Dear future grocery store managers, unfortunately I won't be keeping my promise from last week. This piece will have nothing light about it.

When I decided I'd write about losses this week, I didn't expect that fate would have me start the week with two consecutive losses (Monday and Tuesday) — something that rarely happens to me. Maybe it served to make this letter more visceral, as I like to say.

Know this: There is no way to make money in the market over time without losing money!

Everyone loses! Whatever your trading time horizon, whatever your technique, asset, market, or bank account.

You're going to lose money!

And the more money you make, the more money you're going to lose.

I'm not here to discourage you, but I hope you reach a level where losing the price of an economy car in two trading sessions means digesting the fact that those were just two normal days.

I speak from experience, and still with blood in my mouth:

It doesn't matter how much you make. This is incredibly hard.

You simply watch days of work disappear and have to digest all that bleeding as something normal.

The more money you start pulling out of the market, the more money gets put at risk and, accordingly, your losses will keep growing in absolute terms. Proportionally, it's in line with your risk management, but it stings to watch values that are enormous by any ordinary person's standards swirl down the drain.

And mind you, I'm not talking about an MD (a Meltdown Day where you blow up your account)! I'm talking about a normal loss day, where you do what needs to be done — like stopping, for instance.

I'm not fine after two consecutive loss days. That's not normal for me. I'm walking around with a dark look on my face, thinking about life, listening to 90s rock, and it's best if nobody crosses my path today.

But that's part of it! That's my way of processing things and being ready the next day — ready to do what needs to be done again, and if it happens to be another loss, accepting it.

It's exactly at that point that the split happens between those who push forward and those who get left behind. This is the key point that determines whether you'll succeed or whether you'll just be another statistic.

It's incredible how the market deludes you to the point of erasing your loss days from memory after a winning streak, and in the same way, erasing your entire winning history from memory after a losing streak.

We have to fight against that every single day and simply act according to the plan.

Let me tell you a secret now...

All of you who are putting in the work and seeing the market for what it truly is are going to make money!

Yes, screw the statistics!

ALL OF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE MONEY!

Multiple techniques aligned with solid risk management are profitable in the long run, and believe it or not, they're not that hard to learn!

So we have the technique that gives you the probability, and the risk management that defines how much to put at risk (or not) with that probability. Done! Let's go make money!

Wait, not so fast...

There's one variable missing that can wreck everything...

YOU.

João Homem