Master Yourself Before You Master the Markets
The mistakes from a trader returning +308% in USIC 2024
Mohamed ‘Mo’ Gad was first introduced to trading in 2014:
“I started watching a lot of those so-called ‘guru’ videos. I opened my brokerage account, deposited $1,000, and decided to become a millionaire in a week.
“Instead, of course, I lost it all in a week.”
That marked Mo’s first big trading lesson:
“Don’t listen to easy/fast money promises. Easy comes, easy goes — for real!! How do I know? Watch trader Mo after 2020 and 2021.”
Of course, Mo had a terrific 2024, finishing 5th in the US Investing Championship (USIC) with a +308.8% return:
But arriving at that performance wasn’t easy. En route, Mo made many mistakes, which he’s sharing with you in today’s guest post.
Note: All views expressed are Mo’s — I only edited.
Trading gave me the hobby I always wanted.
I love that ‘rush’ — that feeling of excitement — you get after solving a complicated problem, whether we’re talking charts, people’s emotions and behaviour, or engineering.
I hold a BSc in Electrical Engineering and an MSc in Petroleum Engineering. Post-graduation, I started working in the world of subsea oil and gas.
This field really suited my character.
I’m easily bored. I can’t do the same thing over and over.
More importantly, I need to see action and be under a lot of pressure. This gives me a sense of purpose — I need a problem to solve, and want that sense of accomplishment when I’ve solved it.
Subsea oil and gas perfectly satisfied that urge, particularly with the types of projects I was assigned.
Stock trading offered that same satisfaction.
In mid-2019, I was still clueless about stocks, but I decided to get involved again — and this time, in the right way.
This was my ‘true’ start in stock trading:
I studied what does and doesn’t work.
I attended webinars and courses.
I read tons of books.
Only then could I distinguish between furus and those who actually help those ready to learn.
(My ‘mentors’ include Oliver Kell and Charles Harris, but many others influenced me.)
I bought some (at the time) strong names, and every day I’d watch my account go up and down. This gave me a sense of satisfaction — even on the down days.
Fast-forward to 2020. After March, I went in heavy. I bought anything that moved, watched my account go up, and returned +170% for the year.
2021 didn’t start easy, with things going down from February until the middle of the year. Nonetheless, I returned nearly +60% that year.
That was the moment I thought to myself:
“I got this. I’ve figured it out. I can do this for a living.”
But overconfidence kills.
In 2022, my account was like a falling rock.
All of a sudden, my ‘sell’ button was frozen 😉, I became a long-term holder, and my account went on a crash diet, losing 75% of its weight.
As painful as 2022 was, it was the best trading lesson I ever experienced.
I pulled my act together:
Pen, paper, charts. Entries, exits, rules.
Repeat. More time, more charts, different cycles.
Boom!
For the first time, I could write out my trading strategy with clarity.
And trading isn’t gambling, but about:
Strategy;
Discipline; and
Knowing when to wait — and when to strike.
Writing out my strategy gave me insight into how much pain I could stomach and, more importantly, for how long.
My average win rate has hovered around 30–35% for the past three years, but that hasn’t hurt my returns (whereas rule-breaking has).
I know that my opinion means absolutely nada. Even the best traders are wrong 60–70% of the time — which shows that the market often does the unexpected. And before I enter a position, I know that 7 out of 10 trades will be losers.
This is part of the game. I’m mentally prepared for a low win rate. It suits my character — but it might not suit yours.
After writing out my strategy, I put it to the test in 2023.
By August, I was up over 400%. Once again, I thought: “I’ve got this, I’ve figured it out, I can do this!!”
But overconfidence kills (again).
August–December 2023, I broke my rules and got into the wrong names. I ended the year up triple digits, but not +400%. Not even half that.
2024, for the most part, felt like 2020. I missed all the biggest winners.
Seriously.
I barely touched $GEV, $NVDA, $PLTR and $VRT throughout the year, yet ended 2024 with great gains (+308%). Not because I’m a genius, but because the market was giving a gift: this wasn’t a hard year to trade.
Plus, I stuck to my rules as much as I could. However, me being me, I broke the roles after every big run…
…and quickly got slapped.
Trading is the most transparent and self-reflecting activity.
You will fail without:
Time;
Effort;
Constant monitoring; and
Most importantly, self-honesty.
I see my true self in my trades — sometimes embarrassingly so.
Trading is very personal!
So, before you study how to trade, study your character.
Being honest with yourself is vital.
What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Because what works for me probably doesn’t work for 90% of people, and vice versa.
It’s all about knowing yourself, and finding your style.
For example, my best trading buddies, Mark and Murat, are extremely good at what they do. But we’re completely different in:
How we buy;
How we take profits and losses; and
How we generally manage our trades.
(Why form a small* trading pod? Because it holds you accountable. You need someone who’s brutally honest with you when you review trades together. That someone mustn’t hesitate to point out when you’re doing something wrong or stupid. Plus, you get to bounce ideas off each other, helping you learn.
*Larger trading rooms become extremely distracting and counterproductive, in my experience.)
