Futures Trading · May 12, 2026
High Leverage Trading Journal
Bitcoin · NVIDIA · Microsoft · Silver · ASML · Cardano
✅ Bloom Energy: Exited +70% | 🆕 Silver 20x · ASML 10x
Welcome back to my high leverage trading journal — May 12, 2026. Today was a sharp correction day, but the book handled it well. Bloom Energy’s pre-set take-profit triggered cleanly at +70%. Bitcoin took a 3% profit, reset, and re-entered. NVIDIA pushed further to +230%. Two new positions — Silver and ASML — both in profit from day one. The losers (MSFT, ADA) are deeper in the red, but neither thesis has broken yet.
This is a personal log of a small retail trader using short-term, high leverage trading strategies for entertainment. I am not a financial advisor. Do not replicate these trades.
“Corrections don’t kill strong positions — they reveal them.”
Today’s session was a broad pullback headed into the PPI print. The key question in any high leverage trading portfolio on a correction day: which positions hold demand, and which ones break? Silver held. ASML held. The ones that survive the dip are the ones worth owning.
🟠 1. Bitcoin (BTC) — 3% Profit Taken, Re-Entered Clean
Investment Rationale: See previous journal entry (May 9). The +3% trailing stop triggered as planned — profit locked, position closed. Then immediately re-entered on the same support thesis. This is disciplined high leverage trading: take the defined profit, reset the clock, re-engage if the structure is still valid. Support held through the correction, so the re-entry was straightforward.
Technical Analysis: The major support zone held through today’s broad market selloff. No breach. The re-entry after the 3% take was executed without hesitation — same zone, same logic, lower risk because the profit from the previous round is already banked.
Position Summary
| Seed | $566 → $602 (added on re-entry) |
| Leverage | 15x |
| Current Return | +6% |
| Strategy | Same as before — trailing stop discipline |
✍️ Author’s Note
3% profit taken, re-entered. Clean cycle. Same structure, same strategy, added $36 to the seed. Counter is reset to +6%. The point isn’t to ride it forever — it’s to keep executing the same disciplined process and let it compound.
🔋 2. Bloom Energy (BE) — ✅ Exited at +70%
Result: Position closed. The pre-set take-profit order triggered during today’s sharp correction. Total gain: +70%. This is exactly how high leverage trading discipline is supposed to work — set the exit in advance, let it execute, walk away without second-guessing.
Post-Exit Observation: After exiting, I watched BE’s price action through the correction. Despite the broad market selling, the stock held its 15-day moving average cleanly — a sign of genuine underlying strength. I’m not going back in, but I noted the $280 level as a re-entry zone for a hypothetical trade and will track it as a paper trading exercise to see how it plays out.
✅ Trade Closed
| Final Return | +70% |
| Exit Trigger | Pre-set limit order — clean execution |
| Paper Watch Level | $280 — tracking for exercise only |
✍️ Author’s Note
Profit locked, position closed. The 15-day MA held through the correction — that’s impressive price action, and if I were still in it I’d feel good. But the exit was planned, the plan was followed, and that’s the whole game. Tracking $280 as a paper trade just to sharpen pattern recognition — not re-entering with real capital.
☁️ 3. Microsoft (MSFT) — Drawdown Deepens to -22%
Status: Holding — but deeper in the red. Today’s correction hit MSFT harder than expected, with the loss widening from -10% to -22%. The 7-day moving average remains the critical line. If it holds, the thesis stays intact and the long-term scenario toward $560–$588 remains on the table. If it breaks, no split-buy — the next line is the 50-day MA. Below that: stop-out, no exceptions.
In high leverage trading, sitting on a -22% position is uncomfortable. But the thesis hasn’t changed — MSFT’s fundamentals are fortress-grade. The position is not a loss until it’s closed. The question is whether the 7-day line holds through the PPI volatility.
| Leverage | 10x |
| Current Return | -22% |
| Key Line | 7-day MA — must hold |
| Stop Rules | 7-day breaks → wait 50-day → below that → exit |
✍️ Author’s Note
-22% stings. But the 7-day line is still the line. Until it breaks, I’m not acting. The stop rules are clear and set in advance — that’s the only thing that keeps emotion out of the decision. Watching closely through the PPI print.
🟢 4. NVIDIA (NVDA) — +230% and Still Running
Investment Thesis: No change. NVDA’s fundamentals remain exceptional and the 15-day MA continues to hold. This is the anchor of the entire high leverage trading book — a position that has more than tripled on 20x leverage while everything else is still working toward its target. The take-profit has been adjusted slightly upward to $208, reflecting the continued strength.
