[Red Envelope] How to avoid the biggest pitfalls in review? Sharing my insights on "Enlightenment"

You’ve been in the market for years—do you really know how to review and reflect? [TaoGuba]

When it’s late and quiet, you’re still doing your post-market review—but have you ever thought: what exactly are you reviewing? Are you reviewing that “God” who stands after the close with all the information, judging yourself—the one trapped in confusion and helplessness while staring at that chart?

During the Qingming holiday, I didn’t go out. I’m putting out a practical, no-fluff post. Welcome everyone to follow, like, and support. On the road ahead, let me know you’re here too—let’s meet each other halfway.

If that’s the case, then no matter how long you review, it’s still just wasted effort.

Today, I want to talk with you about what kind of review can truly help you walk out of the fog.

Constantly sense the rise and fall of market momentum; constantly break down the strength and weakness of themes; constantly focus on the key window—then be ready to target the strongest one. This is a line that most people who’ve been reviewing with me for a while can recite by heart. But how many can truly do it? It’s not that the technique isn’t enough, and it’s not that you’re not reviewing diligently. It’s that most people start the review the wrong way.

I. The Trap: Don’t mock your yesterday self under the sun

Open your trading app and look at yesterday’s sell points: “Ugh, if I’d held it for ten more minutes back then, I would’ve made another five percentage points.”

Flip to the day before’s buy points: “So stupid—clearly I should’ve been buying the front row, but I went in the back and caught that falling knife.”

This is what most people call “review” every day. If we’re being harsh, it’s not review—it’s an after-the-fact judgment from the perspective of God, judging the past self who didn’t have complete information.

You mock the self that stumbled around in the fog, but have you ever thought: that day at the open, there was no right half of the candlestick chart—no closing price—only endless noise, all kinds of extensions, and real temptations.

You saw clearly the road through yesterday’s fog in the sunlight, then mocked yourself for not taking the right path. Besides making you more anxious and more hesitant next time, it accomplishes nothing.

The purpose of reviewing is never to make you a better “Monday-morning quarterback.”

Its purpose has only one thing: to go back to that confused morning—when you can’t see mountains and rivers, can’t make out the galaxy of signals, and all you see is thick fog—then learn to pull yourself, step by step, out of it.

Not to stand outside the fog, following that light in the distance, to find the self that got lost in the fog.

That’s watching from the sidelines—not reviewing.

**Case One:
**

Today you went into the back row. After the close, you didn’t curse yourself for being stupid like you usually do—you did one thing instead: you opened the intraday chart, turned off the right half, and kept only the data before 11:00 in the morning. Then you asked yourself: what exactly did you see at that time? Two “one-word limit-up”s in the front of the sector, and the third one switching hands and getting to the board—this is a typical arbitrage model, and it looks fine.

But you missed one signal: that theme had already entered the mid-to-late stage at the time, and the back-row position had lost any meaningful arbitrage value—it was just a bag of rotten cargo crawling along. Even more important, you recalled your emotions then: you’d missed the opportunity for two consecutive days, and there was a cat in your chest clawing at you—you pounced at every chance as soon as it appeared.

That “urgency” was the real problem.

Then you wrote that “urgency” word in your notebook, with a red circle around it. From then on, you set a hard rule: after missing for two straight days, on the third day you must only watch the board and not place orders—no matter if you miss a limit-up, you don’t regret it. This rule—that “stone pulled out from the pile of losses”—came from that losing period.

II. Watching from the sidelines: those who look across the river for fire can never find a way out

Why do most people review for years and still end up stuck in the same place?

Because you’re always just a “spectator.”

The typical state of a spectator is:

· After the close, you open the intraday chart, point at some high and say, “This is where you should sell.”
· Pull up the trade records and point at the losing trades saying, “This is where you shouldn’t have bought.”
· Review the day’s limit-up board sequence, then sigh, “I could’ve hit this board if I’d only done it.”

See? You always stand outside the fog. You hold the complete candlestick chart in your hand, mark every high and low point, and then start pointing fingers at that self inside the fog.

The problem is: when the fog rises again next time, can that spectator make the decisions for you? No. The one standing inside the fog is still you.

You definitely have stock buddies like this around you: they can talk fluently—cycles, leaders, positioning—everything. Their review articles are prettier than anyone else’s. But the moment the market opens, they still chase highs and cut lows, still hold onto positions and die-grip through the pain.

