New year, new trading philosophy. Got my start last year buying in late on GME and losing 66% before I cut the bags at $100 before the stock dropped to $40. Made the money I lost back by flipping penny stocks, only to take another, smaller hit on the second GME run. Cut those bags early, and learned about options.
My first option play was buying ATM and slightly OTM RKT options at open the day it ran. First one’s free right? I ended that day up $120k, from my $8k investment. I held overnight, ended up selling the next day for $50k. Proceeded to double that shortly after on GME 800c, and then promptly lost it all over the next few days thinking I’d found the golden ticket.
Spent the next few months playing shit from reddit, sometimes making money, typically losing money. Found Valhalla in late September I think, and actually made some money. By this point I was a little more conservative because I knew how easy it is to lose. Actually cashed out green on ESSC #1 and sold my position around $22-23. Learned a hard lesson that I’ll stick to the next day, which is not re-entering plays. Learned the lesson about covering cost on ESSC #2, I was cocky and waited to cover cost thinking it was gonna at least run to $18-20.
So, lessons learned, switched to a cash account so I don’t have to hold shit overnight. I’ll probably update this once a week or so unless something crazy happens. I think it’ll be helpful to have something I can look back on to review what went right, what went wrong, and maybe catch any bad habits I might slip into.
PYPL calls for 14% (had to average down, and thankfully took profit because that shit dumped and hasn’t recovered)
WEBR puts for 12%
XLY puts for 45% (sympathy play on AMZN leading into earnings)
ASTR calls for 33%
SPY calls for 25% (averaged down on the hamburger dump, could have held out for 55% but you can’t worry about that. EOD dump made me feel much better about selling, and has allowed me to enjoy a stress-free weekend)
What went sideways:
SONY puts day of the halt (put a bid in during the halt, saw SONY shoot up, got a fill, and immediately got filled for a sell at my buy price. stupid gambling)
What went wrong:
BBBY puts for a 25% loss (bought some last Friday, averaged down Monday morning, cut on the first pump. this was the right move, as the puts never did get back up to my sell price. I had WAY too large a position, and was WAY too confident it would dump by open Monday)
BITO puts for a 25% loss (didn’t think bitcoin would keep pumping like it did. again, cutting was the right move, as the puts haven’t yet gotten back to my buy price and I used that money to make profitable plays after)
MVIS puts for a 14% loss
Still holding a couple F April calls which are still green, and a couple red ESSC calls. I’ll assess these two next week, but I’ll be happy selling for a little green. If Ford shows some strength I’ll hold those for a little bit, but planning on selling the ESSC if there’s any momentum. Not really invested in the gamma squeeze at this point.
All-in-all, I’m up on the account 21% this week. Typing those plays out made me realize I entered more than I’d like to, but they were mostly small positions. Pretty happy, and I feel I learned a lot this week.
Man that was a quick week. Rough week personally for trading, ended up losing week over week but managed to recover so I’m still up on my account from when I started this journal.
What went right:
SPY calls early in the week
ASTR calls
UPS call
TSN puts
CVS puts
SPY calls again
What went sideways:
CCL puts that I bought too early, averaged down on, and finally sold on the dump today for breakeven
multiple quick scalps for a few bucks a pop
BKKT puts I held or a day or two and got out for a small loss (again, underestimating sentiment)
F calls I bought after the earnings dump and ended up selling for a small loss
What went wrong:
BITO puts the day of the BTC run (underestimated the strength of the pump)
ESSC calls I finally dropped
SENS calls I bought yesterday (small position thankfully)
PTON puts (lesson learned on being overconfident that a company should dump)
NKLA puts
ASTR calls sold after the first failed launch (could have sold for profit if I’d held, but not sure I’d have held til then – shouldn’t have entered since I wasn’t confident in a continued run up to launch)
I think I’ve finally learned 1) no need to enter plays if I’m not confident in the why, and 2) not everything that pumps must come down in a reasonable timeframe. Playing puts on pumps is the pinnacle of trying to time the market, and I sure as hell ain’t there yet.
I’m starting to see I’m most successful with SPY if I don’t fight the trend, only trade intraday (but still buying myself at least a week of time), and sell for reasonable profit (15-30%, not holding for baggers). Do I miss out on extra profit? Sure (see 453p I sold yesterday for 15%). But money cashed out beats bags held every time.
All in all, I’m up 4% since starting this last week. For how this week went, it could have been way worse. Gains are gains and all that. On to next week. Like the fact that unlike last week, I’m 100% cash gang. Monday open saw a good chunk of my unrealized gains from last week disappear.
