The year 2022 has been generally downward-sloping, but it sure hasn’t been a steady ride. Indeed, the only sustained trend with any longevity was within the months of April and May. Besides that chunk of time, it’s had a getting-jerked-around feeling to it.
In spite of all appearances, the purpose of this post isn’t for me to whine and bleat. It is instead to express my experience with the hope that some of you, having gone through the same, will recognize you are not alone.
I’m going to be lazy and put this in bullet points:
- I built up a decent profit early this year, only to see it completely vanish. That was a VERY bad feeling, because working really hard and have nothing to show for it is not rewarding.
- Later in the year, I again re-built up a similar profit, only to see it get blown to smithereens. That’s an even WORSE feeling. There is a reason the tale of Sisyphus is so potent with humanity.
- About a month ago, my profit peaked at over 80% (for a brief minute or two, it was actually over 90%), but on the whole, it has swayed between 50% and 75% for the past month.
- I do not – – I’ll say it again, do NOT – – want to have a third “gosh, where’d all my profits go?” experience. That is the main reason I have adopted a very conservative (relatively speaking) trading style of deep in-the-money positions that have about five hundred years until they expire.
- A Sloper recently reached out to note that my profits would be much higher if I didn’t get such deep-in-the-money options and sought expirations that were, let’s say, one month out instead of six. He’s absolutely right. But my fear of getting clobbered outgain has bested my greed.
The main feeling I’m getting right now is that we are STUCK, STUCK, STUCK, and I was really hoping this week’s inflation data would wrench us out of that rut. Nope! We’re as stuck as ever! So at this point, the earnings season seems to be our only hope…………and it sure hasn’t moved the dial much either!
But at least it’s only just started.
