Labubs' Trading Journey

Trading Journals
21

Sold out of a few things, scalped a tiny bit of SPY and HOOD puts in the $1k WeBull account to get a feel for it, made 3.5% and stopped. Then I got bored and dumb and gambled on FB earnings in the RH account, bought one 5/6 140p, that’s pretty well and screwed tomorrow. Ironically didn’t buy a call to hedge cause I didn’t want to put too much money into it, when my whole goal today was to start looking at strangles and hedging. Whatever. I know better than to hold through earnings, I have literally never, ever been successful doing that, I don’t know what made me think this would be any different…really the stupidest part was doing this in the RH account where I can’t cut EoD. Overtrading at it’s finest, I can’t even be mad, I’m fucking retarded for buying something that expensive out of boredom, especially when I’ve been staying mostly cash to keep risk low during ERs…way to stick to your plan, bud. That tweet was some bullshit though…
In any case, if the WeBull stuff continues to work, I’ll be siphoning the account balance from RH over there for sure, it’s just better in so many ways.

Sold
3x SOXL 5/20 30c, one at 0.67, 0.60, and 0.70 (I held on through a losing trade for way too long with this. GLD may be next, but those are a lot closer to being safe than these were)
1x UVXY 5/6 2.11

Bought
1x FB 5/6 140p 3.03 (dumb as fuck move, from now on if you’re bored go do something else)
1x HOOD 5/20 9p 0.65
1x PFE 5/20 55c 0.32 (bringing average down a little)

Open Positions
2x CEI 4/29 2c 0.05
1x BEEM 5/20 50c 0.70
3x GLD 5/20 190c 0.98
3x PFE 5/20 55c 0.422
2x CCL 6/17 25c 0.31
2x SNDL 1/2023 0.40
1x FB 5/06 140p 3.03
1x HOOD 5/20 9p 0.65

Account Balance: $3,161.00 (-$55.08, -1.71%)
Buying Power: $2505.00 (Hm my balance and BP usually have a couple cents on em, weird to see both as whole numbers)

WeBull Intraday
SPY 4/29 2.75->2.97
HOOD 5/20 9p 0.65->0.80

Balance 1,093.40 (+$38.36, +3.49%)
BP 1,086.54

Just testing the waters there, nothing about GFVs, so I think as long as I hold my one free ADT share from signing up, I should be go to go on risky positions. Should have bought the FB here, found myself thinking I was dumb for grabbing that a few times after I did and that I’d rather just cut it for the like 10 bucks of profit it had EoD, but I bought it on the no GFV account. Just an extra layer of retardation to that move…no excuses there, I went against all the rules in the book on this shit, I am NOT gonna turn into an earnings FD gambler, fuck that.

22

Yesterday’s screw up continues into today, sold off the FB put that was incredibly stupid to hold, tried scalping closer to the money SPY puts and got caught by that retard run, removed stop loss waiting on a pullback that never came. Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but I shouldn’t have bet against SPY’s intraday with such big ERs coming in AH, an afternoon run was almost guaranteed, I don’t know why I can’t think of this shit in the moment. Speaking of, shit, now I’m dangerously close to being beat on that AMZN share too (I was beat on it til they puked a few hundred down the drain off ER) unless I trade very well over the next month…the responsible thing would have been to just park that BP into a share for the split and played on the WeBull account, which is now also down majorly. Going easy tomorrow, though I’m gonna have to be dealing with these SPY positions mostly, then taking a break with very minimal management of current positions. I’ve been overtrading and fucking up, it’s fucking exhausting working so hard for red, and each bad trade is affecting the next, I’m in a domino effect of bullshit right now. This isn’t fun money to me, so keeping the emotion out gets harder and harder every dollar down, and I start gravitating back to high risk bullshit. Need to clear some stuff out for myself or I’ll literally be behind the goddamn dumpster. Need to really, really go back through these entries, look at some other things on the forum, hell I should probably go and rewatch the basic beginner education stuff. I’m letting myself continue to make mistakes I know I shouldn’t and that is unacceptable to me. Though that fact is probably factoring in as well, I’m so pissed with myself that I end up throwing away more cash. Paradoxical and interesting that I’m aware of this shit and continue trying to force it to work, there’s something for the social engineering algos/Roku’s…

Sold

1x FB 5/6 140p 0.10
1x HOOD 5/20 9p 0.80

Bought

1x DASH 5/6 80p 5.50
1x AFRM 6/17 25p 3.00
1x DIS 5/13 Strangle 115c/110p 7.43 (call 4.90, put 2.53 -Hoping to see 120+ for DIS and am bullish, but figured this would be a good one to try out a strangle on with the market being all sorts of crazy. Hoping to probably cut the put leg if this downslide continues for another week or so then hopefully a pop leading into ER. Would be very happy to just see continued upside too though, there’s more profit on the bull side of this. Incidentally, this is literally the only green thing I’m holding. That probably says something…)

Open Positions
2x CEI 4/29 2c 0.05
1x BEEM 5/20 50c 0.70
3x GLD 5/20 190c 0.98
3x PFE 5/20 55c 0.422
2x CCL 6/17 25c 0.31
2x SNDL 1/2023 0.40
1x DASH 5/6 80p 5.50
1x AFRM 6/17 25p 3.00
1x DIS 5/13 Strangle 115c/110p 7.43 (call 4.90, put 2.53

Account Balance: $2,783.96 (now under $800 total profit from all deposits since July. Profit is profit, but fuckkk I need consistency!)
Buying Power: $1,001.96

WeBull (Supposed scalping account)

Bought
2x SPY 5/06 415p 6.11 4.67
Account Balance: $933.48
Buying Power: 153.44 (extremely irresponsible here, the smart thing would have been to cut once I hit -10% on the first but that run had me frozen. Averaged down after Amazon shit itself at close, as of 4:30 that seems to be fucked over by AAPL, but getting out of these is now…kinda… feasible, I only need around half the downward movement I needed before, and I am bearish on SPY. Just hoping for no retard rallys tomorrow and that it corrects back down before close)

Was hoping for another EoD selloff that hasn’t come. I know I should cut and not fight the trend, but at this point, I’m averaging down off the Amazon AH, what’s one extra day hoping SPY double tops off 430 and corrects back down towards $420-422… Similar patterns right before and after the March run. Yeah, hopium, but getting the average down and hoping for a retracement is kinda my only hope here. Bad ERs could hopefully help tomorrow, but jesus christ I got a hard goddamn lesson in scalping SPY FDs today. Like that’s a literal meme. I can’t just listen to VC/read posts and then think I can hop into this kind of thing and be able to trade even half as effectively as those of you who’ve been doing this for much longer, I still have A LOT of work to do and a lot to learn.

I felt like I should have taken a break like over a week ago now but instead kept trying to force back what I’d lost. Now I’ve lost an alarmingly large amount more. Pretty done with the market for a bit, at least as much as I’ve been doing. I’m missing time with family to lose money trying to give back to them, but instead I’m just miserable and stressed, with big losses to boot. I literally would have been better off blowing my money at the actual casino this week, I was in the same mindset apparently, and at least there I’d have gotten a free drink.

23

Rough week, opened my eyes to a lot of stuff, but I’m not completely dead yet. Took the day to mostly exit stuff, not for a lot of profit/near break even, took some Ls too, but that’s because of bad entries and me having the “I just wanna get off the ride” feeling this morning. Got a nice ROKU scalp in, thanks for calling out where it was at in VC earlier Jekyll, pretty much the top of the day! I’m taking it easy going forward, I can’t risk blowing myself out more, so probably not gonna be entering too much more til after FOMC next week (some puts in WeBull probably only), just managing/averaging/possibly cutting what’s already open and shorting dying companies.

