Mindful Trader Commentary For February 17, 2023


Hey Guys,


The market showed strength again for the first part of the day yesterday, and then in the last hour and overnight it completely deflated. The S&P 500 is around 4,060 right now.


That's the second week in a row where the market had a big drop right when I had a large slate of options reaching their time limits. It had a big impact on the profitability of those positions.


When I saw that unfold late yesterday, my first feeling was one of frustration. Despite all the work I do on mindfulness, I still sometimes feel the tough emotions that come with trading just like everyone else. What I'm pretty good at is rebounding from that feeling.


These are things I reminded myself after that jolt of frustration showed up:


1) There have been many times where at the last minute the market has gone the other way and given me a boost right when my trades are about to expire. I can choose to proactively remember those.


2) I'm in lock step with the back test. I'm using a strategy that has decades of evidence of strength.


3) Ultimately with options, I had a breakeven week. It's not a terrible situation. It stung to see the profits disappear in the blink of an eye at the end in the last hour of trading yesterday, but I am, after all, always the one saying that there's no benefit to getting emotionally involved in a trade's outcome until the trade is actually over. And yesterday was a great example of that.


I picked up new positions today. In the main account, I bought shares of SPY and TER. In the options account, I bought positions for KKR and MRVL. In the double down account, I bought stock positions for SIVB and ADBE.


I was excited to see that position for SPY set up today. That means the market as a whole is setting up for this pullback trading strategy I use. Let's see if the trade works out in our favor this time around.


If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you.


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