The Market Was Screaming. I Wasn't Listening.

A brutally honest account of my biggest trading mistakes 2024-2025 — and what I'm taking away from the ruins.

There's a version of this post where I make excuses. Where I blame Jane Street for manipulating crypto ETFs, blame overenthusiastic analysts on Substack, blame management commentary that turned out to be misleading. All of those things happened. All of them are real.

But the market doesn't care about excuses. And neither should I.

This is the full post-mortem — three painful trades, bad drawdown, and the rules I should have been following all along.

I used Claude AI to rewrite my thoughts in presentable English without grammatical mistakes

PART 1 — CRYPTO: ETH, BMNR & BTC

The Setup

I entered Ethereum with conviction. The thesis was solid on paper: decentralised finance, US government turning pro-crypto, ETF approvals, institutional inflows. I was also following Tom Lee (CEO of BMNR ETH holding company) calling ETH at $10K by 2026, and a well-reasoned Substack by Amit in the US, painting a compelling picture of BMNR as the next transformational asset.

Crypto was in full euphoria. I felt like I was early. I wasn't.

At the same time, I entered BMNR — a US-listed company whose primary holding is ETH. More volatile than ETH itself. In hindsight, this meant I wasn't just making one crypto bet. I was making two correlated bets on the same asset in the same direction, at the same time, near the same high. And I still held BTC from before.(since 2021)

When things started wobbling, I didn't reduce. I added more near the ATH using an inside bar signal.

Where the Chart Was Warning Me (And I Ignored It)

Look at Image 1 — the ETH daily chart zoomed into Oct–Dec 2025.

Orange Arrow 1: Price broke below the 50 EMA (green line) on high volume (blue arrows). This wasn't a quiet slip. This was a high-conviction move lower.
October end: Price rallied back to retest the 50 EMA — and got rejected. That rejection was not a normal pullback. That was the market telling me the trend had changed.
Yellow arrow: Price then broke the 200 EMA (red line) with a large red candle. And then the 200 EMA became resistance. Game over for the Bulls.

I held through all of this thinking: "The thesis is intact." The thesis was intact. The price was not.

Look at image 2 before this downfall, ETH move 227% in stage 2 uptrend.

ETH today (4 March): ~$2,000. I am sitting at 55% drawdown.

That drawdown could have been drastically reduced. Selling at the 50 EMA rejection (~$4,000) or at the 200 EMA break (~$3,600) would have been logical, rule-based, and painless compared to what followed.

The same pattern played out in BMNR — almost the identical chart. 55% drawdown there too.

BTC — Euphoria Cost Me at the Top

I've held BTC for two years, averaging around $50,000. It ran all the way to $120,000. I didn't exit.

Why? The noise was deafening: "$200K is coming." I believed it.

Look at Image 3 — the BTC daily chart. The yellow arrows mark the exact same story:

Price breaks the 50 EMA (~$115,000). Sell signal.
Price breaks the 200 EMA (~$105,000). Final sell signal.
Today: BTC at ~$71,000.

I don't regret the long-term BTC position in principle. What I regret is not having an exit plan. I told myself when I built the position: "Even if I lose everything, that's fine — asymmetric risk-reward." That mindset is valid for sizing small. But it's dangerous when it becomes an excuse for having no exit strategy at all. (My Learning)

The truth is: I can always re-enter. Selling at $115K and buying back at $71K would have been a better outcome than doing nothing. (But all this is true for hindsight analysis)

Rules I Am Now Enforcing

Rule 1: Never hold any position below the 200 EMA.
Rule 2: Never break Rule 1.
Rule 3: If price drops below the 50 EMA with a large candle and high volume — sell at least 50–100% of position immediately.
Rule 4: If price stays below the 50 EMA and that EMA acts as resistance — exit the entire position.

PART 2 — AMSC (American Superconductor)

The Setup

This one started with genuine research. I was reading about the Surging power demand from AI infrastructure in the US and India — data centres, GPUs, cooling systems — all requiring massive electricity upgrades to an outdated national grid. AMSC made complete sense as a play: solid fundamentals, positive cash flow, exposure to a real secular theme.

I entered. Four days later, earnings came out( I was unaware /missed).

Results were fundamentally good — but fell short of market expectations. The stock opened 14% down on the day. By close, it was off ~20%. And it kept falling into the next quarter. I finally sold at a 44% loss.

What Went Wrong

I was late. Look at the chart — the stock had already rallied 200% before I touched it. The good news was priced in. Every retail buyer buying the momentum story was already sitting on gains. I walked in as they were quietly walking out.

I bought a high PE stock with no exit plan. High PE growth stocks are unforgiving. A single quarter of "good but not good enough" can be volatile. My rule going forward: any high PE momentum stock needs a predefined stop — before I enter, not after.

I didn't check the earnings date. This is basic. Non-negotiable. It takes 30 seconds to look up. I didn't do it.

