Good morning, traders…

Have you ever made a winning trade that actually cost you in the long run?

In 2010, I took one of the worst trades of my life. But miraculously, it made money.

It was a garbage setup. No volume. Sloppy structure. I didn’t have a level, didn’t have a plan. Just a hunch. The chart “looked good.” 

I clicked buy. And it blasted off.

I made more on that trade than I had the entire month before. My P&L jumped. My ego inflated. 

I shut down my platform that day, thinking I’d unlocked something. Like I’d cracked the code.

That win didn’t just reinforce bad behavior. It installed the habit, quietly, like a computer virus.

The next day, I went looking for the same feeling. 

Not the setup. Not the pattern. The feeling.

I started trusting my gut. Risk started creeping wider. Entries got sloppier. Rules got looser. 

Over the next six weeks, I gave it all back. Plus more.

It took me a long time to realize I hadn’t just lost money. I’d corrupted my system. That one win taught my brain that good results could come from bad decisions.

Once that wiring is in place, it feeds itself.

That’s the real danger. Not losing on a dumb trade, but winning on one. Because it reinforces bad habits. 

Once I stopped caring about my results and started prioritizing my process … my performance improved immediately.

These days, I don’t care how much I make on a trade if I didn’t follow my rules. If it didn’t follow my process, it doesn’t count. 

Here’s How I Rebuilt My Discipline…

The Fix: Stop Trusting Your Gut

I had a major “a-ha” moment when I stopped listening to myself and started listening to the Smart Money.

The problem wasn’t my instinct. It was that instinct had no feedback loop. I wasn’t wrong because I was guessing…I was wrong because I had no way to measure whether a decision was repeatable. 

If it’s not repeatable, it’s worthless.

That’s where I shifted. I stopped asking “What do I think?” and started asking “What are the people who move markets doing right now?”

That question changed everything, because the answer made me realize something pivotal…

When institutions are building positions, they leave tracks. Not opinions. Not theories. 

Volume. Open Interest. Flow. 

That’s why I built my OMEN Scanner … to identify and act upon the biggest bets in the options market. 

And that’s where the charts come in…

The Patterns That Rebuilt My Discipline

What separates one Smart Money setup from another?

The options volume alone wasn’t enough. There are millions of bets every day. I needed to narrow them down…

I needed specificity. I needed confirmation on the chart. That’s when I started noticing all of my best trades were on charts that looked similar.

They all looked like two patterns. Breakouts and pullbacks.

A breakout doesn’t happen because retail traders pile in. It happens because size steps up and pushes through a level that’s already been tested. 

You get price expanding, volume confirming, and shorts covering. You can see it clearly on the chart. 

Pullbacks are the market testing strength. It tells you a move had real demand behind it, and now the stock is offering you a second chance with defined risk.

When I started really looking for those two setups, my performance steadied. I wasn’t guessing. I was hunting. 

Here’s what I do now:

• I scan for stocks with recent strong moves on volume.
  
• I look for levels that have been tested two or three times.
  
• I mark where volume surged and where it dried up.
  
• I wait for a breakout through a clear level with expanding volume.
  
• Or I wait for a pullback into former resistance that holds on low volume.

If It’s Not Repeatable, It Doesn’t Count

I’m most satisfied with trades I can explain with rules. The ones that came from a process I trust. The ones that someone else could have taken, if they were following the same method.

That’s how I rewired my brain. That’s how I stopped rewarding bad behavior. And that’s how I built something that actually holds up when conditions change.

Now, I want you to do the same … using a fresh tool I’ve built to help you day trade with more consistency. 

Join Vince Dowd TOMORROW, June 14 at 4:00 p.m. EST to see how my brand-new day tool can transform your strategy overnight.

Happy trading,

Ben Sturgill

*Past performance does not indicate future results