Hey Guys,
The market tumbled again overnight. The S&P 500 is around 3,875 right now.
What a roller coaster of a week for the market! The S&P 500 started at 3,950, got up to 4,180, and then down to 3,875, all in a single week. That's big time volatility in both directions.
I hit the stoploss this morning on my stock positions for WM and MSI. The MSI trade actually gapped down below my stoploss price, meaning it was an oversized loss.
The MSI one was notable for a couple reasons. One is that my fill price on that transaction is well below what the price candle shows in my trading platform or in Yahoo Finance. I somehow got slapped with an exit price that was about $4.00 lower per share than the low of the candle. Every once in a while I see something like that happen, but it's normally not that extreme. I'll probably reach out to my broker to ask about it, but it's unlikely it will change the outcome.
The other notable aspect about the MSI trade was how close it was to reaching the profit target on the first day I owned it, only to see it turn around and hit the stoploss today. That gave me a bit of an emotional charge.
When you look at back tests, you see the overall performance of the strategy but you don't necessarily grasp the emotional challenge of living through all those trades. Things like this have happened plenty of times before according to back tests (where a trade gets close to one exit only to turn around and hit the other exit), but seeing it on paper is much different than living through it with your own money and feeling the emotions.
That's the challenge we're all facing together. I'm right here with you on that. The goal for me is to stay in lock step with the back-tested trading approach through thick and thin, which means tolerating and accepting the emotions that come up along the way.
I picked up a full slate of new positions today. In the main account, I bought AEM and ROST. In the extra options account, I bought options for ABBV and ROST. In the low-priced account, I bought stocks for SAGE and RCII.
If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you.