WEEKEND WRAP: WTI CRUDE OIL - 21 JUNE TO 27 JUNE 2025STRESS TEST EDITION

This wasn't a strategy test. This wasn't a system test. This was a psychological crash dummy flung at the windshield of market absurdity. Deliberate exposure to volatility, misdirection, and internal combustion. I didn't follow a system—I was the system. This week, I stress-tested every frayed wire.

Let's be clear from the start: I am entirely to blame. I got confident. I got lazy. I didn't read the system, and worse—I went against it. I saw the setup, ignored the signals, and ran headfirst into the exact traps my system was built to avoid. This wasn't the market's fault. This wasn't Iran's fault. This was me, unchained and unfiltered, trading like a Netflix docu-series waiting to happen.
The task now is simple and brutal: learn from the experience and repair the Damage. Strip the trades down to the bone. Rebuild discipline. Reinforce the rules I thought I could ignore. There's no shortcut, only scar tissue and process.
It started with a missile and ended with a whimper. If you had told me on Friday, 21 June, that the U.S. would bomb Iranian nuclear sites and oil would crater after rallying for exactly 14 nanoseconds, I would've shorted every TikTok influencer screaming, "$100 oil incoming." Instead, I went long—again, and again, and again. Like a moth huffing diesel fumes, I flung myself at the WTI flame with all the grace of a leveraged lemming.
Let's get something straight: this wasn't trading. This was a slow-motion margin massacre in a market flatter than a politician's soul. I caught the tops. I saw the middle. I even noticed the false bottoms. But the one thing I didn't catch was the plot.


THE SETUP
21 June broke like an action movie trailer: bombs over Iran, Strait of Hormuz on the brink, and news anchors Googling "map of the Middle East" in real-time. Oil futures took the bait—briefly. Prices jumped to $74 as if they had just received a massive adrenaline rush. But the rally had all the staying power of a Tinder date after you say you trade crypto.
By Monday, 23 June, WTI was approaching resistance near $ 74.50, and I, fuelled by the warm glow of FOMO and caffeine, entered a long position at 74.47. Result: -100 pips. A mosquito bite. A tease.
So I did what any emotionally compromised trader would do: I doubled down.
June 24, 02:25:05 – The Massacre
The exact timestamp where my brain left the building. Over a dozen buy orders from 72.49 down to 65.38, all of them dumped out at 64.68 like a liquidation fire sale at a bankrupt furniture store.
Here are the gory pip losses:

• Buy 72.49 > 64.68: -781 pips
• Buy 71.08 > 64.68: -640 pips
• Buy 70.19 > 64.68: -551 pips
• Buy 69.39 > 64.68: -471 pips
• Buy 68.35 > 64.68: -367 pips
• Buy 67.80 > 64.68: -312 pips
• Buy 67.27 > 64.68: -259 pips
• Buy 66.15 > 64.68: -147 pips
• Buy 65.38 > 64.68: -70 pips

In total: -3,598 pips.
I wasn't just catching a falling knife. I was chasing it down the fire escape, barefoot, while yelling, "This time it's different."


TECHNICALS BE DAMNED
The daily chart screamed exhaustion. RSI (14) diving from nearly 70 to 46.28. ATR collapses faster than a start-up after its IPO. Volumes spiked during the Hormuz drama and vanished faster than risk management in a Robinhood trader's DMs.
Parabolic SAR flipped to bearish mid-week. 9/21 EMA cross? It happened while I was still dreaming of $80. Price action went from a launchpad to a coffin lid. But I kept buying, like, to pay off the rent.


MACRO? MORE LIKE MACRO-FICTION
EIA reported a -5.8M barrel draw on 25 June. That should've been bullish, right? Wrong. By then, oil had settled beneath $66. Iran threatened the Hormuz Strait, and the market yawned. The dollar firmed. Equities wobbled. Traders reached for Treasury's and whiskey.
We had peak supply fear, yet oil slid. Why? Because the threat wasn't real. Hormuz wasn't closed—it was just vibing ominously. And oil, in its infinite spite, shrugged off every bullish narrative like a hungover nihilist.


THE ONE WINNER
Buried under the bodies of a dozen dead longs was a lone, surviving soldier:

• Buy 64.62 > 65.08 on 26 June: +46 pips

The irony? This was the only trade that adhered to technical analysis. Price had found support at the daily 200 EMA (around 64.50). RSI was oversold on the hourly. Volume twitched upward. It was the one time I wasn't fighting the chart—and it worked.


THE RETROSPECTIVE SLAUGHTERHOUSE
Let's be clear: this week wasn't lost to bad luck. It was lost to hubris—the belief that macro headlines trump price action. I traded the news as if it were gospel and ignored the chart as if it were written in hieroglyphs.
My biggest sin? Martingale mania. The logic was medieval: if the price drops, just buy more, like a budget hedge fund running on fumes and fuelled by Reddit threads. The problem is that WTI doesn't reward martyrs. It buries them in contango.
By the time I exited at 64.68, the market had gone flat. ATR was choking below 0.5. RSI sat listlessly under 45. Volume looked like a heartbeat monitor after a morphine drip. It wasn't a trend—it was a hostage negotiation.


THE CLOSING TALLY

• Total Trades: 17
• Wins: 1
• Losses: 16
• Total P/L: -3,652 pips
• Psychological Damage: incalculable
• Lessons: expensively learned

HOPE IN THE ASHES
Here's the part where I pretend this is a redemption arc. Truth is, I got smoked. But that final trade—64.62 > 65.08—wasn't luck. It was discipline. It followed structure. It waited for confirmation.
And that's the glimmer. The scarred little glint of sanity buried under a week of financial self-immolation. The lesson isn't "buy lower." It's "stop buying stupid."
Going forward, I recalibrate:

• No more trading headline hysteria.
• No more stacking positions against momentum.
• No more praying to OPEC as if it were a benevolent oil god.

I'll let the charts talk first. Let the market confirm. Because in this game, discipline isn't sexy. It's survival.
This week, I died on the hill of hope. Next week, I trade like I've already been buried once.
END WRAP