Master yourself before you master the markets.
No matter how many:
Books you read;
Courses you take; or
Services you subscribe to…
…absolutely nothing compares to the value of finding your own trading style, aligning with your personality and time frame.
For example, with my system, I can make 30–50R during a good run, and am comfortable to give back 10–15R during some pullbacks. I’m mentally prepared for that.
This is what I’ve figured out after lots of trial and error. It suits me — but I guarantee it won’t suit everyone.
Finding a style that suits you takes patience, countless hours of screen time, and lots of trial and error.
It takes experience, and making many mistakes along the way.
And if you think you’ve figured yourself out, you’ll still evolve and refine your self-assessment.
For example, I’ve always thought of myself as a position trader, but more recently figured out my style is more nuanced, depending on the market environment:
New bull market: I’m a position trader.
Well into a bull market: I’m an aggressive swing trader.
Choppy market: I’m a good loser 🙂. But I’m also working on my day trading skills.
For that matter, I look at myself as everything and the opposite.
I can be both a boom-and-bust trader, and a pro trader with multiple triple-digit years in short succession. I can be both a humble student and an overconfident amateur. And I can be both the happiest winner and the best loser.
I know I’ll repeat my mistakes — but want to reduce their frequency.
So, I wrote this article to record them and hold myself accountable.
I didn’t want to post charts and talk about buy and sell points (maybe another time) — many amazing traders, who are leagues ahead of me, already do that every day.
Instead, I wanted to focus on:
The ‘true me’;
How rough it can be as a trader; and
How you can learn from my constant mistakes.
Making mistakes is perfectly fine.
You can still make it as a trader, so long as you know when to stop.
My account in January 2025 looks like a shipwreck, but it’s all part of the journey. The main message I wanted to convey today is that in spite of many weaknesses, mistakes and faults as a trader…
…achieving incredible returns is still possible with a solid, consistent process and discipline.
The key is to embrace and correct your mistakes.
This year, I’m focusing on three critical areas:
Be out of the market more when the environment isn’t right. Less is more when it comes to trading. For example, I took a big hit in the two recent Monday gap-downs (DeepSeek and tariffs), which affected me mentally — everything I touched after that turned into a loser. That alone got me to go to cash.
I often give too much back from equity highs. I need to work on keeping what I make, but am still figuring out exactly how. Peeling my position as the stock moves up (and re-buying if it sets up again) will likely be a key part of this, however.
Sometimes, I get too attached to certain stocks — but I’m working on, like Oliver Kell wisely says, treating them as no more than a bunch of letters.
I’m a firm believer that mastering the market is very hard — but mastering myself and my emotions is exponentially harder.
As an engineer, I solve technical problems. As a trader, I’m learning to solve emotional ones. Again: master yourself before mastering the markets.
The reality is that learning to trade is a long journey. I still have tons more to learn.
But I’m enjoying every moment of it.
P.S. As an engineer, husband and dad, I’m usually very busy, so I don’t post much on 𝕏 (@Mo_U_Gad). But I’ll do my best in the upcoming period to post whenever I have something of value to share.
No matter who you are, we all make mistakes — and occasionally break the rules.
[Kyna again.]
The number of repeated mistakes is striking — particularly around rule-breaking.
Perhaps that strikes close to home. Haven’t we all been guilty of breaking a rule, then thinking we should’ve known better?
This certainly isn’t unusual among USIC competitors. For example, a repeated theme throughout Martin Luk’s journey was overtrading. And it took years for Christian Flanders to get the message the market was “screaming” at him when he was getting repeatedly stopped out.
Even trading veterans with over three decades’ trading experience occasionally break their rules. I recently watched an SMB Capital video with Brian Shannon, where he twice (37:28 and 39:29) spoke of rule-breaking — with reason, but nonetheless rules-breaking — and getting “exactly what [he] deserved” as a result.
But knowing who you are — and what works and doesn’t work for you — is vital to trading success.
Kohei Yamada illustrated this perfectly last week, self-describing as a “mediocre” trader when it came to discretionary trading, but since systematic trading is based on statistical data, it made perfect sense to him as a former engineer.
In his words: “I became obsessed with learning everything about it. Since then, I’ve been a consistently profitable trader.”
With psychology such a fundamental part to how markets operate, figuring out how you can leverage your unique strengths and personality is vital — even more so than for many other fields.
For Mo, a critical moment in his journey was writing down his trading strategy.
So, how could someone else go about this?
“I think it comes down to creating a very strict checklist for yourself, including:
Time
Market
Mental state
Permitted size
Maximum pain points
“I’d also keep my watchlist small. Maximum of 5–7 names to avoid distraction, and so you can watch them like a hawk!”
And when I asked him about practical tips for self-analysis, and what role journaling plays:
“I’m very bad when it comes to journaling. But I’m beginning to believe that a big reason for my impulsive trading is not journaling enough!
“Journaling helps keep your thoughts in line, and shows how well your trading results align with your methods and expectations, regardless of individual trade outcomes.”
