Part two on trader mistakes, this time for people who are already past the beginner stage. Three of them, and the last one caught me off guard.

You’re still clicking your own trades

You will never be world class at typing numbers into fields and pressing buttons. Software already is.

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And while you’re in the loop, you’re the ceiling. There’s a limit to how many trades you can enter, how many strategies you can run, how quickly you can act.

The subtler point: if your setup genuinely can’t be automated, there are human decisions buried in it you haven’t admitted to. Which means it isn’t a system, it’s discretion wearing a system’s clothes.

You think you’ve figured it out

You have a strategy that works. It’s automated. It’s profitable. So you coast.

The market will eventually make you adapt, and it will choose the moment. Waking up to find the thing that paid your bills for years no longer works, with nothing in the pipeline, is a terrible position.

Which argues for getting live sooner. Most of the learning happens after a strategy is running, so perfectionism in the backtest is expensive. If the curve slopes up, get it going.

You don’t share enough

Dave asked one of the best traders he works with what he’d change. The answer: he’d have shared his ideas far earlier, because sharing generates a return flow of ideas.

Not publishing your edge to the world. A trusted group. Bellafiore’s line applies: networking is a trading skill.

There’s a related trap. In a mastermind call, a trader who hasn’t had a losing month in years heard someone else present and immediately wanted to rip up his own approach. His stuff is excellent and genuinely niche. You can’t read the label from inside the bottle.

Incorporate. Don’t replace.

Stats Edge Pro. $149.99 a month, 30-day money-back guarantee.

FOMC on Wed is all the market cares about. They are pricing in a 25 bps cut so anything other then that would be a huge market shock.

How to place it: enter a BUY LIMIT for WDC at $402.67, sized at about 5% of your account, good for the day only - if it never fills, it cancels itself and there is no trade. Do NOT rest a stop order for this one - the $335.28 line only counts on a CLOSE beneath it (an intraday dip through it is normal and is not an exit). The sheet checks it every night and the alert bot calls it if it triggers. Sell at the NEXT MORNING'S OPEN - one of three things always ends this trade: (1) a CLOSE above the prior day's high - the bounce arrived (the level rolls forward each day); (2) a CLOSE beneath the protective stop printed on this card; (3) neither happens and the calendar ends it - sell at the open on Monday, September 28. For the calendar leg, set a dated market-on-open sell for that date.

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94 meetings since 2000. After a red Fed close, 71% were green 21 days later. Average trade about 1.5%. It’s the S&P. Not going to zero. Not going to double.

Rule: Fed day red. Buy the next open. Sell a month later. That’s the whole thing.

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July 2026 version worked. About 4.5%. January one lost 1.5%. Fine.

You would never run this as the whole account. 2000-2008 is mostly nothing. 2019-2021 nothing. Heat map is full of blanks. Green Fed day = sit on your hands until next quarter. 2009 was one trade the whole year.

That’s why it’s in a book of 11. Frequent stuff pays the rent. Rare stuff like this shows up when it shows up.

Why a month. I tested 1 day out to 60. Longer hold makes more because the S&P drifts. Sweet spot is that 15-30-40 day box. Month is clean. Recycle the cash into the next thing.

If Thursday’s red, Pro gets the line in the nightly note.

Free list is still one idea a day. Pro is the whole book. statsedgetrading.com. Get away from the screens.

How to place it: enter a BUY LIMIT for LLY at $1082.23, sized at about 4% of your account, good for the day only - if it never fills, it cancels itself and there is no trade. Sell at the open on Wednesday, September 16 - two full trading days in the trade, then out at the next bell. Set a dated market-on-open sell for that date now and the exit happens without you.

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Seven spikes since 1973. Five lined up near a crash on a headline. 2000. 2008. 2022. Looks scary until you look at the clock.

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1973 embargo. Stocks topped 9 months before oil ripped.

2008. Same thing. Stocks first, oil later.

2022. Market topped in January. Oil didn’t really get going until after. When oil peaked that was the low in stocks, not the start of the dump.

The one time oil led was 1990. Gulf War. $20 to $40 and back down. Market sold off after. Not a giant crash.

2008 is the one people wave around. Oil was hanging $50-$75 then ripped while the market was already falling. Oil up, stocks down. Oil down, stocks still down. No trade there.

Right now oil’s been ripping all year. Market’s been fine.

So no. High oil is not predictive. It’s a story that shows up next to bad markets sometimes. That’s not the same thing.