Bought
1x SBLK 5/20 32c 0.70 (shipping thesis, ZIM paid earlier this week, thought I’d try another out)
1x PFE 5/20 55c 0.25 (averaging down, last I’ll be adding to this)
1x DIS 5/13 115c 3.50 (see the put sell below)

Sold

1x DASH 5/6 80p 5.50 (break even, I took an expiry way too near. Theta was about to kill this Monday, so I was just trying to get my funds back. Will look into monthlies later)
1x AFRM 6/17 25p 3.40 (taking profit where I see it, and was looking at this on OptionStrat, I should get an opportunity to re-enter if I want to continue with the play)
1x DIS 5/13 110p 3.75 (closed out the short leg of this straddle while it’s up a nice $122 and rolled it into the call side for a 4.20 average, based on DIS’s intraday movements and looking at the calculators, I’m thinking the call sees enough of a pop next week to have made this strangle profitable. I averaged down to allow room for a rejection from 115 on Monday rather than needing to get above 116.20. Calls need to see 114.90 at some point Monday or 115.20 Tuesday to be cut the calls at break even/for the entire trade to be profitable, which I think is feasible on this ticker’s movement. If it’s still going the other way with absolutely none of the pops it’s had almost every day before this, they will be cut before they’re down more than $122, hopefully. Gonna go back through rexxar’s thread and take some more notes on expiries, IV, greeks etc to be looking for on real strangles)

Open Positions
1x BEEM 5/20 50c 0.70 (I’m going to leave this off starting next week, I’ve been trying to fill it for 0.05, but no buyers)
2x DIS 5/13 115c 4.20
3x GLD 5/20 190c 0.98
4x PFE 5/20 55c 0.3792
1x SBLK 32c 0.70
2x CCL 6/17 25c 0.31
2x SNDL 1/2023 0.40

Account Balance: $2,812.90 (+$38.94, +1.4%, 1 week is -$515.54, -15.44%)…not good, but aside from the DIS, everything is now 5/20 or later, and with a BP-to-Open Position ratio I’m comfortable with going into the weekend.
Buying Power: $1,816.90

WeBull

Sold the SPY 415p at 4.12, at a loss but I didn’t see (well, wasn’t about to count on) the slide all day coming, I would have been freaking the hell out in the morning as this was literally 99% port exposure, so I jumped out at open cause they were above $4, was not even expecting that much back from it. Very, very dumb entry with a basically YOLO average down I was lucky to get out of at all. It was worth the experience, though. Learned a lot about how I trade and my misconceptions from this.

1x ROKU 5/20 75p 1.29->1.70 (Was going to hold this longer, but that was great profit for one trade and one hour, and I’m trying to train small, fast profit taking into this account’s habits, as it’s going to be my main sooner than later. Having the freedom to sell same day is so, so, so much better. Not done with this one yet, will be re-entering on a pop somewhere. Thank you again for the call out @Jekyll_and_Hyde :pepepray:)

Account Balance: $1,025.08 (+86.63 +9.23%, 1w P/L -32.78, -3.78),
Buying Power will be $1,018.20 as I’m out of everything except the one free share I can’t touch for glitch)

So yep, shitty week, but better day today. A lot of these mistakes I made this week I knew better than to make, and with so many big ERs, the smart thing would have been to just sit it out or follow alongside on paper. Made what, like $30 on extremely OTM SPY shit Wednesday so next day I jump right into a half account sized ITM FD on a sketchy part of the chart? Bad Bubs…

Left a lot of money on the table cutting at wrong times all week including today too, I was so damn jumpy it messed me up in both directions. Keep telling myself most of my stuff has 3 weeks on them still, not everything expires EoW… I gotta slow it down in some areas, pick it up in others. I have even more respect for all of this after such a week, and all of you as well. Probably gonna be cutting most of these calls next week if this keeps up though, and definitely will be looking into puts more than calls in general this month. Here’s to a better week next week, even though I’m gonna slow it down quite a bit and go for small, consistent gain :pepepray:

24

Didn’t really do anything today, scalped ARKK, VXX, and PFE in WeBull for small gains, trying to build some muscle memory there with taking profit quick. Cut the DIS calls before they cancelled out too much profit from the put side, there was potential for both sides to be a winner there, but oh well, DIS got dragged down with the rest of the market, tomorrow and mayyybe Wednesday had some more hope, but I’m not really trading much this week, especially not the first half.

Otherwise, my RH positions bled out bad over the weekend, to where I’m writing them off as losses and just hope PFE has fantastic earnings to make the (now) $45 in calls worth something this week. The GLD was just a big loss all around, I picked that up at the way wrong time and didn’t cut when I should have, those (and almost anything) should just be accepted as losses and cut when they’re pushing -20%, -30%. Especially all last week, I re-read myself justifying averaging them down to oblivion, any single one of those average downs should have been a cut. Think the first one I bought was 2.20, they’re less than 1/10th now…I was trying to force a lot of trades last week, though. Maybe these open positions will get a breath of life before the 20th, maybe not, but now that I (seemingly) have no issue opening and closing positions same day on WeBull, I’ll be continuing to transfer the account/funds from RH over there.

WeBull Scalps

1x ARKK 5/06 48.5p 1.60->2.20
2x PFE 5/06 53c 0.20->0.13
2x PFE 5/06 43.5p 0.23->0.19 (was trying out a PFE strangle from a post I had read earlier, gonna have to look more into what went wrong with this one, probably cutting the legs at different times and/or averaging them down once, but excited overall as a whole on the strangles being discussed lately in multiple places on the forum)
1x VXX 5/06 28c 1.12->1.20 (I’m more and more interested in playing the volatility of this market rather than trying to catch just the up or down side on things…I’d played UVXY before and will again, but an IRL friend pointed me at VXX today. I originally wanted to catch a put at 3pm, but didn’t want to catch a knife. When it bottomed out I hoped SPY would pull back enough to affect this, which luckily it did. Not by a lot, but hey, I’ve worked a lot harder for 8 bucks before lmao)

Account Value: $1,070.57 (+$45.52, +4.44%)
Buying Power: $1,063.52

Now the bad, I really did not do much at all in the RH today, as everything open is between 0.10-0.20 or so each. At this point, I’m considering the 2.5k BP as my account value, though I will trim these out on any pops that may arise. Lots of little bad entries added up…

Sold
2x DIS 5/13 115c, one for 3.28, one for 3.35
1x SBLK 5/20 32c 0.60 ($10 loss, but I didn’t really want to keep too much open with the uncertainty this week)
1x GLD 5/20 190c 0.16 (trimmed one out, will drop the other two between now and next Friday, just in case something happens to give these a little value again. Doubtful though)

Open Positions

2x GLD 5/20 190c 0.98
4x PFE 5/20 55c 0.3792
2x CCL 6/17 25c 0.31
2x SNDL 1/2023 0.40

Account Balance: $2,715.82 (-105.08, -3.73% to mainly a weekend hold, oof)
Buying Power: $2,560.82

Tomorrow will be similar, very passive, trying to get a couple scalps in when I can. Maybe PFE will get a nice earnings bump and I’ll get a few bucks more for the RH account, but right now I’m pretty much considering that 2.5k the real value that will be getting transferred over. Gonna try and pretend that account doesn’t exist if/when opening new positions, as if all I have access to is the WeBull for the week or two it’ll take to withdraw and deposit, but that’s probably for the best anyway. Would have been better to do this when you originally said Friday before last, there’d be about a thousand dollars more going over. Not many long term holds out there right now anyway, certainly not this week…all that said, I have a good feeling about this week, don’t know why. Hopefully we all do well and are able to navigate all the craziness in the market, here’s to a good week ahead :cheers:

25

Just posting an update for my future self, I haven’t traded at all this week since the last post on Monday, instead, I started the process of withdrawals from RH and deposits into WeBull. I ended up taking an actual break instead of half of one for a couple reasons, mainly to begin getting most of my account over to WeBull, but I also wanted to make sure I could stop for a period during which I anticipated profits to be made off news, and I was able to resist it, opened the charts/TF maybe once or twice a day just to see what was going on, mostly Tue/Wed to check on FOMC. It was very tough not to try and scalp a call that day at 2pm, but probably good thing I didn’t as I’d probably have been tempted to start buying into further out calls on other things that day too, then what the hell happened the following day?! Gonna catch up on news and discussion and stuff over the weekend, l damn those two days looked crazy though (but lucrative if played right). I noticed the new Mimir function calling out SPY support/resistance touches on TF, that’s really sweet actually! Really grateful for all the tools that continue to evolve, this is one Patreon sub I don’t see myself ever ending (now I just gotta crack $5k accounts value, told myself I’d bump up tiers each milestone I hit haha). So even though I haven’t been trading this week, thanks to the architects, Conq, and everyone else working on alllll that stuff, you guys are killing it

Hope most of Valhalla playing this week printed off all this up and down, sorry if you did not, that volatility was another thing I wanted to try and play this week; but decided some time to get my head clear, accounts sorted, and coming back fresh would be better for me. I should be back at it (quick, smaller, vast majority being scalps) on Monday though. The withdrawals/deposits start clearing around 5/09, 5/10, so I’ll be getting back into things soon either way, taking a few days off has felt good for sure though, I had to prove to myself I could resist FOM(C)O. So yeah, just been avoiding the market, not y’all, I’ll be back this week.

Activity for week ending 5/06:

Withdrew $1,000 from Robinhood, Deposited $400 into WeBull, gonna drop another deposit in there once the withdrawal comes in (decided to split it into two as Mother’s Day weekend sometimes gets expensive and there’s a new mother to be celebrating this year :confetti_ball:). Deciding whether or not to go 1:1 on the rest and do $600, or just deposit a bit more to be starting with $2.5k there, I have like $500 in a crypto account just sitting around not really doing much that would probably be much better off in there too. I did also pop in to RH to close out PFE and most of GLD, but those were way underwater, I’d throw on a highish limit and see if they hit EoD or just sell when I saw em in app, I was considering all that a wash at this point. Sold one GLD for 0.16, one for 0.09. PFE one for 0.10, one for 0.07. One GLD sell didn’t fill, still have June CCL and those SNDL LEAPs, though all that’s gonna get closed out soon too. Pretty well and done with RH, can’t see myself needing it for much else, I very very rarely play shares as it is, though I’m still weighing getting an AMZN for the split, which is why I didn’t do a full account pull there yet. More research needed.

