Hey Guys,
The market had a really volatile weekend session over the 3-day weekend. The S&P 500 futures (MES) had a 150-point swing. Things are turbulent right now.
One of my MES futures positions hit its stoploss during the weekend session. I also closed out several trades this morning that reached their time limits. Most were losses, although XOM fought the trend and gave me a victory. VMW gapped way down, which wasn't great since I had two different stock positions for it that reached their time limits this morning.
With the market being down and some of these trades taking losses, it can bring up tough emotions. It means we're in a drawdown, and there is a large degree of concern in the air about where the market will go from here. It's helpful to remember that these sorts of tense conditions have happened many times before. The back test already accounts for periods of volatility like this going back over 20 years. The back test suggests that historically, over the long term, it might pay off to keep taking the trades that set up since they're based on historical tendencies.
So even though there might be tough emotions like fear or even anger that come up at times like this, I try to keep the big picture in mind. Ultimately, my goal is to stay in lock step with the back test for the long haul, and I make a conscientious effort to detach from my emotions so they don't derail me from that game plan. Like I always say, living through the drawdowns might be the hardest part about being a successful trader. You don't know when they will end. If we can live through periods like this, it could bode well for our long term prospects, especially if we have a long term edge in our favor.
With the market being down, it set up a lot of trades this morning. In the main account, I bought SRPT and RJF. I also picked up another futures position (for strategy MT 71). In the options account, I took trades for CME and GLW. And in the low-priced account, I grabbed positions for TCOM and GLW.
I did have one options trade reach its profit target as I was typing this email: the one for HSBC. That was one where I sold a naked put. I sold it up front for 62 cents, and I bought it back for 19 cents. It's like the reverse order of the normal process where you buy low and sell high. When selling naked puts, you hope to sell high and buy low. That's how it worked out with this trade on HSBC, and I walked away with a profit of 43 cents per share ($43 per contract).
On the GLW options trade I posted this morning, I didn't initially indicate a stoploss by mistake. I have since added one (39.76).
If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you.