Free list: one idea a night. I don’t sell the list. Stats Edge is the systems if you’re done trading vibes. Have a good weekend. Get away from the screens.

Inside tonight's sheet: 7 new orders - 7 Mean Reversion and Surge Pullback limits resting quietly below the market, waiting for Friday's weakness to come to them. One of them - INTC, tonight's free Mean Reversion (Dip) setup - is open to everyone right below.

How to place it: enter a BUY LIMIT for INTC at $95.46, sized at about 5% of your account, good for the day only - if it never fills, it cancels itself and there is no trade. Do NOT rest a stop order for this one - the $80.41 line only counts on a CLOSE beneath it (an intraday dip through it is normal and is not an exit). The sheet checks it every night and the alert bot calls it if it triggers. Sell at the NEXT MORNING'S OPEN - one of three things always ends this trade: (1) a CLOSE above the prior day's high - the bounce arrived (the level rolls forward each day); (2) a CLOSE beneath the protective stop printed on this card; (3) neither happens and the calendar ends it - sell at the open on Thursday, September 24. For the calendar leg, set a dated market-on-open sell for that date.

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How to place it: enter a BUY LIMIT for BKNG at $168.23, sized at about 5% of your account, good for the day only - if it never fills, it cancels itself and there is no trade. Sell at the open on Monday, September 14 - two full trading days in the trade, then out at the next bell. Set a dated market-on-open sell for that date now and the exit happens without you.

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Traditional story is Labor Day, desks fill back up, tape wakes up. I tested it instead of nodding along.

September is usually the soft month. Covered that. This one’s flat so far. Fine.

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The useful bit: Sept/Oct candles run about 20% bigger than summer. SPX average bar sits around 1.2-1.3 in the quiet months then you get that spike. December slumps back toward summer. Christmas.

It’s not just red bars being fatter because September is weak. Up days get bigger too. Down days get bigger. Just more action. July’s the tightest. August a little more. Then Sept/Oct.

If you eyeball stops or risk a flat 1% on QQQ every trade, that math changes. Same dollar stop in a bigger-candle month means you get tagged more.

I ran a dummy system. Percent stops = messy year to year. ATR stops = smoother. Because some months stocks just move more.

ATR is on TradingView. Last 5 days, what’s the average candle. That’s your yardstick. Half a normal day for a tight stop. A full day for a target. Number updates. You’re not stuck with summer sizing in October.

Every stop in the StatsEdge book is ATR. Bids too. It flexes.

Free list is still one idea a night. New systems are up. statsedgetrading.com. Get away from the screens.

How to place it: enter a BUY LIMIT for ABNB at $169.45, sized at about 5% of your account, good for the day only - if it never fills, it cancels itself and there is no trade. Sell at the open on Friday, September 11 - two full trading days in the trade, then out at the next bell. Set a dated market-on-open sell for that date now and the exit happens without you.

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From today the conversation changes. No more “the backtest says.” Now it is “the ledger says,” one night at a time, 252 sheets a year, losers printed the same size as winners and never restated.

Today at 11:30 am Eastern: open house. Every two weeks I run a live Q&A for Stats Edge Pro members. Today, because the new book is live, it is open to everyone. Come hang out for an hour. I will walk through every trade I made this morning and put the actual broker statement on screen. We will talk about the systems, why the letter became a nightly book, where Stats Edge goes from here, and anything else you want to ask. Full ask me anything. Member questions come through Discord first, then the floor is open.

Watch live: https://youtube.com/live/ptov3kjzm5o?feature=share

Tonight’s free idea goes out after the close like always. The full sheet goes to members. The 30-day guarantee still covers anyone who wants in this week.

Michael Nauss, CMT

Below the line, members get the whole thing: every card with its entry and stop, the broker-ready basket for tomorrow’s open, and the log. Tonight is the one night you can join and match the book from its first trade. After tonight you are catching a moving train. Both work. Only one is day one.

Tonight’s free idea is below, as always. If that is all you want, you are already in the right place.

How to place it: enter a BUY LIMIT for DASH at $204.21, sized at about 5% of your account, good for the day only - if it never fills, it cancels itself and there is no trade. Enter the protective SELL STOP at $183.49 together with the buy and leave it working (GTC). Sell at the NEXT MORNING'S OPEN - one of three things always ends this trade: (1) a CLOSE above the prior day's high - the bounce arrived (the level rolls forward each day); (2) a CLOSE beneath the protective stop printed on this card; (3) neither happens and the calendar ends it - sell at the open on Monday, September 21. For the calendar leg, set a dated market-on-open sell for that date.