It’s 2 hrs to market close and I still have settled cash I could trade, but I’m making the responsible decision to be done for the week so I can focus on a couple chores and not check the market. Completely cash gang going into next week, with the Russia-Ukraine situation, possible (even if temporary) gas drops due the Iran deal, I just don’t feel like holding over the weekend. Is it possible LMT and/or XOM could pop Tuesday because Russia got aggresive? Sure. Do I care I’ll miss out? No. This is growth.
What went right:
BKKT puts (missed market close day before earnings or I would have taken the 30%, ended up getting 100% at open which was great)
SPY puts (in and out all week)
XOM calls (in and out all week)
LMT calls (in and out all week)
What went sideways:
LMT calls today (my final swing today was stressful, lots of averaging down and finally selling for like 3% profit. was my cue to quit for the day)
What went wrong:
SPY calls (bought a few SPY calls yesterday thinking I could scalp a bounce that never came. cut them at -10%, which I got lucky they even bounced back to before continuing the drop)
KSS calls (bought off a Thots callout, cut them at -10% because I wasn’t really feeling the play)
My successes this week far outweighed the two minor losses, and the plays I did lose on I never bet enough to lose what I’d already gained that day. This might be my first 5/5 green week, and I’m esctatic. Buying at support, selling the pops, averaging down smartly all led to very good plays. I’ve learned an absolute fuckton here and I’m forever grateful I found Valhalla.
Oh, and my account is up 79% these past 3 weeks. Not Conq numbers, but who needs Conq numbers when you have 79% in 3 weeks? Hell yeah.
I lied, I ended up getting a good fill near EOD on LMT 395c and scalped it for $10. Rounded out my account total to a nice number.
This was dumb and I don’t condone it, but the fill was good enough I’d have rested easy holding it over the weekend. I’m currently several drinks deep into weekend celebrations.
Was busy this weekend working on a final project for a programming class and forgot to update this log. For what it’s worth, I finished that project this morning and could’ve damn near cried because it was finally finished. Anyway, I ended the week holding some RSX puts and a SPY put that I sold at open this morning for a nice gain and a +50% on my account. I was roughly 50% cash at the time if that puts it in perspective. Overall my account is up 238% to date, with no risky plays that will put that in jeopardy by EOD.
What went right:
UNG calls, USO calls, MRO calls (sold the MRO at almost 50% profit on that opening spike before they died)
SPY puts (several times)
OZON puts for a little profit (didn’t hold over the weekend)
What went sideways
RSX puts early in the week that I sold at breakeven when it was tracking SPY and not dumping like it should
What went wrong:
XOM calls sold at a slight loss early in the week
BNO calls sold at a slight loss
SPY puts Thursday (blown out, kept averaging down and sold for a loss. Lost roughly half the gains I made that day)
So I was in on the “big play” and saw almost 50% gains on my account that day. I ignored my own advice to take a breather and not jump into shit, and ended up getting blown out on SPY puts which I sold for a loss EOD that day. SPY didn’t dump Friday so cutting was a good move in hindsight. A better move would have been to sit on my hands or forgo averaging down, but that post-success confidence is a bitch. I ended the week holding some RSX puts I was down on, but resolved to not dump the rest of my cash in to average down. While obviously this would have paid handsomely, it would have been irresponsible and reckless and I’m glad I didn’t. I still made hella good money and next time it’ll be all that much easier to keep a reasonable position size.
We’re already off to a good week this week so I hope this weekend’s update is good.
Made a little more money this week after Monday, and positioned myself for what I hope are some good plays this coming week.
What went right:
FCX calls
VALE calls
CCJ calls
RSX puts
WEAT calls
CTIC puts that I scalped for profit and reentered at a lower price than my initial buy
SPY put
What went sideways:
CCL calls ealier this week that I had to average down a LOT on and sell on an opening pop to scratch out a little profit
CRM call I luckily sold for $10 profit before it tanked before close on earnings day
SPY call that I sold for breakeven before it broke down
What went wrong:
LMT put
UNG calls (could’ve held and sold for profit, only took a small loss though)
URA calls taken the day before the nuclear plant attack
All in all the account is up 286%. Hell of a run so far to kick off 2022. Holding RSX puts, WEAT calls, CCL april calls, CTIC puts, and an XRT put that I bought based on a lot of whale put buys. Let’s see what this week has in store. Did my taxes this afternoon, and with losing my job and being on unemoloyment last year, and cashing out a portion of my 401k when I moved it to an IRA, I was looking at a $2K bill. Added my new wife (married in October) and we’re getting money back so that worked out well. Oh, and that final programming project I finished on Monday? 110/100. It’s been a good weekend.
