sport football: I Was Right and Still Lost $1.2 Million

The loss haunted me.

$1,260,000. Poof. Just gone.

That's enough money to make about $50,000 a year from bonds. I could have stuck it in a 5% blue-chip payer and made even more. A steady $63,000 per year.

If I had wanted to be reckless I could've bought a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, a Porsche, or a Rolls-Royce and still had enough money left over to travel the world for a year.

I felt like a fool.

Earlier this week, I read an essay by Daily editor Teeka Tiwari on how one emotional decision cost him a $20 million payday.

Back in the early 1990s, he invested in Microsoft and Oracle, which were riding the internet trend. But when volatility struck, he panicked and sold his positions.

Here's what he wrote…

Had I stayed the course and used the weakness for what it was – a generational buying opportunity – there's no doubt I would have exited the 1990s with at least an additional $20 million to my name.

Now, I haven't been covering markets across four decades like Teeka has. I've been doing this for about 15 years.

Still, that's long enough to have had my fair share of wins and losses. And the biggest losses happened when I let my emotions get the better of me.

I'm embarrassed to share this story with you… But if it helps even one reader avoid the same boneheaded mistake I made, it's worth it.

In March 2025, I saw a killer setup in gold and silver. So I made a big bet on mining stocks, to the tune of more than $575,000.

Here's why…

In a precious metals supercycle (like we are in now), gold usually runs first… then silver plays catch-up. The reason is simple: The silver market is much smaller, roughly 1/10th the size of the gold market. That makes it prone to much wilder swings than gold.

So, once gold gets running, investors flock to silver as the catch-up trade, looking to outpace the returns of gold.

We saw this from 2001 to 2011, when gold rose from $250 per ounce to over $1,900 – a 660% return. Silver surged 1,150% – from $4 an ounce to almost $50. If you'd put $10,000 in each, it would've ballooned into $201,000.

Last March, I saw a similar pattern building up on the charts. I got very excited. I knew the payday could be huge. That's why I went a bit bigger than I normally go and plunked down nearly $600k on gold and silver going higher.

Then came the tariff volatility in April. My gold and silver mining stocks got the tar beat out of them.

Emotions Cost Me $1.2 Million in Profits

I freaked out. I panicked. All I could think about was the money I was losing. I forgot all about why I had entered the trade and only saw how much I could lose. So I ripped off the Band-Aid and walked away with a 5% loss.

I told myself I made the "rational" decision. But when I looked at those stocks again months later, I did the math… and realized I'd left $1.2 million in profits on the table.

I had the right idea. I had the right execution. But like Teeka did with Oracle and Microsoft in the '90s, I let my emotions overcome my research.

On Wednesday, Teeka shared the four rules he uses to keep his emotions in check.

Today I want to share mine.

The One Trigger He Won't Trade Without

Inside the 8-Minute Window That Separated One Trader from Thousands of Others in the Same Gold Chaos

Early 2026…

Gold is ripping. Headlines everywhere. Retail traders pile into what looks like an obvious breakout.

Within minutes, they're flushed out. Price reverses. They sell at a loss. Then gold takes off without them.

This sequence played out thousands of times in what became one of the most volatile stretches in gold since 1973.

But one trader was on the other side of that chaos.

While accounts were blowing up, he booked $6,100 in eight minutes. Then $8,400 in 26 minutes. Then $4,000 in 28 minutes.

Same charts. Same candles. Same market.

Completely different outcome.

The difference? One trigger.

See This One Trigger In Action

How to Keep Your Head in the Game

I've been investing in crypto for most of my adult career. So I already had a three-step action plan to help me handle extreme volatility in the crypto markets, based on what I've learned from Teeka over the years. It applies to gold and silver today:

Use rational position sizes

The only way to survive market volatility is by using small, uniform position sizes and absolutely no leverage.

As a general rule of thumb: If you're losing sleep or refreshing prices constantly, you're overexposed. It's not a character flaw. It's just a sign you're carrying too much weight.

Trim down your positions on strength and let the trend work for you – not against you.

Set an end goal

In the past, Teeka and I have harped on the importance of one thing when it comes to bitcoin investing: Don't lose sight of the big picture. This is true in any market, including gold and silver.

And the big picture with gold, as we've been showing you over the past few weeks, is that central banks are buying it in droves. For the first time in 30 years, they hold more gold than U.S. Treasury debt as a percentage of reserves.

Manage your emotions

This is easier said than done. It's human nature to "freak out" in a market downturn.

One study showed that investors are 3x more likely to panic-sell when there are large market movements. And 31% of those who panic-sell never return to risky assets.

That's why this message is so important right now.

Emotion is very much still in the driver's seat in the gold and silver markets. It's showing up in these wild price swings. And if you let emotion cloud your judgement, you'll get "chopped up" by the volatility.

If you stick with this simple blueprint, you'll position yourself for the chance to make life-changing gains.

Now, another thing I learned from Teeka is that having a blueprint isn't always enough.

At times, even seasoned investors like Big T and myself let emotions get the better of us. I had a game plan and still sold my gold and silver miners last year.

It proves a single emotional decision can derail even the most thought-out investments. And it's why Teeka has been looking for a way to remove emotion from the equation entirely.

Knowing What to Trade Is Different From Knowing How to Trade

On Wednesday, Teeka introduced a former institutional trader who has been making a killing in the gold and silver markets.

This guy has traded over $3.5 billion for hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and billionaire family offices. They pay him enormous sums every year to build the algorithms that help them extract gains from gold's price swings.

What really intrigued Teeka is that this trader has sidestepped the recent gold and silver volatility, and has consistently been on the right side of it.

Here's how…

His approach is built around how institutions trade. They trade specific prices called "levels." When those levels break, institutions act decisively.

You see, institutions don't trade around volatility like retail investors do. They trade levels – specific prices that matter. And when those levels break, they act decisively.

In the last two weeks alone, his signals delivered three quick trades:

One signal hit $6,100 in 8 minutes.
Another delivered $8,400 in 26 minutes.
A third brought in $5,450 during gold's major crash.

He just revealed to Teeka the playbook institutions use to profit from gold's every move… And how he rips consistent gains from gold, no matter in which direction it moves.

He's so confident in his method he'll show you how you can trade his signals in a 50k account (that you don't have to fund)… And if you make money, you keep 80% of the gains and none of the losses.

Most people will get chopped up by the volatility of the gold and silver markets. I understand. It happens even to the best of us. That's why I put together the three-step action plan above. It will help you stay the course and not get shaken out by short-term volatility.

But we're all human. So if you really want to remove emotional investing from your financial decisions, check out what Teeka's guest has to say.

Don't Watch the Future Happen. Own It!

Houston Molnar