I wouldn't beat yourself up. Today's action was perfectly designed to trap as many traders as possible, as spectacularly as possible. An AI couldn't have designed a better day for traps if it trained on all of history's market data and all the books on trader psychology ever published.

The one thing I have noticed is that they are taking advantage of the instinct for most people to think hot inflation and higher rates = lower markets. That's not the case but it's a widely held belief so those people have emotional reactions on hot print days and hit the sell button which the smart money takes advantage of knowing that inflation inflates.

This was crazy. Absolutely perfect design.