So Robinhood now has $1,657.76, with $1,603.76 as BP. As that fully settles and I close out the few things still open, I will honestly probably pull at the very least that $650 out to bring over to WeBull as well and keep around $600-1k in RH for share/LEAP plays, but trying to split my attention between two apps for active trading was just a hinderance, so probably more if not all will get transferred over. The biggest consideration I currently have to take into account is the share split stuff, I really have to think on all that now, time and cash both are running low.

WeBull has $1,063.52 settled, $1,463.52 unsettled. There’s at least another $600, probably $1k being deposited here in the next week or two as well.

Well, I promised myself not to engage the market through all that potential FOMC money (or blow outs) and I did it. It did feel good too, yes I had/have a bit of FOMO from calls/puts during those FOMC runup/down spike but hindsight is 20/20 and that shit probably would have caught me off guard …I spent more time with family this week, it felt good not worrying about what the news was gonna do to my overnights/long terms, and it was a good reminder that not everything is imminent and there’s always more plays, I can and should give myself room to breathe or I end up overtrading like last week and the previous.

I was gonna begin trading again today, but realized that wouldn’t be the smartest move after not following anything market related for a few days. This weekend I’ll be back to looking into the markets, forums, and trying to plan out this month. See everyone around :cheers:

1 Like
26

Took it very slow today, getting back into the swing of things, trying for that 2% challenge. I guess more accurately just hammering in taking those profits when they’re there, tough part is feeling like it’s too early, though I suppose that is the point. Having the accounts settling/split up currently is making me pick and choose more carefully, I need to figure out a way to keep this mentality when I’m green too (Seriously, why does holding +$100 make me more uncomfortable than holding -$150? I suppose cause with the negative the worst has already happened. I need to iron this out and get comfortable holding the plays that are meant to be held, taking small profits regularly, and cutting those losing trades way earlier). Easier to take smaller profits than large ones, that is an interesting little quirk to keep in mind. So let’s see, today I have:

WeBull/Scalps

1x SPY 5/09 $395p 3.70->4.00
1x HOOD 5/09 9p 0.35->0.42
1x HOOD 5/09 9.5p 0.54->0.64

Account Balance: $2,366.72,
$1,510.16 Options BP, $505.79 Unsettled Cash (+$46 +1.99%)

Robinhood

Not gonna do too too much in here, I’ll play these two out and continue transferring most/all of this account over to one place. I wanted to keep some in here for share plays, but if I’m being real with myself, I’ve done like three or four plays with shares ever, and if I want an account for long term holding there are better brokers than RH for that too.

1x ZIM 6/17 70c 2.15 (Thanks to The_Ni for the community callout on this one, there were some great entries right around then. Only grabbed one as I plan to average this position as needed and this account is smaller now, though one good pop this week and I’ll be closing this one and moving everything over vs. averaging up. Otherwise I will average down if necessary, there’s some good reward to this risk)

2x ESSC 6/17 10c 0.85 (ESSC again, oh boy…Seems like this is getting traction, now? Well, I’ll take a call hoping for more retail coming in; will take profits or cut this pretty much immediately, if it hits + or - 10% it’s gone. Probably should have gotten this in WeBull as it’s up 9% as of 2:30 and I’m trying to bring in small and consistent gains. E- EoD another filled at 0.85, had the limit sitting from the first order still. Since they’re 10s I don’t mind too much, plus these are going at the first sight of green)

Account Balance: $1,685.74 (+$27.98, +1.69%)
Buying Power: $1,223.74

Open Positions

2x 6/17 CCL 50c 0.31 (ah well I was hoping these would come back but overall market kinda sucks)
1x ZIM 6/17 70c 2.15
2x ESSC 6/17 10c 0.85
2x SNDL 1/2023 0.40 (ehh I’ve been holding these cause they’re LEAPs so why not, maybe something crazy happens, but better to plan for what’s in front of me than what might happen in a month or five. Probably selling these this week)

And yeah, that’s it for today. Didn’t make a lot of money, but I didn’t lose any, which is the more important of the two for me right now. I really, really wanted to hold those puts longer, but I also want to train taking profit immediately now that I can open and close contracts same day. The rest of the week will probably be similar, basically live fire scalping practice with extremely tight % (not $) targets/stop losses to either side, like taking profit or cutting at or under 5% or so.

Still figuring the details of that out, I was almost too careful two weeks ago and locked myself into losing trades, I tend to go and make the extreme opposite mistakes after I make one so I’m trying not to go too far to the other side and only try to like scalp FDs for double-triple digits. I’m gonna need to be making more than $50 a day with this for the time it takes to do, but I will also need to keep building discipline to get there. So while I am trading again this week, not 100% and with very, very specific short term goals in mind. Those are:

  1. Learn to take profit.
  2. Keep reading about/learning strangles so you can effectively use them when the time comes.
  3. Learn. To. Take. Profit.
  4. Continue small, fast scalps to get comfortable with the above and also to get used to settling cash etc.

Unless an alert for something ridiculous comes in, I believe I’m done for the day. Here’s to the rest of the week :cheers:

27

Today was frustrating, a whole lot of work to lose money (unrealized, so there’s still a chance for it, but it needs some big moves…). Tried scalping a bit again, still just a few bucks at a time to get a feel for everything. I did try to scalp a BA put EoD but SPY got mega stupid and ran up.
Grabbed the SPY call in RH both to hedge the put and because of the huge bullish flows, those might and probably were hedging themselves or maybe even unloading the puts. Thought 5/20 would be safe for a week, but nope, I got tomorrow and mayybe the next day (needs 420 by then though…). Gotta start getting Junes. Really starting to get pissed losing fucking hundreds of dollars a day, all I want is to financial stability and the ability to truly give back to all the people in my life who deserve it.
I owe a LOT of good karma, and I know I don’t need money to do that, but it would still be nice to be able to provide for them. I need a car, a couch, wedding gifts for my brother and sister who both got married recently. I could also really use a setup that’s better than a laptop on a folding table with TradingVew open and trying to trade through two apps on a phone that without a doubt at this point has been deeply hacked by a very strange, very bored and kinda creeepy person or persons.
So yeah, it annoys me that the way I’m playing this fucking market is bleeding out lots of money, every time I have a loss it is impossible not to think "Oh, I could have gotten like two of the things on my IRL list with that money, now some broker on wall st is using it to sniff some coke and take some escort out to a nice dinner in the city. This account really, really should be 5 figures by now, but fuck ups keep holding me back. I thought I had figured out some of the issues I and that I’d be trading better, but it’s almost like I’m afraid to suceed for some reason. Probably my fucked up past and some kind of weird guilt, but that’s not for here. (Also I am counting chickens before they hatch, maybe SPY does run to 420 and these pay out and I’m bitching for nothing…that would be nice. I’ll take 380 as well, but goddammit, probably a fat L).

Once again Boeing fucks me. Well, once again I fuck up Boeing. I don’t know, maybe PA was just weird at open and close and I should have tried playing intraday, I just saw it was lagging but correalting to SPY so hey, grab those puts now, right? Here’s today’s hard work for a fuck you Bubs:

WeBull
1x BA 5/13 130p 2.01->1.50 (nice 50 dollar slice out of the account to start the day. Was chasing this back most of the day. Yeah, I know, shut up.)

