Trading Rewind: Revisiting Q3 2020

After a tumultuous 2020, I’m closing out the year with my highest annual gross profit across my retirement and margin trading accounts of about $4.5 million.

And as we wrap up an unprecedented year, both in the market and in the world at large, I thought it would be beneficial to look back on the previous 12 months and inspect just what made 2020 such a remarkable year for day trading as well as what it might spell for 2021.

To accomplish this, I’ll be looking back on the previous quarters to see what went right, and wrong, to get me where I am today.

The summer of 2020 proved to be a strong one for my day trading record, helping to nearly double my annual profits up to that point. While I didn’t see a month quite like June, in which I was able to catch several stocks going parabolic and clock in the highest profits of my trading career, I did see quite a few six-figure days which helped cushion some of the draw down I experienced later in the month.

July ended up being the strongest month of the period at about $885,000 in total profits across my margin trading account. And while not as strong as June, it was one of the most consistently high-profit months of my trading career.

Over the 22 trading days in July, I put up 20 five-figure days, 17 of which saw my account grow by more than $20,000 a day. And despite my max loss on the month crawling up slightly from June, I was able to come out of the month in the black for every trading day.

August was, unfortunately, not as successful of a month as July. Although the month started strong, with more than $350,000 in profits over the first couple weeks, my trading hit a rough patch midway through the month that dampened that momentum and only helped to add another $80k to my total. August also again saw my max loss creep up slightly, a worrying trend that only got more pronounced as the market started to falter into the autumn months.

Which brings us to September, a rough month for the market overall and a worrying one for my own trading. Not only did my monthly profit fall by more than half from August to September, but the month also contained my biggest daily loss to that point, losing -$31,000 in a single day.

Fortunately, the final days of September did close out the quarter with better momentum and I was able to tack on almost $300,000 in the final few trading days. Those last few wins ended up representing all of my gross profits for September and kept the month green despite its rocky beginnings.

All told, Q3 2020 was a gradual decline from the highs I reached in July, a decline which may have set up my trading behavior in the final stretch of the year, which I’ll cover next week in 2021.

As we ring in the new year, I’d like to wish all the traders reading this a happy and prosperous 2021 and remind everyone that Warrior Trading is running a New Year Special on Warrior Starter and Warrior Pro lesson plans. Hopefully together we can make 2021 a better, healthier and more profitable year than the last.