Ouch! Was I wrong or what!
This week was nasty, and nasty in all the ways that hurt my P/L statement.
To quote myself from last week: “Personally, I think we are still pretty over extended in the near term and will see a correction sooner rather than later.” Well sooner wasn’t the week ending Feb 8th as the market reached all time highs again; all the while I was short /ES.
This week I cleaned up a bunch of long delta’s for profits…. LOL! Again, to quote my very wrong self: “I’ll be looking to take quick profits on any of these positions that I can to basically “get flat” and then reposition accordingly.” I guess the good news is that I was able to capture those long delta’s for profits. My portfolio is now very short delta and positioned how I’d like it. I’ve realized more than 10% gains this year; however I’m sitting on enough unrealized losses to wipe those out in a heart beat. These next two weeks will be very important for the positions I’ve got sitting around – I’m positioned for a drop (loaded up last week), and if it doesn’t occur I’ll need to manage aggressively.
I closed positions in XBI, FXI, XLV, BKNG, INTC, ZM, TLT, FCX, DIS (2x), IRBT, FB, UBER and of course our friend TSLA for profits :). Yes – I’m a sucker and I got back into TSLA. The parabolic move was just too enticing to not fade it. I played it with 0DTE’s on Friday along with a few other ones during the week. I didn’t come anywhere close to unwinding the face ripping damage from a few weeks ago, however I was able to lower the pain during the week :).
So far for the year I’ve done the best with BYND, SPCE, NFLX, DE, VB, DIS and ZM. These have all been very nice trades and have contributed to some really nice profits. TSLA, BKNG, CVNA and AAPL have been my bad guys – all having breached expected moves much more than I thought, and I was just on the wrong side for sure! Oh yeah, and there is /ES with my very short bias for weeks and markets ripping higher – that’s my biggest loser for sure; for the year.
The market still looks extremely over extended to me. It’s odd to see TLT so strong with the SPX so strong; given the negative correlation something smells fishy. Outside of AAPL, AMZN and MSFT the QQQ’s don’t seem to have much holding them up – although those three tickers make up a sizable amount of the Nasdaq.
Right now I’ve got positions open in AAPL, BA, BUD, BYND, CMG, EEM, FDX, FXI, GLD, IBM, INTC, SAFM, SDC, SHOP, SPCE, SPY, STNE, TLT, UNG, VIX, WMT, XBI, XLE and XLV – that’s a bunch! Its about a 1/3 profitable, 2/3 unprofitable split right now with my biggest pain being in the SPY (very, very short bias) and BA (that thing turned against me hard this week).
I’m still short /ES into the weekend. The Coronavirus news doesn’t look like it’s getting any better and it wouldn’t shock me for a minute to see the market sell off hard again – the plethora of Feb 21 expiration SPY puts I have hope it occurs in the next 13 days 🙂
SPX selling was nicely profitable again this week even though the markets moved quite a bit. My favorite little statement in my transaction log is Removal of XXXXXX due to expiration when it is for profitable selling of options. Friday was a bit worrisome for some of my positions as the SPX dipped into my short PUT wing for a bit – however closing is all that ultimately matters on those!
Plan for next week – ideally we have a strong pull back and I can remove some risk from the portfolio; If not, I’ll be adding some more long delta’s to neutralize my current posture. Although I just don’t see how we keep going up; the price actions is what it is. I will likely close my /ES shorts on Sunday night if the market doesn’t open down a bunch; I’m holding on for something I think will happen and if it doesn’t materialize that trade is simply a really bad (and expensive) trade. If the market goes down, I’ll add to the short position – yes I’m a glutton for punishment.