Cory Mitchell, CMT

I've been a #daytrader for 18 years. Here are the key lessons I've learned that made me money and kept me in the game that whole time. A thread👇

How to Take Your Trading to the Next Level tradethatswing.com/how-to-take-yo… Stuck spinning your wheels? Here are some things to start doing right now.

5 Ways You Can Still Earn While the Stock Market Is Falling tradethatswing.com/5-ways-investo… The market is dropping. But there are ways to put cash to work and make some returns, ranging from extremely low risk (interest/savings ETFs) to higher risk (shorting/inverse ETFs).

@JahBles57168759 Good to know! Thanks

@corymitc These Night Cap videos are great, Cory. Super helpful to watch before the next trading day. Appreciate you putting these together.

The Trading Night Cap - March 26 (Market Health, Stock Swing Trades, Scanning, Trading in the Zone) youtu.be/YMXyerxBBqs?si…

Key Takeaways from 'Trading in the Zone' by Mark Douglas tradethatswing.com/key-takeaways-… 10 Key concepts to embrace.

$EURUSD Trade Walkthrough on a Choppier Day - March 26 youtu.be/GDaezbVmRHk

This story was orginally published here: tradethatswing.com/how-to-be-a-be…

How to "Be" a Trader - The work that really matters in the long run Evan had been trading for three years, and each year felt like a repetition of the last: bursts of confidence followed by spirals of doubt, streaks of discipline undone by a single impulsive trade. He devoured books, watched every webinar, and memorized setups, indicators, and patterns. Yet the more he learned, the more chaotic the market seemed. One evening, after closing another red day fueled by frustration, he shut his computer and stared at the blank screen. “I know what I have to do,” he muttered, “Why can’t I get this?” A friend had once mentioned an old trader rumored to have mentored some of the calmest, most consistent traders around. Desperate, Evan reached out. The mentor agreed to meet. When Evan arrived, he found the man sitting on a wooden porch overlooking a quiet lake. No charts. No screens. Just stillness. “You want to learn to trade,” the mentor said without looking up. “I already know how to trade,” Evan replied. “I need to learn how to trade well.” The mentor smiled. “Then sit.” They sat in silence for several minutes. Evan fidgeted. The mentor didn’t move. Finally, Evan protested, “Aren’t you going to teach me something?” “I already am,” the mentor said. “You cannot sit still for five minutes. How can you expect to sit still in a moving market?” Evan opened his mouth to argue, but the mentor raised a hand. “You think trading is about strategy. Strategy is the bow. You are the archer. If the archer is unsteady, the bow does not matter.” Over the next few weeks, Evan returned daily. He expected lessons on entries, exits, and risk models. Instead, the mentor gave him tasks that seemed unrelated to trading. One day, the mentor gave him a simple exercise: watch the market without taking a trade. Evan lasted twelve minutes before clicking. The mentor shook his head. “Just be, and let the market be. The market already is. Observe it, like a ghost you can see but can’t affect, while continually refocusing on your breathing…your being-ness.” Another day, the mentor asked him to journal not his trades, but his breathing during trades. Evan found that his breath shortened before every impulsive entry. Or he forgot to think about his breath altogether. “You cannot see the market clearly when you cannot even feel your own breath,” the mentor said. Slowly, Evan began to understand. The mentor wasn’t teaching him how to trade. He was teaching him how to be. Weeks passed. One morning, the mentor placed a laptop in front of Evan. “Today, you will trade,” he said. “But you will not aim.” Evan frowned. “What does that mean?” “You will not try to make money. You will not try to avoid a loss. You will simply follow your plan, without forcing anything. Just breathe. If a trade happens, let it happen, and go on breathing.” Evan watched the chart. A setup formed. He felt the familiar tightening in his chest — the urge to predict, to control, to make something happen. He breathed. He waited. The setup matured. Calmly, he entered. Calmly, he exited. No rush. No fear. No grasping. The mentor nodded. “That trade traded itself!” Evan smiled and commented, “That was a nice winning trade!” The mentor sharply corrected him: “No aim! Win or loss doesn’t matter. It is the state, the presence of the mind, that matters. I wasn’t complimenting you. You had nothing to do with it! You simply got out of the trade’s way. Give honor to the trade, for it did itself, not you.” “I think I understand,” said Evan. “If I take credit for a good result, I am building up the ego, which is the very thing that causes so many problems in my trading.” The words and lessons were beginning to sink in. The market hadn’t changed, but he felt he was changing. It wasn’t exactly confidence, at least not in the way he thought of confidence before. Instead, it was a quiet clarity. Peace amidst chaos. The false confidence—”Let me show you what I can do”—gave way to an inner assurance that “I can breathe, be present, and in so doing, get out of the trade’s way.” This understanding is the trader’s divine path. Evan bowed his head. “Thank you.” “Do not thank me,” the mentor said. “Thank the silence. The breath. It teaches you more than I ever could.” Evan did not return to the mentor, for he had learned how to “be,” and there was nothing left to learn. The only thing left was to practice it. No destination, just the divine path of committing to the practice, without aim*. By Cory Mitchell, CMT Follow @corymitc *People will say, “But there needs to be an aim! We need to have a strategy that works, that makes money!” Sure. That work is done outside trading hours. Review trades, refine methods. That is required to make the strategy worth following. But once we know what to do, and we sit down to the trade, we must walk the trader’s divine path: to be, to breathe, to be present, so we can get out of the trade’s way. Let the trade trade itself. We can't control the price, so don't worry about it. Focus on you, and doing what you are supposed to.

