Taking a quick break from politics and policy today to kick off this short holiday week with what could be the most important message I send you all year.

In an “All Reader Alert” email on September 25th, and again in front of everyone gathered in Nashville two weeks later at our Paradigm Shift Conference, I made the point that proper allocation is the key to survival in uncertain markets.

At the time, markets had been ripping straight up since April…

Since I made those comments, markets have chopped sideways.

Gold, silver, rare earths, AI stocks, quantum stocks, you name it… they’re all still having a great year, BUT… and I don’t think I’m alone on this, it doesn’t feel like it anymore.

You manage your money or your money manages you. We need to put emotion to the side and talk about how to stay on two feet for the long run. Dead men (blown up accounts), can’t trade.

Consider this a roadmap to sustained success in any market.

Your Rundown for Monday, November 24, 2025...

Money Management Matters

First and most importantly, you should never overdo it on position sizing. Higher-conviction positions that are working in your favor you can add to over time.

Start small, stay smart and pay attention.

Speaking of high-conviction positions, and this is nearly as important as position sizing, is to remember that speculative plays, by their very nature, are volatile, fast moving and can quickly go against you.

Proper position sizing allows you to speculate more freely across a greater number of ideas because no one idea can blow up your account.

Positions that are too big and also too speculative, well, for most of us it only takes one or two positions that go south in a hurry and then you’re out of the game.

Now, if you have a portfolio with ten, fifteen, twenty or more different plays at any given time, it can be quite the job to keep track of what’s up, what’s down, which theses are going according to plan and which are failing.

A “trailing stop” is a tool that helps you stick to your trading plan without constantly staring at the screen. It’s a preset rule that automatically limits how much you can lose on a position — and locks in profits as your stock moves higher.

Here’s how it works:

Suppose you buy a stock at $100 and set a 20% trailing stop

That means if the price drops 20% from your highest closing price, you’ll sell.

If the stock climbs to $120, your stop automatically “trails” the move — now it’s set at $96 (20% below $120).

If the stock price goes up, your stop level moves up with it. But if the stock starts dropping, your stop doesn’t move back down.

This system limits your downside to roughly 20%, while giving your winners room to grow. You can do this with an actual stop order through your brokerage, or just keep it as a “mental stop” — a price level you’ve decided in advance to exit at, even if you enter the order manually later.

A quick rule of thumb, if a speculative play goes down 20% in three days, cut it entirely. A speculative play goes up 100% quickly? Sell half.

Obviously, this is not personalized advice, and ultimately you are in charge of your own trading decisions, but the above is meant to illustrate trading discipline in action.

Put bluntly: The goal is to be right in larger positions over a longer timeframe. And cut your losers early, while the positions are small.

The ideas in this note today, regardless of which editor’s recommendations you’re reading, can help you book bigger wins more often and minimize the size and frequency of losing trades.

A disciplined approach is the key to success. If you’re reading this and thinking, “I already do all this” — congrats, I’m happy for you.

If this is all news to you, please take some time this holiday week to evaluate your trading methods. Some fine-tuning could make a world of difference.

Market Rundown for Monday, November 24, 2025

S&P 500 futures are up 0.55% to 6,655.

Oil is up 0.20% to $58.15 for a barrel of WTI.

Gold’s down 0.10% to $4,075.50 per ounce.

And Bitcoin’s down 1.15% to $86,450.