Why? Because during the review they’re a “spectator,” but during trading they’re a “participant.” Between these two roles is a chasm that you can never cross.

A truly effective review must have the “participant” doing the review, not the “spectator.”

How do you change from “spectator” to “participant”?

Step one:
Record in real time during the session. No need to write long essays—just use a few words at key moments to capture what you were thinking. For example: “9:45, saw a certain stock suddenly extend—felt it was strong, wanted to chase”; “10:30, the market drops suddenly, my position is still holding but I’m a bit panicked”; “13:15, it hit the stop-loss line—can’t bear to cut yet, I’ll wait a bit.” These words are your “footprints in the fog.”
**
Step two:**
When reviewing after the close, don’t rush to look at the outcome—first look at these records. Then ask yourself: did the information I had then truly support that decision? Did my emotions interfere with my judgment?
**
Step three:**
Compare the “correct answer” standard of a spectator with your real state at that time. You’ll realize that in many cases it’s not that you didn’t know what to do—it’s that your emotions made it impossible for you to do it. Finding that emotion means finding the root cause.

I personally have a thick notebook of “intraday emotion notes.” Every page is filled with things like “anxiety about missing the entry,” “fear of drawdown,” “arrogance about holdings,” and so on. After each one, there’s a corresponding rule.

This notebook is worth more than any technical trading book.

III. The Essence: step into that fog and touch every stone

A real review isn’t standing here today, looking back at yesterday.

It’s throwing yourself back into the time point, environment, and emotions of that moment.

What you need to ask yourself isn’t “Was the result right,” but:

· What information did I see then? (not information I only learned later)
· Why did I make that judgment then? (not the judgment that looks foolish now)
· What was my emotional state then—greed, fear, anxiety, impatience?

Only by breaking down these “real states inside the fog” can you possibly recognize the path when the next fog rolls in.

That’s what it means to “step into the fog, touch every stone, and wade through each hidden undercurrent.”

Case Two:

A stock broke down at the open. According to the plan, it should stop-loss at -3%. But when I looked at the intraday chart, I heard a voice in my mind saying, “Wait a bit more—it might come back.” I kept waiting and waiting until it reached -7% before I cut. After the close, using the “participant” way of reviewing, you discover the real reason wasn’t “thinking it could pull back.” It was that three days of consecutive stop-losses happened the prior week—you were no longer willing to lose money. That “wait a bit more” was actually the fear of admitting a mistake.

So you set another rule: if daily losses exceed 5%, or if you’ve been losing for three consecutive days, you liquidate unconditionally, shut down, and go out for an hour. In the first week after implementing the rule, you encountered another breakdown. Your hand hovered over the mouse, hesitating for five seconds—then you remembered that rule, closed your eyes, and pressed sell. After the close, you saw that stock hit the limit-down. That time, I truly experienced what it feels like to say, “Rules are destiny.”

Each time you pull a rule out of the fog, your trading system becomes one notch more solid.
**
IV. Practice: even if you have the map in hand, you still have to finish the road yourself**

TaoXian County has never been short on theory.

You can recite YangJia’s trading methods, “dropping out and Xiao Ming,” and A-shen’s quotes. But from theory to practice is the shift from “watching others walk out” to “walking it yourself.”

The paths others walk are drawn into a map for you—the map is real, and the road is real too. But every pit on the map and every turn you haven’t personally stepped on with your own feet will always remain just lines on paper.

You ask me, how can you walk it yourself?

Step one: move “review” from after the close to during the session.

Real reviewing starts from the opening. You’re not supposed to start “reviewing” only after the close—you should start recording during the session, capturing your mental activity at every key moment and the immediate reasons behind every decision. The review after the close is only revisiting these records again.

I have a bunch of notebooks next to my computer. Every time there’s an important decision or a strong emotion, I write down the environment, time, stock price, and what I was thinking at the time—no need for complete sentences; just keywords. For example: “14:20, market dips; a certain stock rises against the trend—feels like there’s capital defending it, want to follow.” After the close, you then piece these fragments together to reconstruct the full inner thought process of that moment.

That’s why what everyone sees as my review is written before 11:00 already. Friends with care will notice that the data inside are screenshots from before the open, not the result after the close.

Step two: review only the “decision process,” not the “profit/loss result.”

A trade that makes money doesn’t mean your decision was correct; a trade that loses money doesn’t mean your decision was wrong. Profit and loss are given by the market; the decision is something you make yourself. Review only asks whether the decision was right, not whether you made money. If you don’t fix this mindset, review will always be enslaved by the outcome.