Technical Analysis: Despite today’s broad correction, NVDA held its structure. The 15-day MA line is the only trigger for an exit — and it hasn’t been tested. Until that changes, the position stays open and undisturbed. There is nothing more valuable in leveraged trading than a working position that you don’t interfere with.
| Leverage | 20x |
| Current Return | +230% |
| Take-Profit | $208 (15-day MA — adjusted up) |
✍️ Author’s Note
+230% on 20x. Nothing to do here. The 15-day held today. Take-profit nudged up to $208. This position is doing its job — funding the rest of the portfolio’s patience. Don’t touch what’s working.
🥈 5. Silver (XAG) — New Position: Running +22%, 5% Stop Armed
Investment Thesis: New entry today. Two signals aligned: a confirmed golden cross — short-term moving average crossing above long-term, a textbook mid-term trend reversal — and strong demand absorption during today’s broad market correction. Silver refused to break when everything else was under pressure. That’s the kind of behavior that confirms a position, not just suggests it.
The macro backdrop is supportive. Silver surged more than 7% to a two-month high recently, driven by both its safe-haven role and expanding industrial demand from solar manufacturing and AI chip fabrication. Supply deficits have persisted for multiple consecutive years, and analysts at institutions like J.P. Morgan expect silver to average in the $75–$85 range through 2026. The convergence of technical signal, fundamental support, and price behavior under stress was the entry trigger for this high leverage trading position.
| Seed | $142 |
| Leverage | 20x |
| Current Return | +22% |
| Risk Management | +5% trailing stop armed — protecting gains |
✍️ Author’s Note
+22% already, but 20x leverage means silver can reverse this fast. The +5% trailing stop is now armed — if the position pulls back 5% from peak, it closes automatically. This isn’t pessimism, it’s high leverage trading risk management. The gain moved quickly; now the job is to make sure I don’t give it back.
🔵 6. ASML — New Position: Monopoly Play at +20%
Investment Thesis: ASML is the only company in the world that manufactures EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) lithography machines — the equipment required to produce the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips. No competitor exists. As AI infrastructure expansion drives demand for cutting-edge chips from every major foundry globally, every order placed at TSMC, Samsung, or Intel ultimately flows through ASML’s order book. ASML guided full-year 2026 revenue to $36.7 billion to $42.1 billion, citing strengthening demand tied to AI-driven data center investment and advanced logic capacity.
Technical Analysis: Entered after confirming the 15-day moving average as support. The original plan was a phased split-entry, but the stock bounced faster than expected and only the initial tranche was filled. Classic “waited for the perfect entry and the market moved first” situation — a common high leverage trading lesson.
| Seed | $82 |
| Leverage | 10x |
| Current Return | +20% |
| Strategy | Watch for pullback to add next tranche |
✍️ Author’s Note
+20% on the initial tranche. Position is smaller than intended because the bounce came before the second buy could be placed. No regrets — the entry was right, the timing just wasn’t perfect. If there’s a pullback toward the 15-day MA again, that’s where the next tranche goes in.
⬡ 7. Cardano (ADA) — Altcoin Correction, Averaging Down Slowly
Status: Down -18% after today’s correction hit altcoins disproportionately hard — exactly the behavior you expect from lower-liquidity assets in a broad risk-off move. The thesis hasn’t changed: Cardano has completed its Voltaire governance era, with ADA holders now controlling 100% of treasury decisions through on-chain voting. The structural story remains intact. It just needs time and capital rotation to arrive.
The strategy shift: rather than waiting for a large dip to go heavy, I’ll use profits from winning positions to gradually average down in small increments. In high leverage trading, altcoin positions require patience and controlled exposure — especially when volume is thin and short-term moves can be violent in either direction.
| Seed | $192 |
| Leverage | 5x |
| Current Return | -18% |
| Strategy | Mid-term hold / Gradual average-down from profits |
✍️ Author’s Note
Altcoins do what altcoins do — they drop harder on correction days. -18% is painful but not panic territory. The 5x leverage and the small seed kept this from being a portfolio-level problem. Plan: use profits from NVDA and BE to gradually average down in small amounts. No rush, no heroics.
📊 Portfolio Snapshot — May 13, 2026
💰 Seed Tracker
| Starting Capital | $800 |
| Principal Withdrawn | $300 (recovered) |
| Remaining Principal | $500 |
| Current Total Seed | $1,650 (+$50 from prev.) |
📎 Related Reading:
Silver & Commodities Markets — Reuters · Semiconductor Stocks — CNBC · AI & Tech Markets — Bloomberg
⚠️ Disclaimer
I am a small retail trader engaging in high leverage trading for entertainment purposes only. I am not a professional or licensed financial advisor. Do not replicate these trades. Futures markets are extremely volatile — there is often a significant time gap between when I take a position and when I post this journal. Past performance shown here does not predict future results. Trade at your own risk.
Tags: #HighLeverageTrading #FuturesTrading #BitcoinFutures #NVIDIAStock #ASML #SilverFutures #MicrosoftMSFT #BloomEnergy #CardanoADA #TradingJournal2026
📎 Previous Entry (May 11): high-leverage-trading-journal-may-11-2026