1x SPY 5/13 390p 2.69->2.71 (You’ll see a theme of me scalping like $2-$5 bucks cause tickers did not want to peek below supports and I probably entered like shit on a couple)

1x SPY 5/13 390p 3.18->3.65 (Nice trade if it wasn’t for the losses)

1x SPY 5/13 410c 1.69->1.45 (Was doing a mini intraday spread to see if they were good during scalping, also because the price action was being funnny and it was over $400)

1x BA 5/13 130p 1.65->1.48 (Really annoyed at that last 15 minute curl up, this was a dumb position to take but I was trying for the SPY correaltion. It was working, til it wasn’t)

Account Balance: $2,344.30 (-$22.46, -0.70%) This wasn’t the bad one, but not good either.
Cash Balance: 2,337.56 (free stock I cannot sell always throws this off by a couple bucks)
Options BP: $1,487.56 (Deposits clearing/settling)
Settled: $407.91
Unsettled: $1,079.65

Robinhood

Ah alright lets see…

1x SPY 5/20 380p 3.72

1x SPY 5/20 410c 4.86 (More hedging/spread stuff, and maybe I get lucky with one of those stories you hear on OTM SPY stuff, but I mean I don’t see the moves this would need happening. Go plug it into option strat and laught at how fucked this is)

1x UVXY 5/20 20c 2.09 (we’ll see, UVXY always either totally prints or totally bombs in my experience with the monthlys)

2x AMC 5/20 10p 0.89 (thank you for that post, The_Ni! And thank you to the architects/Conq who have made Mimir into an absolute beast)

2x ESSC 5/20 10c 0.85 (I KNOW)

2x SNDL 1/2023 0.5c 0.40

50 shares of YCBD for Jekyll, and cause I can get behind this company/quick hesis you threw out in VC

Account Balance: $1,526.71 (Mostly transferred to WeBull, deciding on this last bit) (-$159.03, -9.43%)
Buying Power: $233.56

That low BP is uncomfortable, though if I want to make money I’m gonna have to get over having my cash in actual positions even if they’re red that day, so many time I’ve cut something to see it run like a motherfucker…more times I’ve held or saw on my watchlist expiring worthless/trying to sell em for a nickel that last week.
Which is which though? I suppose that’s the big question, if someone knew they’d be rich…I know I can get good at this, every week things do get a little clearer and clearer, but the stress of trying to get my account to a level that’s comfortable while also providing things to family on top of bills drives me crazy sometimes.
My whole life up to 6 years ago (shit, even now a bit) was the definition of Wasted Potential. I am abso-fucking-lutely determined not to let that title apply to this endeavor. I will succeed, I will be able to provide and accomplish everything I’ve talked about here, and I will not give up. Just have to not keep slowly bleeding my cash through shit plays or bad entries/exits and keep reading up here and going back to basics on Investopedia.

I refuse to lose.

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28

Dear Diary, today was a good day! Lol. Really though, it was. Puts paid wonderfully today. Scalped SPY, BA, and opened a CVNA put position I intended to scalp but set my limit 5 cents off from closing bid. 5/20 so I’m not sweating that one too much, I think it will continue to fall. SPY Puts sealed the deal for me with Robinhood, I averaged that and UVXY down today and the puts were up a substantial % amount that would have needed like another 5 dollar drop tomorrow to hold the same premium. This kind of situation I had to take the restriction, closed out everything I could fill, nothing is in that account now except those SNDL leaps and YCBD shares…that leaf logo is very appropriate for my current RH situation lmao. So I’ll be withdrawing as this cash settles and moving all of it over to WeBull now, which will make keeping track of everything much easier, better to be all in one place with my setup.

Robinhood
Bought
1x SPY 5/20 380p 2.24, brought my average to 2.98
1x UVXY 5/20 20c 1.13, gotta do the math for the average. Somewhere near 1.60 cause these were only a couple bucks green when sold

Sold
2x SPY 5/20 380p 3.68
2x UVXY 5/20 20c 1.62, 1.61
1x ESSC 6/17 10c 0.70 (didn’t get filled in the morning, with me closing out this account I figured I’d rather just have the 70 bucks available in WeBull)
Account Balance: $1,7423 (+$218.12, +14.29%)
Buying Power/About to be withdrawn and transferred: $1,687.40 (Just the 50 shares of YCBD and the two SNDL LEAps still sitting in this now close only account)

WeBull
2x SPY 5/13 395p 1x 1.54, 1x 0.88->2x 1.24 (Holding would have paid huge, but I was all nervous with the average down and everything, so I sold right when they were breakeven. If they were 5/20 I’d have held through the dump, but FDs made me nervous. Day by day, bit by bit though, I’ll be scalping for real for real before you know it)
1x ARKK 6/17 35p 2.35->2.32
1x BA 6/17 130p 5.80->9.10 (Mm baby this felt nice. Should have been shorting this for weeks, I was doing DD on them! Didn’t expect to see 150 let alone 130 though…those earnings were something in these market conditions)
1x CVNA 5/20 27p 2.80 (set a limit for 3.10 and got distracted EoD, it was 4pm before I could change it to the 3.05 it was trading for. Should be good tomorrow even though I intended this as a quick scalp)

Account Value: $2,776.30 (+$433.00, +13.56%)
Buying Powers:
Cash Balance: 2,464.81
Options BP- 1,614.81
Settled Cash- 0.00
Unsettled Cash: 1,614.81 (I believe this is a sign of the glitch working, unsettled and options BP being exactly the same. :pepepray: Cause if not I’ll be moving from WeBull to TDA cash lol)

Ahh so yeah, I needed a day like today. The FDs had me nervous, but otherwise, it was buy, wait for some green, sell. I did get lucky with bigger %s than usual, as I mentioned I’m leaning more towards the 2% satisfaction these days. Gonna keep scalping like this through this volatility, though strangles and selling contracts are still major major goals of mine.
Tomorrow I will probably be introduced to the T+ concept for real for real haha, may not have cash settled to trade with, gotta wait and see but shit, I’ve met and exceeded my weekly goal today alone. I still have a ways to climb to make up for last week and the prior, but finally making this switch of brokers literally changes everything. UI is good, I like all the info showing in their options ladder, and scalping is huge, literal game changer (I see now why they restricted it lol…damn trading must have been nuts 2 years ago).
Like I said yesterday, I refuse to fail. I will continue to get this down over time. If I turn my head the right way and squint a little I can begin to see how this is all connected, and the group of peers I have with this community literally could not be a better group to be learning from, bouncing ideas off of, and having fun with. Also like I said yesterday, trading ain’t a team sport, but still, I wanna see all the active members/people I talk to in here print. Big things ahead for a lot of people I think :cheers:

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29

Solid day man! Nice work

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Thank you very much! It definitely felt great, this is probably the most successful I’ve been playing puts; from here for me it’s all about just making a little bit of cash each day and not going red. Easier said than done I know, but I will set my goals low to hopefully be pleasantly surprised with a medium sized result!

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31

So this ticker is beat the hell down with no signs of relief really. Should have been playing puts all the way down, but I wasn’t really a bear and definitely wasn’t confident enough in my ability to call out puts/short plays. Lots of money left on the table, it’s too bad we didn’t have any bears playing this and posting about it, and I’m sorry to all of y’all that I couldn’t be that for you as I made this thread. Well, the $70 (looking soon to be $80) drop has come and gone, all we can do now is play the trends. This is very heavily pulled with SPY now until news comes, but I will definitely be looking at playing those June puts more, that one paid very, very handsomely today. Hoping for some jumps up past $135 and rejections soon after for 130p, though now that $130 has (kinda) been broken, that may be switched to $125 and 120p. Gonna watch price action this week, more than likely gonna start buying 120p if this is indeed a new range (130s if BA goes back towards $135-140 and they go back down towards $5.00, but shit, they’re about ITM now, they’ll be over $10.00 soon). Anyway, this tends to run in the morning, there seems to be some real bagholders of this ticker desperate to get it back up, so I will be grabbing puts on those bounces. Calls in the morning to sell on those pops may work, but I wouldn’t really do it, too uncertain. Man, I need someone in the room with me to tell me when I’m being too jumpy and when I’m being too stubborn, I (and by extenstion, the readers of this) could have made a lot more than I have playing this (not that I’m complaining, this has made me good money, but you all know the feeling)…maybe one of those mail order brides from TF would do the trick kekw
Anyway, no one really trusts Boeing’s board anymore, Yahoo Finance dropped a bullish titled articled with a bunch of bearish stuff in it. Doesn’t say too much, except…Boeing selling stock to recover cash is an option being looked at. Dilution incoming? As Barron points out, a share offering now as opposed to 6 months ago is a lot less appealing to investors.The article also details some of the finer points of Boeing’s messed up balance sheet. I have basic understandings of what’s going on with the company, but maybe someone who knows the ins and outs of the finacial side of these buisnesses can chime in? I appreciate the conversation in here while I was taking a few days to myself and my family, let’s keep it going and short this thing into the ground! Or not, if anyone has a bull case please do post it, as it’s hard for me to believe a company like Boeing is this beaten down. I didn’t play puts because I didn’t think it’d go below $150, so yeah, let’s hear both bull and bear cases, how low can it go or will they be saved somehow?

Whoops accidentally posted this here, forgot the forum saves post entries while browsing (awesome feature btw). The post with articles are in the BA thread

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32

Today was nuts, lots of work to break even. Before I get into that, I withdrew everything from my Robinhood except those SNDL leaps and YCBD shares. There’s $58 of stock/LEAPs in there, I took out $1,687.40, the majority or probably really all of which will be deposited to WeBull so everything is in one place and on a better platform for how I am trying to trade, and now that I’m better at reading the greeks etc I actually like their UI better belive it or not. Still gotta play with desktop a bit and see how that goes. Edit 6pm: Y’know what, actually I’m gonna initiate a deposit to WeBull. $500 tonight, then most of the withdrawn RH cash when that arrives. We’ll see where my account is at, I like nice round numbers. So some time in the next two weeks this account will be getting funded in bits.