For example: if you buy according to your pattern and it hits limit-up that day, you’re happy—but the next day it opens lower and drifts down; you follow your pattern and stop-loss with a small loss, exiting the trade. Spectators will say, “You shouldn’t have bought yesterday.” But think carefully: the buy point yesterday matched the pattern, and the market provided the premium—only the environment changed the next day. That decision was correct, and the result was a loss—no big deal. Conversely, you bet on a stock and you got it right, making 20 percentage points—but that decision was a gamble with no basis, so it’s still wrong.

Before the Spring Festival, I focused on “iReader.” That was my biggest drawdown in 2025. This trade took me two weeks to think about. If I went back to that moment, I would still participate—it was a buy point within my pattern. But the variable during the Spring Festival was something I couldn’t predict, so the outcome was a loss. Still, it was a very solid trade.

So in my review, I split “whether the decision was correct” and “profit/loss” into two columns. For losses where the decision was correct, I check it and encourage myself. For profits where the decision was wrong, I mark an X and warn myself not to get lucky.

Step three: turn every “touched stone” into a rule.

If you find you always get impulsive and trade during the opening call auction, set a rule: no trading during the call auction—make decisions at the open based on the order book and the board. If you find you always bet big after consecutive losses, set a rule: if daily losses exceed X%, force rest. If you find you always chase highs because you’re “afraid of missing out,” set a rule: after missing out, you must stay in cash and watch the market for one day.

Each rule is a road marker you bring out of the fog.

At the time, my personal rule list had already filled three pages of paper. Some rules later turned out to be useless, and I crossed them out. Some rules were repeatedly verified and proved effective, and I bolded and marked them in red. That process is how your trading system iterates and evolves.

V. Going Solo: no one can replace you to cross that thick fog

I can give you this hand-drawn map—how to break down theme strength and weakness, how market momentum rises and falls, how to snipe the key window.

But these are only the map.

The rest of the road—every step—has to be stepped on by you.

Only when you step on it will you know that seemingly perfect buy point already jumped up two percentage points in those few seconds where you hesitated. Only then will you know how heavy your fingers get when the mouse is on the “sell” button at the stop-loss level you planned. Only then will you know that what you thought was a “mistake you could never make” becomes something you repeat naturally after three consecutive losing days.

Once you step firmly, the fog clears.

It’s not that the fog really disappears—there’s always fog in the market. You just stepped out a path with your own feet, and your heart no longer fears the fog.

About mindset training: from “confrontation” to “acceptance.”

Many friends have asked me how to control emotions. I can tell you clearly: you can’t control them. Emotions are instinct. The more you try to control them, the stronger they rebound. The truly effective method isn’t control—it’s acceptance: admit that you’ll be greedy, you’ll be afraid, you’ll be anxious—then give these emotions an “exit,” instead of letting them dominate your trading.

For example, if you admit that missing out makes you anxious, then give anxiety a rule: after you miss out, you can’t force trades. Instead, go review the missed-out entries from the past three months—look at those stocks that caused you to miss them, and see how many of them later became big winners. When you tally it up, over 90% are trash. This data is the best weapon against anxiety.

For example, if you admit that drawdowns make you afraid, then give fear a rule: when drawdown exceeds a certain amount, I stop looking at my account and instead flip through my past records of “new highs after drawdown.” Every drawdown is a washout; every washout is a rebirth opportunity.

These “rules” for mindset are the same as the rules in trading: they’re all pulled out of the fog step by step. No one can do that last step for you.

Conclusion: step firmly on every step, and the fog will naturally clear

Trading stocks is something where only a few people put in effort but don’t necessarily get returns. But review is the only thing that can turn effort into compounding.

The prerequisite is that you must review in the right way.

Stop mocking your foggy self under the sun.

Go back to that confused morning, step into the thick fog again, touch every stone, wade through every hidden undercurrent—turn every step that brought you out of there into your rules, your discipline, and your muscle memory.

No one can walk it for you, but every step counts.

Starting today, try moving review from “after the close” to “during the session,” from “reviewing P/L” to “reviewing decisions,” from “spectator” to “participant.” After a month, when you look back, you’ll find that the you who once panicked in the fog is already gone. In its place is a trader holding a map in one hand and carrying rules in the mind.

The market will always have fog, but you’re no longer afraid.