Maybe we were due for a setback? I’m not sure but this week sucked ass. Tuesday was bloody for me personally, but I made it up by buying into WEAT, averaging down, then selling the pop. However, hindsight being what it is, I should have just sold it all on the pop instead of letting some ride. I ended up averaging THAT position down, watching it continue to drop, and selling for a substantial loss.
Not doing the typical format this week becuse what went wrong was simple – trying to squeeze too much out of a single play. You get so confident in a ticker’s movements, in its cycles, that you feel way too secure. This leads to overleveraging “because I’ll sell most of this on the next pop” and then that next pop never comes. I thought I had gotten better than this but I guess we all slip up occasionally.
I did get 50% off a BA play from the forums. This was a win. I also had some wins earlier in the week, including SCO calls, BNO puts, a SPY call, and WEAT at one point was a substantial win. Losses included CCL calls, WFC calls, FCX calls (sold all at a loss to get into WEAT, and made that money back and more on WEAT), and then the big WEAT loss.
Currently holding FDX for thot’s earnings experiment and RSX puts that I’m hoping won’t expire worthless. If they do, I’ll still be slightly above where I started this journal, so not a total loss. Currently sitting on 149% gains. Here’s to next week.
Made a little money yesterday. Sold the FDX at breakeven because the market was looking weak, and so far that was a good move in hindsight because the market was, in fact, weak.
Bought an FXI 4/14 26p, sold it later for +20%.
Bought a SPY 3/16 420c, sold it shortly after for +10%.
Near EOD bought an AMD 4/14 110c, 2 FXI 4/14 25p, and 3 GGPI 4/14 10c. AMD is down a dollar from close at the moment, GGPI is about even, and FXI is down 4.20% (nice). Not worried about the GGPI, AMD has plenty of time to pop assuming the market doesn’t completely shit itself even more, and the FXI should open up nicely.
Gonna try updating this daily to maybe discourage myself from making stupid plays.
Couldn’t update yesterday as I went, so here’s the recap.
Scalped SPY 3/23 431p for +15%.
Bought 1 more AMC put to avg down a little more, then trimmed the position to lower cost basis when AMC dropped. Currently holding 3 @ .42 average.
Bought 1 BNO 4/14 27c @ 2.00
China rally fucked my 3 FXI 4/14 26p which closed 78% down. Will trim these if they get less red, doubt they hit profit but we’ll see. The BMY 4/14 70c is down slightly but plenty of time to rebound, and the HYMC puts are just slightly red but I’m confident those will be sold green. Submitted an SEC complaint about the RSX situation.
Haven’t updated in a week and given the refocus on the forum, today’s a good day to get back in the swing of things.
Took some hard hits with WEAT, RSX, and the market in general last week. Thankfully, today we opened up green with BNO, SPY, and UVXY. I sold all of this at open.
Bought 2 AMC 4/1 20c after that, sold them for 25%. Bought an AMC 4/1 22c and have an open order to sell it for 25%, but if it doesn’t fill I’ll hold til tomorrow.
Currently up 33% on the account on the day, which puts me at 12% up since starting this journal. Pretty much back slightly ahead of square one, but with some lessons learned that I’ve documented in here and will not be repeating. Plus, TD lowered my commissions to .50, which is the least they could do for fucking me with RSX.
I like the direction leadership wants to take things with Valhalla and am completely on board, and with all the trials we’ve faced lately there isn’t anybody that could convince me this isn’t the best trading community in the world. Love you guys.
That AMC call sold while I was typing this. Up 33% and all cash at the moment.
Been a while since I opened this journal, had a rough couple weeks. Between RSX, some bad plays after, and overplaying AMC and GME I had a bad time. Took a week off TF last week and didn’t do much, needed a break to get re-centered.
Read up on Thots’ challenge, liked the simplicity and focus on taking quick, small profits, and am trying that out for the time being to get back into the swing of things. After closing positions Tuesday morning, I’ve been exclusively buying SPY/QQQ and setting sell limits for a couple percentage points.
Today’s plays:
SPY 4/22 443p $3.82 → $4.10 +7% in 6 min
SPY 4/22 446c $2.22 → $2.30 +3.5% in 7 min
After three days, I’m up 19.5% from my cash balance Tuesday morning. With the market being choppy, it’s been a huge stress relief to just play the current direction and get out and be done for the day within the first 1-2 hours of market open. Today’s total market exposure was about 13 minutes.
I was a little loose with my percentages, capping out at 7% after watching the movements for a minute, and will look to tighten that up to reduce the risk. All-in-all, super appreciative of Thots testing this method out and sharing it. I’m not following her plays, but just playing support/resistance on the big ETFs. So far it’s been nice, easy money, and the gains add up.