Let me know what you think. A nightly show looking at markets, trades, and information to help you trade better. The Trading Night Cap - March 25, 2026 youtu.be/_k0cIJ8fp-c

Here is the full article on this topic: tradethatswing.com/the-1-risk-rul…

The 1% (or 1.5%, 2%, etc.) Risk Rule The 1% Risk Rule is an important concept to consider for day trading and swing trading—and it’s far simpler than most traders realize. The Rule (For Day Trading and Swing Trading) The rule states: don't risk more than 1% of your account equity on a single trade. It has nothing to do with how much capital you put into the trade; it’s about how much you could lose if the trade hits your stop loss. Why Do It By capping risk at 1%, no single losing trade can damage your account. Even a streak of losses becomes manageable, allowing you to stay in the game long enough for your edge to play out. This is why most seasoned traders risk 1% or less, and rarely more than 2%. With a high-win-rate strategy, maybe some traders will stretch that to 3%. How It Works The key is proper position sizing. You determine your dollar risk (1% of your account), calculate the distance between your entry and stop loss, and size your position so that if the stop is hit, the loss equals that 1%. This keeps losses small while allowing winning trades—especially those with strong reward‑to‑risk ratios—to compound your account. A trader risking 1% but making 2x, 3x, or even 10x on winners can grow the account without exposing themselves to catastrophic drawdowns. The win-rate of the strategy also factors into this. And how many trades are taken also affects the overall return. Doing this requires planning out the trade BEFORE it is made. Considering the entry and stop loss location, and knowing the distance between them. Sometimes, when the market is moving very quickly, or decisions need to be made quickly—like in day trading—the position size may need to be estimated. As long as it is close to the intended risk, over many trades, the small discrepancies will likely even out. Example $10,000 account, risk up to $100 on the trade (1%). Entry at $50, stop loss at $49.50 = $1.50 of trade risk. Divide what you can lose by the trade risk = $100/$1.50 = 66 shares (rounded down). 66 shares x $50 uses $3,300 of the capital. The Large Account Caveat With a large account, the position size a given market can accommodate may also limit risk to less than the desired amount. A trader may wish to risk 2%, but liquidity available (without adversely moving the price) only allows them to take half the position they want, thus reducing the risk to 1%, for example. Investing The 1% rule is ideal for active traders. Long‑term investors typically manage risk differently—by allocating a percentage of capital to each position rather than using stop losses (although they may). This is because many investors aren't concerned about the short-term ups and downs of the market. They want to stay invested in a company as long as it is growing earnings & revenue, or they are collecting dividends for cash flow, or they are trying to capture the long-term upward bias of the market index they are tracking. It's About Survivability, Because Losses Will Occur Ultimately, the 1% rule is about survival, consistency, and scalability. It forces discipline and creates the foundation for long‑term profitability. Winning matters—but avoiding big losses matters even more. Because if you take big losses, eventually you won't be around for the big wins. Follow @corymitc for more, if this helped you out.