So yeah, like I said, nutso day. Was down $200 off TSLA FDs, then up $200 on a BA put then some more on an AAPL call, but then I decided to grab puts on SPY just before that massive EoD rally. Typing that out makes me realize I should have accounted for that, it’s a known variable. Especially on dumpy days with no real news. I didn’t even say it out loud but Conq noticed it, I am relying on technicals too much again, not balancing them out with sentiment and news.

Here we go…

Started off selling that CVNA put, and holy shit right in time, huh? Even managed to get $35 more than I would have selling at close yesterday. Then I jumped into TSLA 600p FDs, first one at 3.90. Lets just say the average down was at $1.50 and I was considering another under a dollar. I could have done it with more averaging as I ended up selling the second one at $1.55. I managed to get one out at my cost basis of 2.70, should have sold both there, but I was greedy and gambly today for some reason. Got a BA put that was up nicely, so of course at 3pm I jump into those SPY puts. Ended the day with less than a dollar profit for all that work, though I have worked just as hard for red, so this at least doesn’t feel as bad as that. Ah man here we go with the Filled orders, format may be changed up a little…Gonna type out the WeBull list of orders, I’ll try to consolidate them like usual though (still gettting used to a new platform)

Sold 1x CVNA 5/20 27p 3.40

Bought 1x BA 5/20 120p 2.78->4.35 (edit, forgot the sells, this right here is where I should have stopped. CVNA and BA would have more than exceeded my daily, hell, weekly goal. Overplayed today big time)

Bought 2x TSLA 5/13 600p 3.90, 1.50->1.55, 1.06 ()

Sold 2x TSLA 5.13 600p 2.70, 1.55 (could have gotten out clean at 2.70, but I just had to try for a little profit…it trickled up after that sell and didn’t come back to my average. Stupid gambler bullshit. I know better than this, come on man.)

Bought 1x TSLA 5/13 600p 1.40 (I’ll fuckin do it again.jpg…held this for less than an hour then realized how retarded it was) Sold for 1.06

Bought 1x 5/16 SPY 380p 1.59->1.60 (This one was around noon, not the blow out one. I should start writing my thoughts on entries in here during the day, I don’t know what I was really thinking today. This was a panic buy to try and capture the TSLA losses back, so I dropped it immediately to think about what I was going to do. Didn’t do anything except hold that BA put and watch it grow til I fucked up in power hour. I was up $200-250ish between 1-3, I should have absolutely stopped there. But then again, that put would have gotten blown out by the rally too if I stepped away til tomorrow and wasn’t looking at what was going on to know to sell it)

Bought 1x AAPL 5/20 140p 4.30->4.70 (Grabbed this at 14:03, AAPL was in a consolidation and a huge green candle a few minutes earlier got sold off immediately. It was bull flagging, so I expected a drop, though not as big a one I got)

Bought 2x SPY 5/16 380p 2.78, 1.95 (green dildo incoming) Sold 1x for 2.00, 1x for 2.05

Bought 1x SPY 5/16 400c 1.34->1.42 (look ma, I’m strangling! Not really, I didn’t take anything into account except the chart trend. Time to re-read 25% Satisfaction and Stagflation…)

Bought 1x BA 5/13 125c 0.87->0.87 (got flagged again, I gotta slow down on some trades)

Bought 1x BA 5/20 130c 1.79->2.06 (That’s more like it, was considering holding this, but was also considering holding that put too, so like most others, I aint holding shit overnight in these conditions)

Bought 1x SPY 5/16 395c 2.83->3.20 (The other saver of the day not being red…those first and last hours of the day were nuts)

Account Balance: $2,777.80 (+$0.45, +0.01%)
Buying Power: $1,993.67
Settled Cash: $0.00 (Hmmm between BP and this :thinking: I signed up for cash account, better not have been slipping me some margin WB…)

So yeah, I traded like a fucking rabbit to end up less than 50 cents on the day. I was up a good 10%+, and once again didn’t follow my rules of taking that profit. Well, I did, but I apparently woke up and also decided I was going to gamble today…I mean, I say that in hindsight, but I bought those puts off a double top in a downward pressured market, things just got weird like immediately afterwards. It was A LOT of trading to stay afloat today. Though, it is honestly a miracle I did not end red or blown out on too many bad average downs. Hopefully, tomorrow is better. Hope y’all have a good night!

33

Down like $200 as of now, and feeling that “Need a big winner need a big winner need a big winner” feeling coming on, so typing this instead. Spent the morning scalping away settled cash for loss, too much back and forth back and forth, I kept faking myself out. Now I see why you took the username Whiplash lol. Still getting the hang of the whole scalping thing, and jumping in maybe a little too quick. I should remember swing plays as well (though really not many people have been wanting to hold much lately, and neither have I. The uncertainty is insane)
.
1x 5/20 BA 120p 2.24- 1.83
1x 5/20 BA 130c 2.70- 3.10
1x 5/18 SPY 405c 2.65-2.77
1x 5/18 SPY 380p 1.15-1.18
2x 5/20 AAPL 140p 1.91, 1.86-1.52, (thought union news would dip it, stopped myself out on this bs. Should have considered value buyers.)
1x 5/20 SNAP 25c 0.92-0.92
1x 5/20 SNAP 25p 1.58-1.48 (Stupid trade to take, on a whim from browsing through fucking Twitter of all places)
2x 5/16 SPY 390p 1.13, 1.01- 0.88, 0.79
1x 5/16 SPY 400p 3.62-3.36
1x 5/20 SPY 410c 3.06-3.11
1x 6/17 BA 120p 5.65-5.85 (yes, that was on that knife, and near the bottom. Just absolute shit entries today man you know better)
1x 5/20 BA 130c 3.90-3.10 (on the knife as well. Thought the put was gonna cover it…)

1x 6/17 MU 65p 2.18 still open as of now
Edit- 1x 6/17 BA 120p 5.70 (put a bid in as it popped back up after that knife, figured that wasn’t gonna last, BA is boned. Considering this is for June, I may even average up. That news is nail in the coffin level, heads will roll for incomplete safety certifications after everything else this company has been through this year)

Rough day.

Gotta be careful, I can’t be stupid like this, I have people depending on me.

Edit- Alright, here’s the rest. Fuck that end of day pump, wiped out my BA, TSLA, and SPY gains. Should have sold that contract immediately after buying, but it seemed like BA was going to hell. Probably still is and it’s 6/17, but 40 godddamn orders today for just about negative $200 all cause I was jumpy as hell again this morning. I’m starting to piss me off.

1x SPY 5/20 395p 4.99-5.50
1x TSLA 5/20 660p 6.60->6.90
1x SPY 5/20 410p 2.98->3.00
1x SPY 5/20 410c 3.00->3.00 (bought this right before the 3:30pm knife down. Thought I was smart to just cut it, even though it was the last chance to go green today, last of my BP for the day. EoD said yo fuck you hahaha…I really need to figure out how to stop cutting winners…)

SPY was a fuckin asshole today. I’m really pissed at myself too, I get too antsy and sell shit way early. I know these positions could have banked if played differently, so it also has me feeling like I just suck at this. Not gonna let that get into my head though, I’ve climbed back from less than $800, plus I’ve only started scalping this week. I can and will get the swing of it down, just gotta find that balance and nut up a little. I cut early because I fear blow outs, but I will never make it doing this without taking some risk, the tricky part is figuring out the right amount. When everything was low, I was down, but at least only by $50. I didn’t secure the BA profit (over $125 at one point) and now it’s fluctuating at my cost basis. Fuck. Well, it’s a June and a shitty company, it should be alright. I really hope so. Just mad at myself man, I know I’m making mistakes, but the next day I go and make a whole new batch of new ones. That’s just learning something I guess, just…dammit.

Open Positions
1x MU 6/17 65p 2.18
1x BA 6/17 120p 5.70

Account Balance
$3,121.29 (-$157.95, -4.82%)

Oh, Cramer sold BA today and everyone on Twitter is bullish now. That report better be terrible, though I’m already seeing some things implying the Reuters article was overblown. Had a great chance to get out and didn’t cause it’s for June, and we’re sitting 2 bucks above (or arguably on) some serious support. Please lord give me a wick back down for this thing before any rips. Just what I needed going into the weekend off losses.

34

Have some things to do today, considering as of ~1pm it’s looking to be pretty sideways the rest of the day (or at the very least tough to call and very uncertain), I’m gonna call it a day early. Also as a practice in restraint, I hit that 2% on the day, let’s not trade it away out of boredom or trying to make back what I lost last week in one day, especially while conviction is pretty low for me shopping around today. Let’s see what these talks and the big retail earnings bring over the next two days, I’d rather have the settled cash ready to go for those movements or their aftermath.

