After 9:55am, I Proceeded to Trade Over 100 Times *

It was my second most active trading session since I’ve made my portfolio public back in 2021.

This is what the market did today, way up and then all the way back down.

I had an especially vicious open due to an earnings miss with MTZ down 15% and a 20% weighted UVIX down 10%. I closed both positions out near session lows — not because I enjoy to sell at session lows — but because I lacked the eternal fortitude to hold. Part of my super-presence in the market stems from my malleability, neither hot or cold about anyone thing for too long. My caprices shift with the tide, in spite of my deep desires to see it burn. When things move against me, I tend to avoid conflict and move out of the way. You could argue this is a form of cowardice, not being able to hold firm. On the other hand, financial markets isn’t a battlefield — but instead a parlor where men of industry cavort and set prices for associates businesses. Ego, in my experience, will rack you with losses. At times, ego can and will make you extraordinary rich. I’ve tried almost every method since trading back in the early 90s and found that this method of chaotic shifting works best for me.

I conducted 139 trades today — not out of boredom or desperation — but an attempt to catch lightening in a bottle. There have been times I have done this and turned big down days around. Today was not that day.

Early on I kept hedges on and traded long. And then I towards the end of the day when markets were diving, I took a shot and went 50% short. The portfolio was jumping 10bps per minute and it wasn’t long before I realized I had missed the big move — so I closed most of the shorts out.

But because the market has truly reversed from what analysts said was a ‘Goldilocks’ jobs number, I reapplied some shorts at 30% of my portfolio and then built some longs around it.

I kept 25% cash and consider today a non-event in as far as expectations. When I wrote “done at 9:55” today — I didn’t mean I was done trading per se — but that my chances of reversing my doom was extremely limited to nil. I closed almost exactly where I opened, -3%. I tried my best to make it happen — but for every pop there was a drop and due to my lack of grit in keeping that UVIX position, which not only recovered the losses but went higher by 7% — I stand before you a profound and pathetic loser. Had I fucked off and went to exercise my knees — I’d been up today talking shit about how the American economic experiment since 1776 had ended and there was nothing that you or your stupid friends can do about it. Instead, I am 4% in the hole for August and now forced to trade my way out of a market that is apparently and inexorably unstable in both directions.

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