucking combination. Remember my last sermon? TIME. Let's start with $SMH If you went long at the bottom of the range, where I said it's only short covering, good for you. But what was your conviction? You're between the 50 and 200 SMA. The 200 EMA, which I know plenty of you use, is still lower. Yes, you had range support. But support is where the shorts are covering. That's not the same thing as confirming a new long trend. Now, let's talk about the people who played TIME. Kudos to you. You had a thesis, gave the trade room to work and accepted that you are underwater now but that's must have been accounted for, because that's conviction. 👏 But here's the next piece of sauce, especially for those of you playing options. Just because you bought TIME doesn't mean you get to throw strike selection out the window. Let's use SMH @ $540. Say you're bullish, buy the $600 calls because they're cheaper and convince yourself that $INTC should be trading at $300/shr You're buying calls against a downtrend. You don't have: • an established base • faster moving averages are declining • no confirmed reversal (higher high) You're basically paying theta rent on a property that hasn't even finished collapsing. That $60 upside target looks great on paper. But what happens if SMH drops from $540 to $520 before it finally turns? Your $60 upside target just became an $80 climb. That's another $20 the stock has to recover before you even get back to your original target and you've been bleeding theta the entire time. The market doesn't care how cheap your contracts were. Your broker isn't handing out refunds because your thesis needed another 3wks to cook. So, if you're bullish and want to play LEAPS against the trend, consider keeping your strikes closer to ATM. You get better participation if the reversal comes, instead of needing a miracle just to get your options moving. And honestly, if you want to express a bullish thesis while accounting for the risks, look at a bull call debit spread or a put credit spread, depending on your outlook, support levels and risk tolerance. Stop buying lottery tickets and calling it investing. • TIME matters • STRIKES matter •STRUCTURE matters • BLACK LIVES matter • BLUE matters • LGBTQ++ matters • MY BODY, MY CHOICE matters • CLIMATE matters ...oh shit, I took a wrong turn somewhere between Wall Street and the fucking protest. 💀😂