Sold
1x MU 6/17 65p 2.24
1x BA 6/17 120p 5.95 (Happy to have gotten away with any profit at all on this one, definitely left money on the table Friday though. In the future when intending to scalp a huge knife or pump you caught early maybe buy two contracts, one to secure some profits, one to ride. No doubt in my mind I’d have trimmed one when they were up $125 each. Another one easier said than done though)

Scalped

2x AMD 5/20 95p, Bought 1x for 3.10, 1x for 2.60 to bring the average to 2.85, sold 1x for 2.96, 1x for 2.95… I maybe could have broken even on the one not-so-great entry, but better to have averaged down and made a couple of dollars. Was kind of touch and go, thought I’d be stopping this out at a loss above 96.75, then SPY pulled it back down enough to hit that 96.05 exit point for a second time, wasn’t gonna go for a third test of that support. That did have me nervous for a second being 5/20s, I bought into a downtrend with a Lux Oscillator flip to red that then reversed and chart looked to maybe be going inverse h&s, broke out of the pattern, averaged the put down on a standard Sell signal afterward around 95.90 to make the contracts profitable above $96, and here’s where that ended up)

Webull did hit me with a GFV today for a trade on Friday, but I believe that was due to the sheer number of trades I had made last week, it dipped into unsettled funds on Fri even with the glitch in place. They seemingly didn’t give a shit about the rest of the week, and I could scalp today just fine with no GFV warnings using the settled cash, so something to remember and keep an eye on. Have to treat it as a cash account and only look at Settled Cash, Options BP is a liar and bad.

That’s another big reason my goal this week is to practice restraint and patience (I actually let these fills come to me today for the most part, wasn’t getting antsy after four 1 min candles and resubmitting the order with a slightly lower bid or ask :pepecelebrate: ).
I did hop on the LuxAlgo train as well and set it up in my charts yesterday, so I don’t want to go too crazy while learning the ins and outs of that while it’s running live, but after watching the YouTube tutorials etc and using it today, so far it seems like it is all it’s cracked up to be. Now I could just use a good news service for my toolkit as well, manual searching Finviz Free or whatever isn’t really quick enough.

Account Balance: $3,200.28 (+$80.52, +2.22%)
Settled: $1,283.67
Unsettled: $1,409.71

Patience.

35

Another slow but steady day, still getting used to scalping/SPY/etc etc and trying different things out. It’s been pretty tough with the market being so choppy, still gotta work on jumping the gun on entries, took a put at the wrong time that then needed averaging down and maintaining when it was intended to be sold within 15 or 20 minutes, but that’s okay. Heard Beaker mention in VC how some of the BA crash news dropped, ran to look through an article I grabbed a call trying to run up with it (another sub-optimal entry), then as BA fell back in line with SPY decided to use that as a long hedge during JPow’s interview, I figured it lags slightly behind so if I saw SPY beginning to break down, I’d have that extra few seconds to cut it, and if SPY ran up, then great! Ended up cutting it during the speech as if it were a SPY call, looking back, I’d have gone with a closer expiration if that was how I was gonna play/use it (or just have bought more SPY calls), but I wasn’t sure if I was gonna hold for a few days or not and wanted to give myself the option. Otherwise, it was all just playing SPY’s movement, testing some hypothetical entries against LUX, and just all in all practicing, was going more for the experience than gain here today so I have better confidence in the future with larger scalps/plays. Still deciding if actual scalping is my style or not, I get very nervous holding contracts long term so it would seem so, but dealing with intraday theta isn’t great for the blood pressure either lmao. I’m sure as time goes on and I keep practicing I’ll get better about those jitters and leave less and less money on the table, and most importantly, find the style of trading that I enjoy and am successful with.

All scalps today, gonna just list out the buys and sells. The midday puts were part of an average down for a bad entry, cut one at cost basis, one a bit less because I didn’t follow the plan! (Plan was to lower cost basis and get out there to reposition entirely, SPY was in a slightly bullish range at the time, but of course I changed the QTY from 2 to 1 on that page, then wasn’t patient enough with the one I was trying to squeeze extra out of).
That can be said for most of these, I know timing tops and bottoms isn’t possible, but I do need to be able to hold a SPY contract for more than five minutes, or otherwise stop playing it and go back to swinging other tickers. I kinda (definitely) have been going a little too crazy with the whole scalp thing, I had hundreds of submitted/cancelled/modified orders last week…trying too hard to be good at everything at once, and excelling at none. I’ll find the niche I fit into though, I am confident of that much.

Buys
1x 5/20 SPY 400p 2.99
1x 5/20 SPY 410c 2.25 (Straddle to start the day, cut the side going against the trend right away…there’s some more I can be looking at with stuff like this, try to hedge Delta etc)
1x 5/20 SPY 410c 1.91
1x 5/20 SPY 400p 2.73
1x 5/20 SPY 410c 2.35
1x 6/17 BA 140c 3.88 (let this run for too long, or not long enough, stopped it out during a JPOW knife)
1x 5/20 SPY 400p 2.17
1x 5/20 SPY 400p 2.80
1x 5/20 SPY 410c 2.42

Sells
1x 5/20 SPY 410c 2.14
1x 5/20 SPY 400p 3.17
1x 5/20 SPY 410c 1.99
1x 5/20 SPY 410c 2.47
1x 5/20 SPY 400p 2.14
1x 5/20 SPY 400p 2.12
1x 6/17 BA 140c 4.15
1x 5/20 SPY 400p 3.00
1x 5/20 SPY 410c 2.91

Account Balance: $3,258.29 (+58.05, +1.57%)
Settled Cash EoD: $342.93
Unsettled: $2,408.37

Should have ~$1k of Friday’s sells settling tomorrow, but yeah, I need to continue working on exits and entries to make the most out of my settled cash, especially as intraday trading is somewhat new to me. Too many break evens today, at least not red, but expensive time/opportunity cost. Looking forward to the market settling somewhat and picking a direction, I can be a bear, I can be a better bull, but it’s tough switching back and forth. With time and practice though, just keep patient. Better to be making small gains while learning rather than being blown out on something I think I know enough about to be going super heavy on. Just realized how silly that sounds coming off the second Tuesday ever of scalping SPY FDs as the main play of your day. Not deleting it, remember that when you’re re-reading this entry.

36

Screwed up this morning immediately buying and selling a SPY 400p for a slight loss just to jump into a BA call (at it’s highest of the day). Messed me up for the rest of the day, instead of cutting the BA and just scalping SPY puts (which would have ended up extremely profitable), I kept averaging down on the BA call hoping for good news tomorrow and the next day. Keep telling myself it should pop on the official statements from Boeing and China Eastern about the crash, but I’m getting pretty jaded on this one. Just about fucking done with Boeing, it’s a pain in the ass to play and as I said myself yesterday, there’s far better opportunities out there. It’s a 6/17 so I’ll give it the week and a half to climb back up a few bucks, but this fucking call kept me scalping SPY puts just to stay down $150 vs. a couple hundred. Got sick of it EoD and just bought a 5/27 395c/392p spread on SPY to sell this week, otherwise praying for everything to go absolutely perfectly on that dumb launch. Could’ve bought the put this morning and went and fucked around all day and have ended up a few hundred, or maybe if I’d cut the BA call instead of averaging I wouldn’t have been as jumpy with the SPY puts and let them play out. Just more bad goddamn positioning, really not sure why I can’t just follow my gut. Also gonna stop buying calls trying to prove something just cause I started that thread on Boeing, literally ever since I started trying to play it there’s been plane crashes, bad reports, terrible relations…it’s a piece of shit company, guess it’s time to admit that to myself. It’s been profitable, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a pain in the ass watching it get torn apart on the slightest piece negative news and then only goes up on good news if SPY is absolutely ripping. Even then, it often won’t move very far up. Fuck them and fuck me for being dumb as hell when it comes to playing this shit.

Buys

1x 5/20 SPY 400p 2.94 (sold this for 2.90, ffs)
1x 6/17 BA 135c 6.50 (great fill dude /s)
1x 5/20 SPY 395p 3.32 (yep)
1x 6/17 BA 135c 4.80 (average down, wasting settled cash cutting the second contract. More oppurtunity cost wasted on this shit)
1x 5/20 SPY 395p 4.08
1x 5/27 SPY 392p 7.60
1x 5/27 SPY 395c 6.17

Dumbfuck Sells

1x 5/20 SPY 400p 2.90
1x 5/20 SPY 395p 4.09
1x 6/17 BA 135c 4.70
1x 5/20 SPY 395p 4.48
1x 5/20 BA 135c 4.05
1x 5/20 SPY 390p 3.26

Holding
1x 5/27 SPY 392p 7.60
1x 5/27 SPY 395c 6.17
1x 6/17 BA 135c 5.00

This EoD SPY spread I got ain’t profitable yet either, in fact it’s now down, though those have the next few days for more few dollar swings. Watch it get range bound now.