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Free list gets my little blurb plus one idea. Entry. Exit. Why. Chart. That’s AMAT at 422.83 in this one.

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Pro gets the rest. Same trade with the system name, size, clock, win rate, avg win, avg loss. Then every other live setup. Current holds. Recent trades. Stops. Gold seasonal up 10. IPO breakout up 32. One down 12. All of it wipes and rebuilds.

Workbook is the Excel version. Day trades tab. Swing tab. Holdings. Last 20 days. Old weekly systems still in there if you want them.

If you only trade swings: check exits, check you’re in what the book is in, place the 2 orders. Done.

Or don’t place anything. Set an alert. Phone buzzes when CNH or AMAT hits. Look then.

Free idea every night at statsedgetrading.com. Pro is the full PDF plus the workbook. Get away from the screens.

New this week, all free: StatsEdge Swing Systems, StatsEdge Day Trading Systems, StatsEdge Investing Systems, and How to Use the Evening Note. Links are on the homepage and in the member Discord. The seven-minute video on the eleven swing systems is on the site as well.

Reminder: I will never direct message you first. Anything from me arrives in this email or is posted publicly in the member Discord.

AMAT - Applied Materials Inc Common

Applied Materials is the world's largest maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment - the deposition, etch and inspection systems chip fabs use to build transistors on silicon wafers.

Entry limit: $422.83 - Exit: sell 9/9/26 at open

Last close $435.91 (-0.6%) - volume 6.0M (20-day average 7.4M) - 52-week range $157.37 to $722.23 (-40% off the high) - ATR (14 days) $18.69

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Combined backtest is about 31% a year. 15% drawdown. Market did 8% and took 50-60% hits. All years green. 3 of 4 months green.

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Worst hole was Feb 2023. Not 2000. Not 2008. Not 2020. That’s the part I like.

Why 11. A breakout system is great until the tape goes dead. Then you’re bored and losing time.

IPO breakout. Not the IPO. After the junk burns off. Trail it. Win rate like 37%. 10-baggers in there. Also long flat stretches when IPOs are dead.

Mean reversion is the opposite. Uptrend. Ugly snap. Buy the flush. Dump it next good open. 65% wins. Small paydays. CrowdStrike type thing every so often.

Surge pullback. Already ripping. We want the second wave. ~3 day hold.

Bull flag. Buy stop on the break. Trail. Win rate ~40. Same tradeoff as the IPO sleeve.

Then the rare stuff. Gold. Fed days. Bonds. SPY. ETFs. Sometimes levered so I’m not parking a pile of cash.

VIX sleeve is red by itself over 26 years. Still in the book. Pays in the ugly years. You want cash when everything else is getting punched.

One system hot. One system dead. Curve is smoother.

Free list: one idea a night plus the 26-year writeup. Pro gets the whole book.

AMAT - Applied Materials Inc Common

Applied Materials is the world's largest maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment - the deposition, etch and inspection systems chip fabs use to build transistors on silicon wafers.

Entry limit: $425.31 - Exit: sell 9/9/26 at open

Last close $438.46 (-0.8%) - volume 6.2M (20-day average 7.3M) - 52-week range $155.39 to $722.23 (-39% off the high) - ATR (14 days) $20.48

Mean Reversion. The most-watched names in the market get defended. This sleeve owns two doors into that bounce: a violent one-day hit inside a healthy longer-term uptrend, and a deep morning markdown on an already washed-out household name. Either way we are the standing buyer into the fear, out within days.

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Mean Reversion

ALAB - Astera Labs Inc Common

Astera Labs makes connectivity semiconductors for AI data centers - the retimers, smart cables and CXL controllers that keep GPUs, CPUs and memory talking at full speed.

Entry limit: $264.40 - Stop: $226.24 (on a close)

Last close $279.91 (-5.7%) - volume 3.4M (20-day average 3.7M) - 52-week range $100.27 to $483.02 (-42% off the high) - ATR (14 days) $19.11

3 more names trade this same setup tonight - they are in the sheet, with charts and prices.

Mean Reversion. The most-watched names in the market get defended. This sleeve owns two doors into that bounce: a violent one-day hit inside a healthy longer-term uptrend, and a deep morning markdown on an already washed-out household name. Either way we are the standing buyer into the fear, out within days.

