The Tide Turned In The End 3-26-21

 It was a volatile week, to say the least. SPX swang for 120 points while RUT went through a wild ride of over 200 points. SPX had a big reversal on Thursday and Friday. It closed at 3974.5 nearing the ATH of 3983.8. It's at the top of its weekly range now. On the other hand, RUT is in the lower weekly range and far from its ATH. It closed the second week in red despite the reversal in the last two days. It closed right at its 50 D SMA. QQQ is also below its 50 DSMA but closed above 20 SMA today. The devergences should a factor to watch. April tends to be a positive month seasonally. 

My net liq went through the same swings with the market. It ended at  127K after sending 5K back to ET. The IB account realized 14K profit or more like recovered 14K, slightly better than last week. The leverage is at 319. 

The leaning to the bull side bias is working but was pressured over the big swings in March. The 0 DTE worked OK this week as I am not chasing fills. I am OK with missing a trade. I also had two winners with JO IF. It's a quick trade, win or lose. I will stop trading JO's stock spreads. It's a bit too stressful to sell individual stocks. I will continue to follow and learn his butterflies and other types of trades.  

The Bond Rate Pressures The Market 3-19-21

 The bulls didn't go too far. Both SPX and RUT rallied last week and briefly made new ATHs then fall back in their previous ranges. The media citing the reason is caused by the ten-year bond rate. Tech sectors got hit again. There may not be a meaningful rally without tech participation. Their price actions also seemed to match the seasonality. We will see if the seasonal pattern will play out with a surge in late March. 

My portfolio made a nice improvement. The net liq is at 132K after I paid another 10K back to ET.  I haven't seen this level since January 2020. This week's realized gain is 13K building on the 36K gain of last week. The total gains of the 2 weeks covered the losses of Feb plus the 1st week of March. The leverage is also down to 3.1. I plan to pay another 5K back to ET next week that will make it even for 2021 so far. Of course, I have a long way to go to unwind the deep ITM bear calls. I will continue to balance my delta without adding much portfolio risk. Control the total number of contracts helps a lot. 

I didn't trade much 0 DTE this week due to the price swings that some of my orders didn't get filled. I wait for the prices to come to me and tried not to chase them. I found that 1 DTE may work better if I enter it in the late day. I need to review my old documents. I traded some Shadow Trader and JO 5K. The gains were minimum but learning their styles and keep me more productive.  

The Bulls Are Back 3-12-2021

 The majors booked a green week in the last 4 weeks except for YM which had two weeks. SPX and RUT both recorded new ATHs. RUT has decisively broken out to the new high with near 2% above while SPX just hit the new high with about 10 points but didn't close above the Feb high. Let's see if SPX could follow RUT to make a decisive breakout and break the double top. NQ is far behind the others. It broke out its downtrend and held above it for the 2nd day. But NQ is still below its 50 D MA. Would NQ play catching up or drag the other majors back? 

My net liq recovered handsomely. It ended at 129K after I paid 15K back to ET. The leverage is at 314. Both levels haven't been seen for more than 6 months. I may be able to pay back the 15K loans from January within this month. I think the two risk reversals from bear calls to bull puts that were inline with the uptrend helped. Seasonally the market is back into a bullish period. The rising bond rate is still a concern. But the market tends to climb a wall of worry. 

I finally unwinded the bad 0 DTE trade I made in ETP. The failed stop gave me weeks of pain. I must take the day stop as part of normal trading instead of enduring long-term pain. It will be my turning point in trading. Look at the success stories in the FB group. I can do it if the others can. It takes some self-discipline and change of thinking. 

Surviving A Rough Week 3-5-21

 The majors booked their 3rd losing week. It hasn't happened since the last Feb-Mar pandemic crash. They closed well above the lows this week. The daily movements were volatile this week. Monday was a big up day then followed with three sharp down days. Today was a reversal day. It may start to calm down for now. 

My net liq took another hit as the majors continued falling most of the days. It swings over 10K daily and falls below the baseline often. The leverage was over 5 too. My mistakes of last week continued hurting my net liq. I had to borrow another 15K from ET P to cover my shortfalls in IB. I had to spend $1700 to roll my deep ITM puts and $650 for a weekly hedge due to the sharp selloff. I only recovered about $700 of it last Friday. It's my experience that such ill-timed new positions take several weeks to get resolved. The big reversal this Friday may have put a temporary low for this downturn. The current events such as the pending pandemic relief bill and the treasury rate will continue to cause market swings. 

The Shadow Trade and JO5K didn't work well this week. I voided some trades from ST due to the required large margins. I took a 4x loss on NVDA from JO5K partially due to my indecision of taking stops. 

The Senate just passed the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 Relief bill as I am writing it now. Could the market sell on the news or keep Friday's upswing going?