Another ATH Since July 9-22-24

SPX and YM made new ATHs after FOMC's 0.5pts rate cut. Techs and small caps were legging behind. The 0.5 pts cut surprised the experts who expected a 0.25 pts reduction. The futures market staged a strong rally the night after the announcement. SPX gapped up over 5700 and ended the day up 95 pts, +1.7%. It closed the week holding above 5700. Next week is critical to see if the Bulls can keep it running. 

IBQ Netliq is down from 102K to 90.3K, -13%. It falls below the 100K mark again. The realized P/L is $48561 with a couple of SPs closed. The collected cash is -$2589. I bought a Dec 6000 call for $4.2K to hedge the uptrend. I closed the NVDA long for 250% gains the day before FOMC. The SPX long calls paid off on FOMC day. The rest of the longs didn't work out well. The options' value increased by 12K, 2.5% from -525K to -537K. The delta went down from -362 to -213. The leverage is up from 673 to 810. VIX is down from 16.8 to 16.1. The total positions are C7-2 and P7-2. I need to keep them at the current levels. There were 82 trades in the monthly Opex. Some of the trades went back to July of this year. The commission cost is $316. I didn't add any 1-1-2 due to the FOMC, and low netliqs this week. There is still 1 SC deep ITM. 

IBP is in a similar situation. The rally relieved the SP side but pushed the SC DITM. I was able to exit 2 more SPs after closing the old ones. There are 5 SCs and 4 SPs into next week. The realized P/L is -$21693. The cash collected is -2609. I had to pay to roll the SCs. The cost of failing to take stops early on. 

Lessons and Plan:

1. I made progress in adding Stop-loss orders to every new position. Luckily none of them were tested this week. I shall release them instead of waiting for the alerts next week. I am sure the stop-loss will happen when the market condition changes. I am still working on dealing with my fear of losing. I don't like the feeling of losing subconsciously. Losing is part of trading. 

2. I continue to work on the sense of accountability and self-discipline. It's a long process of changing my old habits at the subconscious level. 

3. I shall stay calm and focus on my emotions during the market hours.