It is exceptionally rare that I can honestly type the following words, but here goes: every decision I made today was the right one. This list is not exhaustive but, among these actions are:
- Selling SPY puts promptly after the market opened (Made 118%; by day’s end, they were worthless)
- Selling April DIA puts (which means all my options have at least until June for expiration now)
- Judiciously trimming some larger options positions for more even-handed risk
- Closing IBIT position and instead buying bonds by way of TLT
- Tidying up the stop-loss levels of every single position.
I guess when the permabulls at Zerohedge made their top story going ‘tactically bearish‘ the writing was on the wall………this is truly Gartman level:
Today is a perfect example of how one uses the self-assigned grade in Trader’s Diary: I’m going to give myself a straight A. Is it because I made a ton of money? Not at all! My profits were modest! Instead, it’s because I handled myself beautifully. I feel like freakin’ Fred Astaire.
By the way, my one and only long position is TLT, the bonds, which ended the day with a nice profit.
I was doing my live show when everything popped green, so I spent most of the show wondering what in the holy hell just happened. It turns out that it was just a few words from our stable genius President in a phone interview: ““I think the war is very complete, pretty much.”
I have a couple of remarks about this quote:
- As usual, who TALKS like this? Very complete pretty much? Huh? Is he still mastering English?
- More importantly………the market completed reversed based on HIS WORD? Are you kidding me? Trump is arguably the most dishonest man to have ever been born, and those words reversed a multi-trillion-dollar global equity slide? People are even dumber that I thought! OMG!
Setting aside all that, the market is deliciously, magnificently set up to resume its fall. Here is the SPY:
Here is the QQQ:
And here is the IWM:
Last night, when I was mentally calculating my profits today, it was insane. I actually don’t feel one iota of disappointment that my real-life profits were smaller because, again, I handled myself great. After the close, I remained medium-exposed (a little under 100% committed overall) with WAY less risk from a time perspective.
I think I’ll go lie down for a while!
