Hey Guys,
The market had a strong upward push in the last 24 hours. We've seen this dance before. The market takes a big abrupt dive, there are lots of jitters among investors like us, then it ends up booming back. The market over the last year shown this tendency many times.
And that exemplifies why I stick to the plan even when the market gets turbulent. When the market was down earlier this week, there were tough emotions involved for many of us, like fear and frustration. And when we entered trades a lot of positions went against us right out of the gate. There was a feeling of "messiness" to me in a lot of ways. And yet by sticking to the plan, today we are reaping some rewards. It doesn't always happen that way, and there is real risk with each trade since there's no way to predict with certainty what the market will do next. But staying in lock step with the back-tested trading plan, even during market turbulence, proved to be beneficial this time.
Across all accounts, my unrealized account value is up about 10% from where it was to start the week. I had 4 options trades reach their profit targets in the last 24 hours. Also my stock position on AZN hit its profit target and one of my futures trades reached its profit target. A lot of my remaining positions went up in value as the market went up.
There are a couple outliers though. My stock position on WTRG and my option position on YUM are both down big and did not take a ride back up with the market.
I only took on one new position today. I bought stock for WAB in the low-priced account. In the main account I didn't have any buying power at the start of the morning, but since there were two positions that hit their profit targets it opened up some space. So I'm ready for more positions in that account and the others. I'm just waiting for trades to set up. WAB is the only one from the watch list that has triggered today so far.
If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you.