Hey trader,
I spent the past week in Sarasota for a much-needed vacation with the family.
Was I tempted to trade? Absolutely.
But…did I trade? Not at all.
Past experience taught me a very hard (and costly) lesson: only trade when you’re prepared.
I’m sure many of you will disagree with me. After all, with technology like the Trinity Terminal at your fingertips, trade alerts in your email, why should trading on vacation be that difficult?
One simple word: focus.
Some of you may be the exception, capable of juggling two worlds. Most of you, including myself, cannot.
And believe it or not…it likely won’t matter in the long run.
Today, I want to share a couple of stories that help prove this point.
Next week I’m back in the saddle!
Markets are in a precarious position. Will they make new highs or take a belly flop?
My Trinity Terminal has some key clues as to not just WHERE the market will go but WHEN.
Take Trinity Trading for a test drive. Join me next week and see how I used this methodology to beat the market by 4x in 2024 and just under 3x in 2025.
A Legend…on the Links
Peter Lynch is a Wall Street legend. During the 1980s, he managed the Magellan Fund.
On October 19, 1987, Black Monday sent the market spiraling 20% in a single session.
Peter was golfing in Ireland.
People freaked out. Peter did nothing. He couldn’t.
His Magellan Fund dropped from $12 billion to $8 billion in two working days. He largely didn’t care.
Peters’ Magellan Fund returned 2700% from 1977 to 1990 when he retired.
That didn’t happen because he was a day trader. He cared about long-term performance.
I am not a day trader. My outlook extends beyond the next few hours and typically weeks. I don’t need to worry about what happens in a single day or even a week.
When I set up my trades, they have defined parameters: where I stop, where I take profits.
This requires zero thought on my part. Once I’m in, it’s autopilot.
Trading anything on vacation means one of two things:
- I’m looking for reasons to adjust my trade execution for a current position
- I want a new trade, even though I don’t have all the tools at my disposal, nor the focus
Neither of these is a good reason to work. So, I don’t.
Now, you’d think that day trading would require you to be scooping up every opportunity. But let me explain why that isn’t true either.
The Phone isn’t Your Friend
One of my friends loves to daytrade morning gaps. He looks for stocks dropping premarket and tries to catch a falling knife.
At best, it’s a risky strategy. In order to execute it properly, he needs to be at his desk with real-time feeds.
On average, he makes a little bit of money and has a reasonable win rate of around 65%. The key is that he has to manage risk.
You know what screws all that up? Trading on his phone.
Mobile technology is a wonderful thing. It’s also incredibly dangerous. You think you can execute day trades as cleanly as you would on your desktop. In reality, it’s significantly harder.
To give you an idea of how much it can mess with your trading, my friend’s win-rate tanks from 65% to 35% when he trades on mobile. Unsurprisingly, his losses are WAY bigger.
Day trading is about volume. You aren’t making huge amounts on any single trade. Instead, you’re making small or reasonable amounts over many trades.
So, if you miss a week, you’re just missing some volume of trades. That’s it.
Plus, the odds that the week you take off will be that one “huge” week is completely random. It’s just as likely to happen next week or the week after.
Sure, you take enough vacations, and you will miss a big week or two. But who cares?
If your entire trading career is defined by one week, then your strategy probably isn’t sustainable.
Just Don’t
At the end of the day, everyone makes their own decisions.
Experience has taught me that downtime is crucial to my mental health AND that trading on vacation leads to subpar performance.
If that’s not enough reason to put your phone down at the beach, then I don’t know what is.
Gianni Di Poce
THEOTrade
1 Comment
Newporter360
February 21, 2026I always plan on doing some self-improvement work or trading when on vacation. Then I get home and realize I hadn't cracked a book or opened my laptop to trade. Lol, I don't even try anymore. Never let good intentions get in the way of relaxing with family on vacation. I joined Trinity Trading last week and look forward to learning the system. I have listened to you in the chat room for a time but have been day trading with Tony Rago and going through his Mastermind course. I love his Golden Setup strategy, but I need to roll those profits into something longer term (swing/hold.) I think Trinity will be that mid-point between day trading and long-term investing. Thank you