No, no, not you. (Unless you're Ned). Me.
In spite of my three rules being very simple and easy to understand, I tend to blow it on the second rule ("never do an ad hoc close") way more than I should.
This morning I closed out my IWM and SPX puts (both at a profit) simply "because." Well, to be fair, the reasons were more than that, but none of them were based on technical analysis. I am a genius at justifying why I should sell certain positions; some of you might hear yourselves with this kind of self-talk: "Well, the market is down a lot this morning. I should take a profit while I can. And these are September puts. You don't want to hold onto September puts, do you? After all, these are the only Septembers you have. If you sell these, you can take your profits, and you can be devoid of any Septembers. Wouldn't that feel good?"
About sixty seconds after I sold these, the market plunged another 100 points.
I am writing this not just to bellyache or self-flagellate, but to say that even with an "expert" like me who has been doing this for a couple of decades, screw-ups still happen.
And, setting all this aside, let us remind ourselves not to become enamored of the material things of this world. Love and truth are timeless. Beauty fades……….and can even become terrifying.
