Wasn’t terribly active today. Too much work distracting me, but I did take a SPY put position later in the day to hold overnight. May hold until Friday at this point. Bulls are looking overextended and it feels like a good point to take that shot…
I did not forsee this being such a good day…
Got out of my SPY puts at open for a decent gain, jumped in calls as well as ENPH calls and rode them both up until SPY hit 378 and dropped both. This all happened within the first 15mins. Got back into SPY puts once it got back to 378 again and watched SPY knife down. Normally I would have sold on the way down, but I chose to hold to 374 and drop them all there. At this point I was up about 15k. I then grabbed some SPY calls again when it came back to 374 and scalped calls most of the afternoon.
Ended up getting out of most of those before the wedge squeezed down, but got out of the rest as soon as it did. Picked up more calls at 373-374 to hold for tomorrow.
Ended up the day +$18k.
I’m not completely buying the overly bearish sentiment on the EXPECTEDLY (hint - priced in!) good=bad unemployment numbers that will most likely be posted in the morning. I think we’ve squeezed down about as much as the market can take off these things and will need something much bigger (like next week’s FOMC) to really push us down. In the meantime, I’ll keep playing support and resistance.
Taking out ALL of those profits today as I’m feeling overly good, and don’t want it to mess me up tomorrow (it’s done that to me before). Gotta stay hungry!
This is what I get for trying to be smarter than the market…
The reality is that I might end up being right, and all of this is actually priced in. The problem is that I tried to get ahead of the reversal, and if there is one, it’s not going to be in the next day or two while negative market sentiment kicks into high gear. So I’m going to have to sit on my hands now and wait to see if I was right. In the meantime I get to have my month out SPY calls bleed 50%… Not the smartest of moves, but again, I do stupid things when I am being proud.
So, I’m not going to play anything new until my calls come back up (if they do…). This needs to be a lesson I have to learn, and so I’ll sit on the sidelines and watch while I could have made money playing what’s in front of me. I’ve lost WAY more than this before doing the very same thing over and over, so I need to find a way to get through to my core self on this. Hopefully I learn it this time. 
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So I got out of my calls this morning when CPI came in bearish, but SPY and MSFT tried reversing back up. I took the big loss on SPY and got out slightly green on some last minute MSFT calls I grabbed eod yesterday with the change I had lying around in the account. I’m going to have to decide if I’m putting the earnings I had from recent weeks back into the account in order to get back to 25k or not, but right now I think I’m not. I will do some swing play puts to try and bring the account around. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll reconsider. For now, I’m looking for overbought hopium stocks that are likely to die in the next month due to the continuing downward pressure on markets and pounding of the recession drums. Possible earnings plays going off the same type of news as well.
Current candidates:
CCL
TSLA
NVDA
DAL
SSO
Looking for a couple more to watch. If I’m going to make a lot of those losses back, it has to be with a ticker that will move a lot more than SPY, AAPL or MSFT, but is also overbought and has significant downside. Should be an interesting challenge.
Edit 1 - Actually ended up going against the grain of my plans and got calls again on MSFT when it appeared we were tracking back up and sold near the (at least up to this point) peak. Grabbed some late November SSO puts immediately after selling and will ride that until market dies again. Hopefully tomorrow 
Edit 2 - Just ended up completely in SSO puts as the retarded 5min candle ate all my “scaled in” limits lol. Here’s to hoping retardation is transitory…
Edit 3 - Today was just comically idiotic. Basically did whatever the opposite was of what it was expected to do all day. I am down more on those puts obviously, but not terribly so, as they are far out and were atm. I will decide over the weekend whether I will reposition AGAIN, or if I will sit on my hands and wait. But it’s looking more like I’ll need to reinvest profits already taken out. Will wait for Monday to be certain…
My SSO was green most of the day (except for at open), but not to the point I was interested in leaving the position. There was a lot of noise about the 3600 SPX support, and I absolutely agree that it’s about as strong of a support as you’re going to get. That said, it buckled easily on the CPI data drop, and I suspect it’ll do the same with the next data drop to push the balloon down again. I will most likely be holding to see if that happens with all of the important market news coming out this next week. If it doesn’t happen, or if there’s a significant market reversal (again), then I’ll be out and looking for a better play.
