Daily Report 24 Aug

So, immediately after talking up a big game about not taking on too much risk I go and do the exact same thing the next day. Except this time I can't salvage the trade. I'm back dating this post because this really shook me up and made me feel like an idiot. Took me awhile to come back and write about my trades.

This one hurt and really made me question what I was doing. Ultimately this was a good thing because I needed to question myself for a long time now. While I did address several bad habits after blowing my account up there was still one critical thing I wasn't doing properly and that was risk management.

On August 24th, I expected the S&P 500 to have another down day and loaded up on puts to cash in on that. That didn't happen and by the time I realized I wasn't seeing a temporary spike I was already deep in the red. I thought I could just make quick trades and stay ahead of market movements but that clearly didn't pan out. I was painfully exposed when the market moved in the opposite direction of my trade.

This is where I realized that I can't count on the market to always fall in line with my theories. I needed to hedge my trades and always be prepared for a reversal. I will have to dedicate an entire post to this because it has so far kept me in the green since this day. Looking back in hindsight this possibly could be the greatest trade I've ever made.

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Rate Hike 21 Sep

I went all out today and loaded up on SQQQ calls with no hedge. The Fed was going to raise rates for sure and I suspected that Jerome Powell would say something hawkish. So I went big and it paid off. This could have blown up on me and been the end of my "Phoenix Account" adventure. My man JPow didn't leave me hanging, told everyone to expect more pain in the future and sent the market into a nose dive. I didn't hang onto my calls for too long. They shot up in value and I decided to lock in my gains and at least be somewhat cautious. $400 is a fantastic gain for an account hovering in the nine hundreds. My next move is the most important one. I can't let this win go to my head. I broke my rule about not swinging for the fences. It worked well today but if I keep making aggressive trades I'll strike out for sure. The rate hike was a special event, still risky, but the reward was high. Now I need to hang onto it.

Tuesday Daily Report 23 August

Today was probably the riskiest trade I've made since starting my new strategy. I was busy at work, missed the market opening, and then decided to make a quick mid-day trade. I entered a SPY put position right as it was plunging. I figured things would drop further and I could be in and out with no issue. That didn't happen. I bought in near the low for the day. This was stupid and risky. See the chart below, I circled about where I bought in. Luckily there was a deeper plunge and I exited my position for a slight gain but that was not worth the risk I took on. If things had gone differently today my gains for the week would've been wiped out. I need to remember that my primary goal is to protect my capital. I would've been better off sitting today out if I didn't have time to monitor things properly. On a positive note at least I survived the day and still made a gain. I've closed out my positions and I'm not very far from bringing my account back into ...

Bad Start for the Week 19-20 September

I started this week expecting another down day but the market had other ideas and SPY rose in value. Thinking this was just a temporary spike I sold my call leg figuring I could take profits then gain on my put when the price retreated. Once again the market didn't care about my wants and held firm into a small closing rally. I locked in a $44 gain but my put was down much more. Normally my rule is to cash out at the end of the day but I felt like this rally wouldn't hold and I could find a better exit on Tuesday. Which was true, the next day things dropped and I was able sell at a $46 loss. This wasn't ideal but with Monday's gain it kept me about even. Turns out I could've waited things out and made a profit for the week but I didn't know that and was starting to worry that the market would launch into a rally going into the Fed announcement.

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