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September is the one. That’s it. Only about 45% of them finish green. October’s not great either.

And look, the average is a little dirty because September 1931 was down 30%. One month. One. And it yanks the whole number around. Most of the other disaster months are old too. Tiny market, no circuit breakers, all that. COVID is basically the only modern one that even looks close.

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So is September weak. Yeah. Is it a crash? No. It’s like 1% down on average. Soft. I’m recording this the 1st, and we’re already gaping down half a percent, so maybe we just do the whole month in a day. Who knows.

Midterms make it weirder. Starts in August. Which we already had. Drags through September. Then October usually gets that lift. I don’t think that’s magic. Market just hates sitting there not knowing who is running the thing. Once it looks decided, the discount comes off. Doesn’t matter who wins. Just that somebody won.

Sell in May and go away, everybody knows. Hirsch has the better one. Buy in October and get yourself sober.

I split the year. May to October made about 50 grand over the test. Nov to April was 700. Same market. Just… different half. Taxes aren’t in there. I’m not telling you to sit in cash for six months. I’m saying the back half of the year is where most of the meat is.

What would I do with it? Not short. People hear weak month, and they want to short. That’s a pain.

If it’s choppy and kind of sloppy, that’s mean reversion weather. So I’m not taking a “September trade.” I’m looking at which systems like that tape and maybe leaning that way if it actually shows up.

That’s the whole Stats Edge thing. A pile of systems. Not one idea.

One more thing, because it’s the whole reason I made this video.

September is the worst month on the calendar — and it’s the month I picked, on purpose. Monday, September 7, Stats Edge rolls over. Not a launch: same research, same 26 years of testing, same me. The weekly letter rolls into a nightly book, and the portfolio rolls to cash — every position sold, every dollar flat — so everyone who’s in before then starts from the exact same zero I do. No inherited positions. No joining mid-drawdown. Your book and mine, identical from the very first trade.

If you already subscribe, everything rolls with you. Same price, more of everything.

Day one is day one, once.

Behind the blur: this month’s full buy and sell list — the exact rebalance my own investing book runs tonight. Members see every ticker.

And this is the best week of the year to stop squinting. Monday, the weekly swing letter rolls into a nightly book that starts from zero — so joining now gets you this month’s investing list today, plus the Daily Book from its very first trade next week. One subscription, everything. $149.99 a month, 30-day money-back guarantee.

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The book rolls to zero Monday, September 7. Everyone in before then starts from the exact same zero I do, your book matches mine from its very first trade. After that, you're catching a moving train.

SPY - State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF

Entry: market at the open (no limit) - Exit: sell into strength

Last close $767.05 (-0.3%) - volume 38.5M (20-day average 38.7M) - 52-week range $630.35 to $777.88 (-1% off the high) - ATR (14 days) $5.04

Turnaround Tuesday. The oldest calendar effect in the book: the index slides for consecutive sessions into the early week, and the snap-back tends to be quick. We buy the weakness and sell the first show of strength.

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Then the stock halted and reopened around a dollar.

On the trade log, that’s a winner. In reality it was a near miss, and the difference between those two things is worth a video.

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Why a winner can be a warning

Our stop happened to sit where it sat. Slightly lower and we’d have been holding through the halt.

It wouldn’t have been ruinous. Position sizing is roughly 5% of the account, so a total loss is a 5% hit. Survivable, and part of trading.

But being saved by where a stop happened to be is luck, not design. That’s the moment to look at the system rather than the trade.

The wrong fix

The tempting move is to start manually excluding companies. No tiny overseas names, nothing under some market cap.

Now you’re deciding case by case what counts as too small and which countries you don’t like. You’ve imported discretionary bias into a systematic process, and every future trade inherits it.

The smallest change that works

Require Russell 3000 membership. That’s most of the tradable universe, and it quietly excludes names hovering near the pink sheets or that began existing last month.

One filter. No judgement calls.

What it cost, and what it bought

Across 26 years, about one percentage point of annual return. Gone.

In exchange: drawdown improved, worst year improved, and profitable months went from 69% to 75%.

I’ll take that every time. Which is also the argument against the other side of the filter, because it removes the occasional 10x low-float name too. I’d rather miss those than hold one through a halt.

One more thing

People assume systematic means no decisions. It doesn’t. It means different decisions. Not what to buy today, that’s handled. Decisions like this one.

Stats Edge Pro. $149.99 a month, 30-day money-back guarantee.