If you can't focus/commentate/plan your trades, walk away...that's a good day too! Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Noticing when you aren't in the right headspace (and seem to can't fix it), and being able to walk away, is a pivotal skill for successful trading.

"Trading has a reputation problem. From the outside, it looks like freedom, flexibility, and fast money. From the inside, it’s a craft that demands more discipline, self-awareness, and emotional resilience than most professions ever require. The real work of trading isn’t glamorous. It’s not the screenshots, the wins, or the highlight reels. It’s the invisible grind—done in silence, done alone, done without applause, and done relentlessly." tradethatswing.com/the-real-ungla…

@JahBles57168759 They look like they were managed well for the market context. Which was also producing lower highs through the first part of the session.

@corymitc Great video, Cory! The lessons have been helpful. I had a great day trading NVDA, were those good choices? I kept trading the lows because it “changed” the trend and started making higher highs. Is that the right way to think about it, or would you say those weren’t major lows?

$EURUSD Trade Analysis March 24, 2026 – Bread & Butter Setup, Active Trade Management (video walkthrough) tradethatswing.com/eurusd-trade-a…

The Chaos Trap and the Expertise Trap: In high-stakes trading, the most dangerous error isn't a wrong trade—it's the wrong type of thinking. Markets are not machines to be fixed; they are interconnected ecosystems defined by feedback loops and emergent behavior. To navigate them, you must match your decision-making framework to the specific challenge at hand. The Cynefin Framework(developed by Dave Snowden) categorizes these challenges into four main domains, and one additional personal state domain: - Clear🙂: Cause and effect are self-evident. Apply Best Practice. - Complicated🧑‍🎓: Closed systems requiring expert analysis to find a finite "Right Answer" (e.g., a tax position). - Complex🤔 (The Market’s Natural State): Cause and effect are only knowable in hindsight. The terrain is in constant flux, you must Probe and Sense rather than predict. - Chaotic🤪: Relationships collapse. Resolution requires immediate action to stabilize or escape (e.g., a flash crash). The Personal State domain is Confused😕: Often the precursor to a major fail. This occurs when you occupy one domain but act as if you are in another. The Traps: Under pressure, traders often default to the wrong domain. The "Expertise Trap": (treating a Complex market like a Complicated machine) or seeing it purely as a formula (applying static "Best Practices" to a shifting regime). The "Chaos Trap", this happens occasionally when a market enters Chaos: The usual relationships or patterns break down and cause and effect are unrelated Over the past few weeks many market have pushed past Complexity into Chaos, or exist within the Complex domain but on the "edge of chaos". In these situations, standard pattern recognition fails. Navigation becomes impossible, or at best, far more difficult. - Their processes just were n't made for chaos (Not strictly true for everyone - these people will be thriving). - Excapt for these few, most people are reduced to gambling on relying on hope. While certain more antifragile styles may be more robust here, many complex Relative Value (RV) or short-vol portfolios often lack that resilience—a reality reflected in the very recent performance of many hedge funds PMs. Understanding the system you are in and how to respond to it are vital for trading. – Trading doesn’t happen in the complicted domain, it occurs in the complex domain but will occasionally make a foray into chaos. The quicker you can see the system shift and respond most appropriately the less destruction there will be. Below is the Cynefin framework image:

Trading Rules for When NOT to Trade tradethatswing.com/its-ok-not-to-… A strategy is incomplete if it doesn't have rules for when NOT to trade.

A History of Stock Market Percentage Declines In Charts (15% to 50%+) tradethatswing.com/a-history-of-s… There are loads of 15% and smaller declines. When a decline starts, inevitably, many claim it will turn into the next great crash. Yet even 30% declines are very rare. Here's the data, in charts, back to 1871.