I should have exited on the gap-down open. When a stock gaps down 14% on earnings, the default action should be to sell and think later — not hold and hope.

PART 3 — SENCO GOLD

The Setup

This one is the one that stings the most.

I bought Senco Gold on solid grounds — it was in Stage 2 (technically sound, momentum building, fundamentals intact). The orange arrows on Image 5 show my entry points. The early ones were good. A clean uptrend, moving averages stacked positively, momentum rising. It ran 118% from my early entry zone to its peak.

Then things started changing. And I kept buying.

My 4th purchase on 19 October 2024 — I don't even have a great technical reason for it today. What I remember is that management, in their October 2024 conference call, talked about having their biggest ever sales numbers. They were upbeat. So I bought.

That was the top.

What the Chart Was Telling Me

Image 6 — the detailed view:

Yellow Arrow 1: Price breaks the 50 EMA with a large red candle. Classic Stage 2 to Stage 3 transition warning.
Yellow Arrow 2: Price rallies back to the 50 EMA — gets rejected. This is the definition of "former support becomes resistance." The stock had changed character entirely.
Orange Arrow 3: A sharp accelerating move lower through the 200 EMA. The downtrend was now institutional in nature.

I finally sold on 28 March 2025 at nearly 50% loss.

The deeper truth: the entire Indian jewellery sector — Kalyan Jewellers, Senco, others — all collapsed together. This wasn't a Senco-specific story. PE multiples contracted across the sector before any fundamental deterioration was visible in the numbers. FIIs and operators were selling while management was still on calls, talking about record revenues.

That's how Indian mid-cap markets work. The smart money moves first. The concall comes later. By the time you hear good news from management, the chart already knows.

Image 7 is the long view. I wrote those notes in October 2025. The stock continued lower all the way to ₹227. From ₹772. It eventually recovered to where it is now — but I was long gone, with my loss locked in.

The Lesson That Cuts Deepest

I kept believing in the fundamentals even when the price was screaming otherwise. A weekly engulfing candle at the top of a multi-month run should have been my first alarm.

Price is the ultimate fundamental. It aggregates every piece of information — including information I don't have access to.

WHAT ELSE I SHOULD LEARN (Beyond What I've Already Said)

I've captured the main rules above. But when I step back and look at all three mistakes together, I see deeper patterns I haven't fully named yet.

1. Correlation Blindness

ETH, BMNR, and BTC are three assets that move together. By entering all three simultaneously — especially near a market top — I wasn't diversifying. I was tripling my bet on the same directional outcome. Diversification only works when your positions are genuinely uncorrelated.

2. I Was Following Storytellers, Not Price

Tom Lee. Amit's Substack. Management concalls. These are all compelling narrators. But narrators are not the market. I need to treat external conviction as a reason to look at the chart — not as a substitute for it. The story can stay intact long after the trade stops working.

3. I Repeatedly Entered Late in a Momentum Move

AMSC was up 200% before I touched it. Senco had already made a huge move. Even ETH was near ATH when I added. Momentum is healthy to ride early. Momentum near an ATH in euphoria is a trap. The risk/reward deteriorates dramatically as a stock extends. I need to define a maximum extension rule — something like: I will not initiate a new position if a stock is more than X% above its major moving average without a prior pullback setup.

4. I Never Defined "What Has to Be True for This Trade to Work"

Before every entry, I should ask: What does the price have to do to prove my thesis wrong? For a momentum trade, the answer is usually simple: if it breaks the 50 EMA with volume, the thesis is compromised. But I never made this explicit. Making it explicit before entry removes emotion from the exit decision.

5. Averaging Down Into a Broken Chart

Averaging down should only be done in a planned, structured way (e.g., staged entries in a confirmed base) — never as an emotional response to a falling price.

6. The Re-Entry is Always Available

This is the most liberating rule I haven't fully internalised yet. Selling at a signal doesn't mean giving up on an asset forever. It means protecting capital so you can re-enter from a better position. BTC at $115K → sell → BTC at $71K → re-enter with more units. The asset is the same. The capital efficiency is dramatically better.

FINAL REFLECTION

Every one of these losses had a moment — clearly visible on the chart in hindsight — where price told me the story had changed. I chose the analyst, the concall, the news article over the chart. Every time.

I'm not swearing off fundamentals entirely. Good fundamentals help me find what to buy. But price action tells me when — and more importantly, when to leave.

The market doesn't owe me anything for having a great thesis. It only rewards execution.

I know what to do now. The rules are written. The hard part is following them when the next great story shows up — and I'm tempted to believe, again, that this time is different.

It never is.

Otherwise 2024-2025 was great for me made good amount of profit in 3 stocks Palantir (enter at $23 sell at 175) , Robinhood(multiple entry $20-$40 sell at $125), Nvidia ($110 sell $170). But profit teaches us less than what losses can do.

Written on 5 March 2026. Charts from TradingView. All losses are real. All lessons are earned.

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