01
Early cycle, wind at your back
The market had just bottomed off a massive correction and most of the heavy lifting was done by the cycle itself. When you're early in a new uptrend and you catch a real leader, the market does the work for you. HOOD went up nine straight weeks and a lot of that was just being in the right place at the right time because the broader market was following through.
02
Quiet entries, tighter risk
I didn't buy HOOD on strength. Between the big up weeks it was pausing quietly, sitting in these tight little areas, and I entered while it was still sitting in that quiet zone before the next week followed through. It wasn't a textbook weakness buy but it was the same idea, buying in a low-volatility pause lets you use a tighter stop and take a larger position size because your risk per share is smaller. Even though buying on strength probably would have worked here because we were early in the cycle, buying quiet always helps me manage the trade better.
03
Trail stops, don't call tops
I sold near $100 because I thought it was extended and going to top. It pulled back that week and I felt clever about it, but then it went up another 60% before it actually topped. The move was to raise my stop and let the market take me out instead of trying to predict where it ends. When something is working that well you just trail it.
04
The 4-week line as a trailing guide
This trade was actually when I started paying attention to the 4-week moving average. Looking back at the chart, HOOD rode the 4-week almost perfectly on the way up. That became something I added to my charts after this and started using as a trailing reference for strong momentum names.
05
Trust price action over narratives
After the crash, the news was super negative everywhere and most people didn't trust that the bottom was real. They thought it was a bounce, not a new move. But names like HOOD were following through strong with real power and that was the positive feedback. Just tuning everything out and focusing on what price was actually doing made this trade possible.