Hey Guys,
Since my email yesterday, the market has cruised way up. The S&P 500 is just above the 4,000 level, indicating that the bulls haven't yet conceded defeat of this price level.
The timing of that market surge worked out in my favor. I hit four profit targets since my last email: FISV options, HEI and CTLT stock, and MES futures. I also closed a bunch of options positions that reached their time limits and walked away with a nice net profit despite starting the day in the red on my options positions.
I think that gave us a great dose of trading experience to hold on to and remember. Here are things that happened this week:
1) We started the week out in the red. By the end, we were profitable in all accounts.
2) The market itself seemed to break through the bottom of the range yesterday (the support) only to rebound and come back.
3) The HEI trade got so close to the stoploss only to end up with a full profit.
All these things are great examples of how this is a long term game and how it doesn't always make sense to get emotionally invested in short term fluctuations in the market or in your account. I purposely try to remember experiences like this for the next time I'm going through a drawdown or a rough patch. It's like an internal resource; a personal experience I can lean on to remember that things can turn around at any moment and that the short term circumstances don't always dictate the long term outcome.
BP was the only ticker that triggered today. I bought stock for it in the main account and I bought options for it in the options account.
If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you.