Account Balance: ~$3,077.30 (-$183.20), SPY still has 15 minutes though. Real fuckin discouraging looking at what I fumbled.
Settled: $0.00

I need to clear my head and figure shit out or something, this is absolutely unacceptable. I had huge winning tickets other people probably would have killed to have all throughout the morning, and I fuck them up over getting into a bad headspace over Boeing. Had a bunch of settled cash to be scalping too. I was absolutely fucking set up for success and instead end up pinched in a bad position, maybe three, and negative on the day. That’s a ME problem, and I need to fix it.

.

Night edit for future me- Yeah, you messed up not cutting a position out of emotion, that was a really pointless call to be trying and save when it easily could have been bought back later. Really gotta relax a bit and go with your instinct and what the data/news is pointing to.
Keep it tight with that strangle, you kind of forced that as well and that has much bigger potential to blow up, don’t get too caught in contraiain mindsets, play the trend and watch S/R level and breaks. There is very little time to make these strikes work out. You made this mistake 4 or 5 times with that call today, every plateau after the drops you knew you should cut or flip to a put, not average down. Sell both legs quick, but not too quick that you miss where the trend goes. May end up eating a loss if SPY gets bound here, but honestly that’s what happens when you try and force trades as badly as you did today.

You need $395 on the call before Friday (unlikely) though if the same trend continues get rid of that shit tomorrow, remember you bought it pretty much out of feeling like you were messing every decision up. Watch $390 and 388 to break down before Friday as well. Tomorrow will most likely be very volatile, wouldn’t be surprised at a slim doji closing tomorrow, remember that a majority of your losses lately were from allowing yourself to get faked out or flagged. Cut back on deciding exits off the 1m, let the other main timeframes close as well. Just chill out and stop being a bitch honestly

37

Yeah, I don’t think I’m cut out for scalping FDs, not yet. I still get way too nervous having them open and running, which leads to cutting at losses before they’d have been profitable, which leads to more doubt, and so on in a circle. Been feeling like I have to scalp the way the market is right now, and maybe that’s mostly true and so I shouldn’t be trading during times like this. I don’t know, but I should stop throwing money at learning what does and doesn’t work for me. I’m aware of the problem I’m having, but still trade…that’s not investing or trading, it’s still gambling. Absolutely drained from all this shit too, which only makes it worse. Probably not trading much tomorrow, I need to let cash settle anyway. Got faked out yet again, on AAPL today. Grabbed puts near 139, it started pumping, as it was going up pretty damn fast I saw some stuff that made sense to me that this would end up being a huge buy area on AAPL, and so immediately regretted getting FD puts and cut them at a significant loss. Same shit again with SPY. Screw FDs, it’s probably better I started out having bad experiences with them, if I had ‘gotten a taste’ it most likely would have screwed my trading up much worse in the future. Live and learn I guess…start remembering what you’ve learned though, dumbfuck. You can’t afford to be throwing the market $150, $200 a day in the name of learning…

Bought

2x AAPL 5/20140p 2.48, 2.52
2x SPY 5/25 385p 4.26, 3.27
(Ran out of settled cash here)

Sold
1x SPY 5/27 395c 4.58 (dumb straddle to take, no reason to have bought a call yesterday other than doubt)
1x SPY 5/27 392p 7.69 (see, dumb call to have taken)
2x 5/20 AAPL 140p 1.99
2x SPY 5/25 385p 3.15, 4.00

Account Balance: $2,874.79 (-213.51, -6.91%, fuck)
Settled: Nothing

Holding the BA call. I bought it for this launch tonight, gonna give it til the Friday I originally planned to hold it til to tap $130, I’m hoping for a little relief overall tomorrow as monthly shorts cover etc, hopefully combined with a success on that launch tonight. Funny how I can hold something a bit red when I’m not watching theta work on it in real-time…

It would seem I hate money or something right? I epically mishandled scalps this week. On the other hand, I have to realize I am still very new to this and maybe I shouldn’t be using all my settled cash every day, there is literally always opportunity in the market, so wait for conviction instead of trying to make up loss instantly. You said this yesterday or the day before too. Learn. From. Your. Fucking. Mistakes. It’s easy as hell to see patterns in hindsight and think “oh I’d have scalped that day perfectly”…seeing how untrue that is this second week of doing it. Have even more respect for those of y’all who mainly trade like this, this shit wracks the nerves for sure. I also leaned a bit too much into all this this week, I’m still trying to find a style that works for me, but allocating way too much towards new styles. I’ve had the most sucess with short term swings, though the market hasn’t really been conducive for that this week. So, I gotta be able to step back too, I’ve been feeling like I have to trade every day. That’s not true.

38

I’ll fill this in with details from my laptop a bit later, flipping apps and typing out the buys/sells on phone is annoying, though really I gotta take some time before I go and look at what I was holding and cut etc… another bad day similar to the last two kicked off by BA decidedly not testing the goddamn PM high I’d have been profitable at, then stopping for the week around noon and not sticking to it. Though every day I’m seeing more and more what’s going wrong and why, I have high confidence I’ll be able to build up a reliable strategy moving forward. I’ve been playing around with more tools, strategies, and the way I look at things, next step is to try as hard as I can to remove emotion from my trading and use more of the resources that are available. I need to up my research as well, learn to read sentiment a bit clearer.

I got greedy and fearful this week, bad combo, especially trying to scalp FDs every day all to make up for a losing position that should have been cut basically day after buying, but into which I kept pouring money on pure hopium. I had lots of potential big, big winners this week I let go of at losses at times as well, and the small winners were pretty much getting cut at first signs of green just keeping me ‘afloat’ at ~-6% instead of completely blown out on that shit BA call. Well, that definitely didn’t work out, ended up losing more over the week trying to manage it than if the damn thing expired worthless. Sends equipment to space, -7% out of the gate psh fuuuuckkk offff…fits for them lately, though. Ended up doing all that for half the initial value of that first call, and that’s not counting the average down costs and gigantic missed opportunity/screwy headspace costs. Trying not to think about that too much though, it’s in the past now; plus if things had been going all those wrong ways I got afraid of I’d be thankful I did cut them right now. Screw coulda woulda shoulda with this, I’m the world’s greatest trader if I’m playing spot the pattern back tests, it’s very different live. Next week is a whole fresh start with a little bit more experience. I’m down, not out.

List to expand/reflect on later:
-That dumb shit BA call got me too in my head about things, I was so, so wrong on that that I was second guessing everything else I did the rest of the week.
-Then I basically was ending up setting ‘Stop-Take-Losses’, thinking I was seeing false breakouts all over the place.
-Spent way too much time on the 1m this week as well.
-Casino is now closed, gave it the one last try today, nope. Further out expiries and hedges going forward.
-Don’t ever think you are ahead of the trend. You are almost certainly not.
-No human times bottoms and tops perfectly.

Edit 5/21-
Buys
2x QQQ 5/23 285p 3.22, 2.80
1x SPY 5/23 385p 4.23
1x SPY 5.23 381p 3.26
(Said I was done for the day here, paid the market another 3% or so for not sticking to it)
2x SPY 5/23 380p 2.76, 2.94 (chasing a retest of 380.54 like a true degen. Even said to myself ‘hmm, if buyers are gonna step in, it’ll be here’ and still went for these instead of calls or a straddle. When it started running, my settled cash was done, and I wasn’t about to hold calls over the weekend. Ah well just stupid chasing at this point)
1x SPY 5/23 383p 4.22

Sells
1x BA 6/17 135c 3.30 (all that wasted settled cash bringing this down…threw off my entire week. Glad to be away from this ticker for a bit, gonna have to be careful not to hate-short it)
2x QQQ 5/23 285p 3.07, 3.05
1x SPY 5/23 385p 4.31
1x SPY 5.23 381p 2.90
2x SPY 5/23 380p 3.00, 2.61
1x SPY 5/23 383p 3.46
Account Balance: $2,651.85 (-$222.94…too many -5, 6, 7, 10% days. Cannot afford to be flushing money away like this, so stop second guessing yourself and only go in with high confidence. Let the damn patterns finish too)

