Santa Is Coming 12-23-21

 Santa finally showed up in this holiday-shortened week. SPX started to rally after retesting the B/O point of 4544 on December 6. RUT  followed the same pattern but in weaker price action. it held the lower range of the year so far and bounced out of 2120. SPX is leading the other majors. It made a closing ATH of 4725. Let's see if the Santa Rally will continue to the year-end. 

My IB Net Liq is up 28.7K to 189K, +15% with SPX up 2%, RUT up 4.5% for the week. The leverage is at 223, down 8% from last week's 244. The realized P/L is -4.3K due to the rollout of SPX, RUT bull puts on Monday before the bounce on Tuesday. The collected cash is $2637, mainly from the IF which is still not unwinded. The personal account collected $632, the 0 DTE didn't get both sides due to the strong trending days. I didn't have new directional trade for this week since it's a short week. The losing NVDA trade unwinded. A lesson of emotional trading learned. 

I put in my stop orders for my 0 DTE trades as I required last week. But I didn't execute any of the IFs. The 1 DTE on Tuesday was a winner. The 0 DTE on Wednesday was busted. I didn't follow my rule of not trading the 0 DTE IF when VIX is above 20. I overtraded in the last two days when the IF was busted. Need to keep a cool head. 

It has been the best year of my trading. I will write a year-end summary and update my trading plan for 2020. 

A Volatile Week Ended Down 12-18-21

 The market had a down week with FOMC induced volatility. The reactions after the FOMC announcement were somewhat surprising. As expected the Fed would speed up its tapering of bond purchasing program and start raising the interest rates in mid of next year. It showed a little more hawkish stand with a projected 3 rate hikes. But all the indices rallied up strongly after the Fed announcement and the conference. I was suspicious about the reaction that afternoon but glad they were rallying instead of tanking. When the futures continued to rally overnight quite strongly I was convinced the rally would continue as the beginning of the Santa Rally. I was totally wrong an hour into the market open on Thursday. The major indices reversed back to the prior day's low. It was a total bull trap on Wednesday. I had a hitch but didn't think it through and make it into a clear backup plan. This is something I need to work on. 

The IB net liq ended down 10.1K to $169,477. The leverage is up to 242 from 230. The realized P/L is $20.5K mainly due to the rollup of RUT 1870C when RUT fell back to the range low of the year. The premium collection was -$262 since I spent $1K to roll the DITM SPX 3300C, and $640 rolling NVDA 290C in panic mode after its 10% pop and before the 100% pullback. It was my biggest mistake this week. The ETP account realized $1,154 P/L. It finally unwinded the rolling positions from the Thanksgiving selloff. It's still not recovered from that 5K assignment. My directional trades lost money for the week. I had too many positions open. I didn't follow strict entry rules and limit my number of trades. In a volatile market, it's easy to lose money since the trend could change quickly. 

I only take one stop-loss this week. It was a new 1 DTE IF system I just learned. I was able to hold my urge to trade more IFs since the VIX is above 20. I must continue to work on the stop-loss setups. I know the rational reasons to do it. I must overcome my psychological fear and pain. Also, I need to train myself to recognize my subconsciousness and bring them out into clear thoughts and plans.   

A Week Of Recovery 12-10-21

 It's a turnaround week for the majors. The market shook off the Thanksgiving selloff. Jumping started on Monday. SPX gained 3.8%, ended at a daily close ATH of 4712. The intra-day high was 4743.8 which was rejected back on Nov 22. It dropped 240 points, 5.2 % until it bounced. RUT is a different story. It closed up 2.4% for the week but is still in a downtrend below its 20 SMA. The breakout in late Oct was faded back to its old range of 2275-2140. Is it a real leading indicator? If so, it's telling us something. NQ is similar to SPX with a 3.6% return for the week. It's also near to an all-time high closing. 

My IB net liq is at 179583, up 29K from last week's 150749. The realized P/L is $7,450, recovered from the loss of -$5,315. So the two-week average P/L is about 1K per week. The premiums collected are $770, thanks to the AAPL long call win. My small accounts recovered nicely with the P/L of $2,993. I am still 7-8K below the high of the year. 

My directional trades were profitable. But many trades were breakeven overall. Most of them were from Shadow Traders. The ones I selected didn't have a very clear setup in trend or breakout like longs were below 20 SMA or still in the VA. I did spend more money on hedgings during this volatile time. I have changed my view of spending money for hedging despite they didn't work out. They made me feel safer and not wait for something to happen. 

I need to continue to work on my selective setups in directional trade. Also, make sure to set stop losses for every trade I enter. I watched Ray Delio's Principles again. It's important to set goals and take a full effort to achieve them. In the process don't be afraid of failing and confront the psychological pains. The stop loss is a typical psychological pain I am afraid of.  I know the reasons to set up stop losses. It's cheaper and safer to take stop losses than keep rolling out. It takes less time and money to recover a stop loss. Period. Those deep ITM short calls are living examples and hard lessons.  

The Bears Attacking 12-3-21

It was a volatile week after the Thanksgiving selloff. SPX and NQ ended down for 2nd week while RUT booked its 4th negative weekly returns after a head fake breakout in late Oct. SPX is down 4.4% from its ATH of 4743. RUT closed at 2159, the low end of the 2021 range. It lost 12% from the ATH, into the correction territory. If the small-cap is a leading indicator then the other indices may have more room to go down. It looks more like the Christmas session of 2018. The pullback lasted until Christmas eve. 

The IB Netliq ended at $150,865 including 20K from ET. The actual number should be 130K. The leverage is above 3 again.  VIX is above 30. My B/P was below 20K several times this week. The account is still overleveraged, especially after I mistakenly added 2 SPs on Monday's fake-out. The P/L for this week is -$5315. The collected premium is $1642. The small accounts suffered losses too. The same mistakes I made with IB. The realized P/L is -11,642. It wiped out several months of my work. I got 3 assignments in SPs. 

I still traded emotionally when the vol is high. I don't have the guts to take stops. the calm market ended but I didn't adjust my practice accordingly. I warned myself to be careful in my journal for the last 2-3 weeks. I will really think it through over the weekend.