First attempt to short a stock, and it went wrong...

The most horrific moment in my 2024 investment was when I intuitively found a great opportunity,  only to screw it all up soon after with my carelessness. It happened only last week.

I have tried to make short-term trading decisions by reacting to recent events, but I was always late to the market as the news would have already broken and speculators would have already moved the market.  But this time, it was different,  I went to the Moomoo's news and comment section, no one was talking about it yet, and the stock price was rising. 

I was so pleased with my findings and the fact that, for once, I am the one who spotted this early,  I went ahead to buy several deep OTM put options while the price was still very cheap right before I went to bed.

I woke up early at 5 am, 2 hours ahead of my usual waking time,  to prepare for a work project of mine. In my sleepiness, I still remembered to take a look at the price movement of the option I just bought.  And wow, was I in for a treat, the comment and the news section had already been populated by this news, and the option price went up to 0.6 (I bought it at 0.43) as the underlying's price took a dive. So I wanted to set a sell price at 1.0 and just forget about it for a few days.

The moment I clicked 'sell' is when simultaneously the orange dot on the message icon lit up. The transaction was made....at 0.1.

This ruined my mood instantly, and I had to pull myself back together so it did not affect the rest of my day. I also took this opportunity to observe my own emotions and how I thought patterns shifted for the day.  Never let a crisis go to waste. 

In my 6 months of investing, I made a handful of careless mistakes that cost me dearly. Most of them happened late at night or very early in the morning when I was still sleepy.

I realize one key general lesson, no matter what your brilliance and strengths are, if you don't learn to control your fatal weakness(es), it might end up wiping out your hard earn successes. So, be aware if your blinds spots and shortcomings so they don't cause you to crash and burn.