Added my buys/sells from yesterday. Sorry, I just couldn’t look at the 285p and 385p I paperhanded after these past two weeks. If I hadn’t let that stupid BA play get into my head and just admitted I was wrong a few days sooner vs. looking for any crumb that might prove right, I should have added a good +50% on the entire account with the positions I’ve had this week. Please nobody do the math (well, at least don’t tell me the results if you do) and note that it was actually triple digit %s or more I left on the table, I know, it sucks, but next week is a whole fresh start.
Those last three I was very stupid with. I said I was done for the weekend, went out and touched smoked some grass, then came back in and saw a signal being painted on LuxAlgo. Did I wait for it to complete? Thought so… then realized after buying I had been looking at the 5m and switched tabs, not the 3m, and it had swapped from trying to paint a Strong Sell into the beginnings of that EoD run. I also was trying custom settings in my Lux, they were dialed in for QQQ 5m, not SPY 3m. Just keep it on autopilot like multiple people have told you now dummy. Probably don’t get stoned while trading either, yeah? At least not during the last 3 hours of the week when I was finished trading, that was a beginning-of-the weekend-sized session after which I should not even have looked back in on the charts. I did though, saw that 380.50 touch while I was gone and got too excited, “just look at this dead cat bounce giving me one last chance to be green for the day!”… Just when I thought I was out, right? I expected what we saw EoD Friday would happen Monday, and that 380 itself would be tested again beforehand. Looking back, I was contradicting parts of my own plans yet again, Thursday I was hoping for monthly opex short covering driving up SPY a bit (and by extension, BA to cut that call with a little green)… after such a brutal day with no relief, why would I be looking at puts again and not watching for that exact rally you’d hoped for?! Just all around way, way too emotional, I had left so much on the table with all these puts the entire week, so it had to be puts that paid me back. WTF?! Amateur rookie shit bro. You know better, you are better than all that. Remove emotion. /edit

This weekend I’ll continue getting my toolkit together and looking into more actual plays vs. getting distracted on FD scalps. I see the appeal, it’s a rush for sure, but I’m glad I lost on them in a way. If I’d hit it huge on some irresponsible play it probably would’ve made these bad/risky habits worse, better to learn conservatism down here and nip all that in the bud.

39

Alright, today wasn’t profitable, but it was a big improvement over last week, the two bad trades I took were going against my plans for the day, just reiterates the importance of making those plans and sticking to them. I really, really gotta hand it to Jekyll for introducing LuxAlgo to this community, I know any one indicator or tool can not be the end all be all of trading, but damn if this doesn’t come close, especially combined with Mimir’s ever-growing functions with news, the ‘tr-’ commands, everything. Looking back on the day, if I’d followed the setup as planned I would have been green, so I am very, very optimistic going forward. Literally, if I’d entered on a Strong signal when it’s matching up with 2 or more other criteria, like a Strong and a flipped oscillator and over bought/sold RSI, or a MA bounce, or netflow backing the trend etc etc, I’d have won every SPY and large cap trade I looked at today. Excited to keep nailing down what does and does not work, I know there’s a lot of potential left to unlock, I know it’s going to be hard, but I am determined.

Still do have to work on exits though, I’m thinking of ways to get around my nervousness while holding FDs, the major swings spook me so I end up letting them go at the first sight of green. Meanwhile, I’ll look at a red position and think “It’ll probably come back” and watch cash melt away. Usually cutting right before the candles I wanted to see finally pop up too, but that’s just how it always seems… Getting better with all that, I suppose the only thing that can really improve this is either to stop scalping completely or keep easing in and getting more comfortable with the volatility.
I am also thinking of different ways to help mitigate those feelings of holding a bomb that could blow at any second, either by going with further out, in or near the money strikes, or both. When I even begin thinking about holding SPY overnight I start thinking about sub-optimal entries and what if it gaps the other way and what if blah blah blah blah blah. Just gonna have to continue trading and nailing down a process that works. It may take time, but it will be extremely worth it, gaining all this knowledge is literally invaluable. :pepepray:

Scalped today:

1x SPY 5/27 400c 4.01->3.40 (watched the charts all day til 12:30, decided to go in on this off only one piece of my criteria. I knew Bostic was supposed to be speaking, so I was also going up against unknown news. This would have come back after a few hours, though it didn’t feel that way at the time)
1x SPY 5/27 390p 3.45->3.65
1x SPY 5/27 396p 5.22->4.95 (the other bad trade, again, would have come back before EoD. Need to stop treating this contracts like they’re cursed and let them play out)
1x SPY 5/27 390p 3.60->3.65
1x SPY 5/27 380p 1.00->1.05
1x SPY 5/27 390p 3.05->3.08
Account Balance: $2,602.09 (-$49.76, -1.88%)

Yeah, yeah, I know…I gotta let more than $5 profit come in on positions. Exits are tough for me, as I mentioned above…especially when volatility is high but ranging, it’s the only green the position has seen so far, and it looks to be only touching the level, not falling/breaking through. However, all these positions would have been profitable if I let them breathe (again), and I “only” fumbled two today. Not great, but small and steady improvements will add up the same as slowly getting lazy eventually ends with $0. As long as I’m not blowing up my account and continue to improve on exits, I count a day like today a win (for now, as I continue to improve entries and exits I certainly will not continue to settle for a day like this. This compounding thing works both ways…).

The recurring theme for me the past few weeks has been “The buy wasn’t wrong, the timing was”, and that’s something that can be fixed with time and experience. I may have lost $50 today, but I feel good about the future, strategies and processes are really starting to come together, with more to come. Would be nice to get Lvl. 3 Options on WeBull to open up the various spreads, especially with something like SPY where backing out to the chain and into a contract on the other side or date can end up costing quite a bit in premium (or maybe the Delta doesn’t end up as neutral as it was 20 seconds ago, etc etc etc…having it all available in one buy would be fantastic, but maybe the tradeoff for being able to close same day under $25k is worth a little inconvenience for now).

40

Better day again, almost got pinched with AAPL puts, but I was able to average them around for a few bucks profit. Decided to grab another on that EoD pump to try and hold for a cool off tomorrow, hoping IV doesn’t screw it though. Otherwise SPY scalps and a JWN put, tried filling a 22.5c but it was 4pm as I was adjusting the mid to slap the ask on it, the damn spread was like 30 or 40 cents on the calls. 6/17 and 20p so, with some maintenance and luck, it may be alright.

Scalping
1x SPY 5/27 390p 4.58->4.65
1x SPY 5/31 380p 3.44->3.53
1x AAPL 5/27 140c 2.18->1.84 (first loss of the day, I bought this and a put on consolidation and cut this once a Sell popped up and we started going down fast…started coming back up faster though, and escaping the puts was a bitch, but I did it just barely)
2x AAPL 5/27 135p 1.33, 1.47->1.45
3x AAPL 5/27 138p 2.10, 2.13, 1.83->2.15, 2.05, 2.14 (these were the ones that were sketchy to get out of, that last average down was what made this not a loss. Still held through for much longer than I wanted to intending to scalp real quick in and out)

Overnights/Swings
1x JWN 6/17 20p 2.22 (Welp, shit. lol. I got nervous by the gap above as well and went to get a call for the other side of this EoD, but spent too long in Optionstrat finding the right one. Mid didn’t get filled, 4pm ticked over as I was hitting the Ask. Oh well, there’s time and plenty of room for this to fall back down. Maybe better to get that overhead gap out of the way. Maybe hopium)
1x AAPL 6/03 138p 2.80 (while I expect some bullishness to continue this week, I also expect the volatility to continue, and I doubt a single touch of 380.50 means recession’s over and all that. Will average if necessary, but this should end up profitable sometime this week, unless we just go on a huge run…)

Account Balance: $2,624.58 (+21.93, +.084%)

improvement! Just gotta keep working on my patience and taking my time with entries and exits. I’m still sometimes jumping the gun thinking I’m seeing what’s mayyybe about to come instead of letting the patterns finish out and playing what’s actually happening. Keep working on the process, curb the FOMO when you see the big moves starting and take a look back at how usually you’d have been profitable if you had just let the plays play out, and just all in all stay aware of the flaws and continue trying to improve them. Also remember that a month ago you had three daytrades a week. Yeah, the market is a lot different right now and holding stuff isn’t an attractive idea, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a middle ground to be found for my account size. Just stay alive as all this gets ironed out, the first week or two of scalping was a disaster, this week is getting better, keep refining the processes and don’t get blown out in the meantime.

Going by the volume this week, I swear it’s just us and the algos still trading lmfao. I want to look into better ways to play volatility, there’s UVXY which I’ve dabbled around in before, but it would be nice to bet on big moves that you expect but don’t know the direction. I suppose that’s what strangles etc are for, but I mean more like somehow actually trading the VIX. Will have to research a bit into all that.

Why did I hold JWN? I usually don’t hold through earnings, this was somewhat gamble-y behavior again. Time’s on my side with these, but still. Stay aware of that, don’t fall back into jumping into plays half cocked looking for a quick buck. Did I even look at their expected EPS etc? I actually don’t think I did. Think on that tonight. in any case, I should have set the strangle up in optionstrat first, before buying the put without really even looking at the call side. Was literally 5 seconds too late on grabbing that 22.5c hedge against it. Hopefully the further out date and (now just somewhat) close to the money strike will give me the chance to escape this postion, and maybe even green. Big time :pepepray: on a massive profit taking dump before another FOMC dump, I doubt somehow the market just stays ripping for two full weeks, but irrational longer than liquid and all that… just stay careful, tighten up risk.

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