Everything right now seems to be holding it’s breath. I don’t want to get the direction wrong when they finally exhale, but I’d rather that than be on the sidelines wishing I had the balls to stand behind my convictions.
Also will be taking this weekend to evaluate whether I will in fact be adding those funds back into the account or if I’ll force myself to be more aggressive with what I have in there now. It’s been a while since I’ve had to trade a margin account under 25k, and it’s not enjoyable. That said, I despise putting more funds into the account because it’s a full admission that what I did failed (even if it’s my profits, it’s against my set personal policies regarding my trading accounts). I’ll circle back before Monday morning.
I hope most everyone was profitable this week. No one got it right all the time, but hopefully people got it right enough. Have a great weekend!
It’s harder to keep up on this when I’m only trading once or twice a week. I sold the SSO position for a slight gain and sat until today. Decided I wanted to play Microsoft earnings, so grabbed some 250c 10/28 exp. Microsoft seemed to be well positioned to be one of the biggest tech winners coming out of earnings season, and had been beat down pretty good this year, lending to the idea of a strong positive move up on decent earnings. As it turns out, earnings were actually quite good, but GOOG may spoil the party. Obviously will wait til the morning to see if the sentiment shifts back, but it’s down $6 on pretty good earnings so far. Not looking great.
got out of the MSFT calls after the guidance killed the stock’s momentum (and the entire market along with GOOG). once the dust settled, I got back in on a much lower cost basis for 235c 10/28. Was worried, but held til today. Sold the moment they went itm this morning and stopped for the day. This helped recover almost all the losses from the earnings miscue. For the week I only ended up down $30 
I still don’t have confidence in a direction the market in general wants to go. I’ll likely be sitting on my hands again until I can see some clarity. Perhaps I’ll play another earnings call later in the week, but I’m gonna digest the last 2 weeks of mistakes on my part over the weekend and think seriously about whether I am capable of playing this craziness, and if so, then how I should go about it.
So I decided over the weekend that I was just going to play things as I saw them. Not gonna throw money back in the account to make it easier, but if I’m good enough at this (like I think I am), I can get it back and learn from the mistakes that made me have to.
Yesterday, right before close, I picked up some SPY call fds in anticipation of IV and hopium for the fed 2/2:30pm show today. The plan was to sell right before the release, and then buy longer dated puts/calls based on the released numbers (with the accompanied expected drop in IV). 75bp or more and it’d be puts, anything below that would be unexpected and bullish, so calls.
Well, it was 75bp, and I had gotten out of my calls nicely right beforehand. Did not want to overleverage into the position, so just got 3 378p 11/25exp. There was still a risk that Powell would have given into the pressure with the media/markets/election doing everything they could to force him into a more dovish position in his comments, but he didn’t cave. Eventually, markets saw it his way and crashed down.
My expectation is that we see a few more days of red before we move onto the next potential news. My intention is to hold through that downturn (possibly rotating to a lower priced put), but I’m going to keep reassessing. I’m not going to get caught with lead boots on.
$1200 profit today. Days won’t always be this easy, but they don’t have to be hard either.
Was a little more range today than I had anticipated/hoped, but that was an opportunity to move down in my SPY put strike. Swapped the 3 378p for 5 369p same exp (11/25). Timed it well too, as I got out as it was climbing and waited a few mins for it to hit some resistance. I was green almost the rest of the day on the new strike (except for that short time over 374) so I’m happy with how it played out.
As these are almost a month out, it gives me a good amount of leeway on determining the best time to make a play in the day. As long as the overarching theme is still going (fear of longer bear market), I can take my time and wait for high quality entries and exits. If I was playing 0dte or even just a week out, I’d be more concerned about theta. But for now, I don’t need to be.
Just the one trade today with over $600 profit.
Obviously, it’s a pullback day. Data that came out this morning still supports and reinforced the longer term drop. Monday may be tough for people thinking this bullish trend today will continue. Perfect day to take off and enjoy myself. See you all on Monday.
