11/30/25 Wrapping Up A Great Year

Hopefully everyone had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed the rally we had last week. I just wanted to send out a note on my thoughts on the market and what I’m thinking right now. We just closed up the month with this terrible hanging man candle on the SPY. This is not a hammer candle, I don’t know where fintwit is running with that notion from. This is typically a reversal type candle and considering how extended we are, look at the rsi, I think it is time to take a break. So Monday morning I will be closing most if not all of my positions. Some the spreads will be too wide and I will keep them open, otherwise, this has been a phenomenal year for me and I’m going to enjoy a small break from trading while I let things unfold.

When was the last time we saw a hanging man candle on the monthly? You have to go all the way back to 2011, below, and we followed up with 1 more strong month and then had 5 terrible months that took us back to the 200 month average. That is not happening here because the 200 month is below 300 but you get the point, these sorts of candles with a long wick that reverse and close at highs are not as bullish as most think.

The most recent example we had was in summer 2023 where we had a smaller hanging man followed up with 2 months of decline back to the 21 month before a bounce.

So with all the above in mind, I’m very happy with how the year went, could the last month be fine and my short puts expire worthless? Absolutely there is no rule that says a hanging man candle leads to automatic declines. I’m just in the camp that my year has been phenomenal and I’m happy to just not be max levered up into the last 3 weeks till December expiration. In the short term, we are seeing an 8/21 bullish crossover which is typically short term bullish, of course this could be negated with a sharp move down Monday or Tuesday. So with that in mind I’m ending the year up 83%. The Nasdaq is up nearly 22% and the SPY nearly 18%. So I hit my goal which was to outperform the market, the last couple months were incredibly choppy and with President Trump constantly one tweet away from chaos, it is very tough to navigate using leverage with him in office, at least relative to Biden who basically left markets alone the majority of the time.

On a longer term basis I am up 650% from when I began writing this substack back on June 8, 2022. The Nasdaq is up 97% and the SPY Is up 73%.

So it has been a great 3 years for me. Going forward you won’t see me being as aggressive. Why? You only have to get rich once in life. This was just a trading book when this all started in 2022, it was money I had separate from my home, long term investments, etc and my goal was to be aggressive, utilize leverage where I say fit and be in the right names showing up in the data. I did a good job I think, I made some mistakes along the way but I’m thrilled with where I am. Obviously I will have to take out some money for taxes in the coming months but going forward you’ll see me trading with far less leverage. That was just something I did late this year because my capital gain was so large I was ok with losing some if things didn’t go right. Now I will likely directionally follow trending names with put sales, covered calls, etc and just focus on a more on trading with far less risk. Risk is fine in an uptrend, and we all have to take risks to get ahead in life, I just feel with where I am now with this book, my long term investments, etc that I don’t need to be full bore with the risk going forward.

I am going to continue writing my recaps, updating the database everyday but I just want a break from actively managing a book and spending my afternoons watching things. This community is massive today, there’s over 2,000 people in the discord, daily I answer 50+ emails, I get countless dm’s, and I’m honestly a little burned out. I obviously love the market and the community here, but when you’re 1 person dealing with an entire community as the only customer support agent, it can be really exhausting. So not having a book to manage for a few weeks will be a welcome thing.

As for my plans for this community, this is now the 8th largest substack in the finance space(Dr Burry passed 3.5 years of my work in 3 days) and I know alot of people do year end price hikes, but I have no intention of raising the monthly price at all. It will remain the same, I do fine, the recaps will be the same but I will raise the price of the live tier for new people in January. So if you want in there, you have a month to decide, please don’t message me January 2nd and ask for me to take the price back down for you. Also, no, if you’re in there currently you won’t see a price hike, you always keep the price you signed up for, but for everyone else going forward it will be much more. I know the value that is in there from all the screenshots and dm’s everyone sends me of how much they’re making so I think it’s frankly way too cheap for what it has become now. Is it for everyone? No, but if you are active enough and you book is large enough to where you can get back the $10/day it costs, it is probably the best community chat/product you will use.

Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend, I just wanted to get it out today so I don’t close up most of my book Monday and surprise you.