Members First, One Week Earlier

Weekly Recap: October 16, 2026

This Week's Market

Wednesday's CPI report came in hot and gave the Fed more reason to hike again. Small caps took another hit: the Russell 2000 fell 1.93% that day. Chips and AI names were in a flush all week. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) closed lower eight days in a row, down 15.74% over the streak, its longest slide since October 2008. CoreWeave (CRWV) dropped 15.46% on Wednesday on worries about its debt. For the week, measured from the October 9 close, the SOX finished down 11.41%, the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) down 5.52%, the Russell 2000 down 3.05% and the S&P 500 (SPY) down 1.97%. It was a week where fast exits paid more than patient holds.

Good Trade

MNDR, a low-float runner on Monday, October 12. Sellers couldn't push it below $3, and when buyers stepped in with a big volume spike I bought 500 shares at $3.22, then added 500 more at $3.48 on the next spike, for a $3.35 average. Adding to a winner is the right idea, but the add nearly doubled my risk and I didn't move my stop up to match. It faded to $2.83 at 9:55, through where my stop should have been, then came right back. I sold all 1,000 shares into the 10:17 breakout at about $3.87, 52 cents a share in 34 minutes. Three minutes later it halted at $4.52. It did run higher after the reopen, and I'm still happy with the exit: selling into the volume burst kept me from getting stuck in a halt with no control over where I get out.

Bad Trade

CRWV, Wednesday, October 14, a short in the bleeding tech sector. The read was right. $65.80 had held as support all morning, and when it broke on a big dump of shares at 12:01 I shorted $65.30. It flushed to $64.73 at 12:15, and I was up 57 cents a share. I took nothing. Buyers came back and had it over $65 by 12:17, and that was my signal to get out. I held, it crept higher into a spike at 12:34, and I covered at $65.79 for a loss of about 50 cents a share. The trap was anchoring: I was locked onto $65 and kept waiting for the stock to give it back. At worst this should have been a break-even trade. The bigger cost was emotional capital. I traded scared the next two days and left real profit on the table. The fix is a tier-one exit: take half off at the level you've been watching, so the worst case is break-even.

What to Watch Next Week

  • Sell into the volume burst. On a low float spiking hard, take the profit into the strength before a halt takes control of your exit away from you.
  • If a short reclaims its flush line, cover. Once CRWV got back over $65, the trade was done.
  • Stops are orders, not thoughts. Set the stop order when you enter, and when you add to a winner, move the stop up so your risk stays at 1R.

Share counts and per-share figures are shown to illustrate how each trade was managed, not as a suggested position size. Scale any example to your own account and your own risk. This is trade review and education, not financial advice.