Didn’t happen today like I thought, and may not at all tbh. With the election tomorrow, there’s no real bearish catalyst until Thursday CPI (assuming we’re right), so I’ll just be sitting on my hands until that happens. Not worried, just sad I don’t really get to play anything in the meantime. In retrospect, I should have sold some at 370 and waited to reposition those funds (today at 380 would have been nice lol). It’s been nice not really having to fret about the timing, but I’m not a fan of things moving this slowly. Probably need to balance the longer position holds with a shorter timeframe play to keep me sated. When you’re used to making 20-100 trades a day, sitting on 1-2 trades a week is brutal. The psychology aspects of my desire to be actively trading makes for an interesting road bump to being successful with this smaller account. And is it even smart to try and turn it on and off like a light switch? I’ll need to think on this more.
Staying on top of the action, even if I’m not actively involved atm. It seems like SPY’s setting up for either a hard drop or break of the 390 in the next 48hrs. If CPI is confirming the longer term bearish economic sentiment (forcing the Fed to stay aggressive) then we could see a lower high and a hard hard drop. I don’t like that the economy is so obviously faltering. I’m not a bear at heart. But I can’t see a Republican win, no matter how big, doing anything more than saying “it won’t get worse than the situation we’re already in congrats, but you’re already on the Titanic… RIP.”
I’ll continue to watch to see how this plays out and will drop my puts if it looks like my play was wrong in the end, but I still think we’re going down and soon enough that my puts will pay.
Interesting day. Not sure if it was the election that triggered some market introspection and reality checking, or just proximity to CPI, but today went much lower than I expected. I’m happy to see it, as it means I’ve got much less distance to cover tomorrow upon the CPI news. Anyway, just sitting and waiting for those numbers tomorrow to see how drastic a move we’ll be looking at. I hope I’m right and it’s a significantly down day, but we’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll be looking to exit the puts on a knife if it’s anything less than surely down. I don’t need theta to start messing with me…
Oops… sucks to be wrong again, and on such a powerful move, but such is the way of these things. I can’t actually get out of the puts today as the move was too strong. I’ll have to wait for some minor news move down to try and salvage funds from the play. This news means that most likely Fed full pivot language is mostly all we’ll be hearing going forward, so my only hope is that there will be more bad news with a lot of the earnings the rest of this and next week to have specific sectors hurt SPY temporarily.
I got it wrong, but as long as I’m still playing, I can get it right and make it back. Just a lot more work each time I’m wrong like this. 
Edit - That was brutal! I’m hoping for a decent pull back, but am not super hopeful. I may be eating my shorts (literally) after all when this move is finally over. Good thing my long-term accounts got to enjoy today because this one may be close to being blown up. 
Edit 2 - I ate my shorts on this and took the big loss. Couldn’t wait for theta to kill the entire position, so I just bit the bullet and am moving on.
Played NVDA earnings, but held through. That was the wrong play, as I could have sold right before close (pre-earnings release) for 28% profit. Still got out at 12% profit, but had to hold a few days longer. Going to test some high interest earnings on this pre-earnings IV play and see how viable it is. Focus on the direction expected, and stay close to the money.
In that line of thought, I grabbed some DELL calls and will wait for the Monday eyes and interest to see if this is something I can work on the regular.
Have a great weekend all!
Wasn’t a great test, as DELL preemptively let the air out of any interest with some early warnings. Still saw enough inflated IV to stay intrigued on the idea (lost -5% on a 2.5% stock price decline for the day). Gonna look for another test subject. Possibly not the best week to be doing this, as it’s a short holiday week, so I’m probably done until next Monday. Have a wonderful holiday!
So early last week I decided that I wasn’t going to try and pussyfoot around anymore. I’m just not good at the little trades and need to be trading larger amounts more often for my strategies to work. I’m not a good buy and hold swing trader it seems, but I’m quite good at scalping. So I brought the account back to $25k and started trading normally today. Since I more than met my daily quota, I’m going to stop for the day.
Watching early morning action on SPY (that 11am crash in particular), I decided to track AAPL and NVDA and chose my entries and exits based on SPY’s new supports/resistances. I was feeling frisky and was 30-50% (depending on whether I averaged down) of the total account balance in each position (I know, shouldn’t do it…but I wanted to push myself out of the gate hard). I’ll try to be more detailed going forward (and use the callouts…oops) but ran itm calls and puts most of the afternoon, averaging down when I was off on the timing and taking profit regularly. It felt good to have a regular trading day, and success followed all day long.
Honestly, even though I was bearish to start the day, and would have been correct in that move, I think I played today better because I waited for it to fully confirm we were going down. I’m not sure that I could have done much better today if I had been in all day, and may have misread how far down we were going and overplayed the move. Instead, I was light on my feet and almost always right. Something for me to think on more later this evening.
As for the totals, profit was almost $19k with an account balance of $44026.37. What a good day! Here’s to many more like this from here on out.
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Wanted to start my daily today BEFORE Powell goes ham on the markets. The urge to “bet” on which way things will go based on expectations with his speech is strong, but unless you were in a well anchored position from days ago, you’re likely to get eaten alive by IV if the movement isn’t super strong in the direction you expect. It’s not a good bet. Just wait until after he telegraphs the direction, then ride the wave that will likely last for another day or so anyway.
Also, I’m up $9k so far today (will talk about positions eod), so I probably have more restraint right now than I would if I was trying to play catch up. That said, I’ll be riding the wave with everyone else once he’s spoken. Let’s get it!
Edit 1 - so JPow definitely seems bullish, at least in comparison to expectations. I did great on a quick scalp of AAPL, but have gone back in for a longer position. Will see how this plays out for the rest of his speech, but will likely be holding.
AND I SOLD BEFORE I POSTED THIS
Edit 2 - didn’t get it into the callouts, but rolled out my position to higher strike. this is going too fast to keep up all the buy/sells in my notes. will have to go back after and see, but I’m currently up $22k today…
Edit 3 (final) - alright, decided to NOT keep anything going forward. IV still higher than normal and I don’t want to lose when that drops.
Basically just played AAPL calls as a SPY surrogate. Went from Dec 2 pre speech to Dec 9 post speech, then kept moving down to whatever price was atm. Finally got out when he finished talking and there was no more momentum. Had to move quickly on most of the position changes, and I’m not sure how to reflect those kind of moves with the callout function, so I just didn’t (sorry).
All told today, I got out with about 34k profit today. I was a little chicken with my later plays as I didn’t want to lose profits, so I had smaller positions than I planned beforehand, but honestly can’t complain about my week so far. Account currently stands at $78379.34. That’s over 50k profit in 2 days. I need a nap!
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I’ve got a doctors appointment, so I think I’ll be done for the day.
Some great plays to start the day. KR was my best single play, with 100% returns on a 20k investment. That gave me leverage to do some stupid things lol. Most of them worked out, and when they didn’t, I would just average down until they did.
AAPL calls kept asking for me to play them, so I did. Ended up green each time because of the averaging down. In a choppy day like today, it’s fairly easy to make money if you have money to keep going in. Eventually you’ll be right.
Not sure why I was feeling so loose today. Normally I stick to a tighter plan, but today a let the calls fly, and it paid off. I need to get more disciplined for tomorrow though. Today could have been very bad if it broke further down as I wasn’t being careful.
Anyway, it worked out. Ended the day up another 30k. Account total now at $109,045.12. I don’t expect to be this right most of the time, but if I can be consistent, it’s going to be a very nice Christmas…
Edit - Got back from the doc during ph, so decided to play KR calls again at the days 48.50 support for a bounce. It didn’t and I lost $900. Grabbed some CBRL calls for earnings in the morning. Obviously just bored and throwing money around to be entertained. Not a good idea, but I guess I can afford to be a little silly atm.
Off to the doc again, so probably done for the day (maybe will be back in time, but not planning on it).
Went from bad to worse, with the CBRL bad earnings, SPY gap down, and me choosing SPY puts. I kept averaging down and selling good chunks when I was near even, but I picked the wrong direction. When SPY finally broke and held above 405, I cut my position completely and switched to calls. That allowed me to recover some funds, but the damage was pretty extensive in the end…
Total loss of $47k. Account down to 61,867.70.
Will have the weekend to think on what I could have done better once it showed that I was likely to have chosen the wrong direction. Still, overall a really good week. Need to remember that as well. Have a great weekend all
Edit - on Conq’s post (and my agreement on everything), I grabbed 100 20 Jan 380p just to hold and see. already up 1k so guess that’s something