Plan: Another very clean session yesterday morning. A slight gap down this morning, but still thirty minutes to go before market open as I write this. SPY right now is very clean, a low of day long, high of day short, open in the middle type of setup. Would need an open near the middle of the channel, and a straight move into a level. QQQ not as clean on the setup, risk is a little wide between previous close and high of day.

Result: Markets with a slight dip down, then hard move to outer levels Booked a loss today on SPY 609 calls as we didn’t get much of a reaction at all at 609.56. If you switch to the 1-minute chart, there was an opportunity to get out close to level, and I did indeed pay myself there. I am happy with my adds into risk, holding and adding near next level, and getting out on the push back up. That takes this trade from a large loss, to a bee sting at around 20% on my cost basis. I cut my total loss in half by adding properly into next area, and getting out on green candles (in this case, the getting out as the market retraced back up). The action went right back up to level to test it underneath, what I call a “head bump”. This could have been a green trade with a little more patience, but hindsight is 20/20. It has taken me years to get better at stopping out, being wrong, losing, whatever you want to call it. Bottom line, sticking to plan, which also includes how to stop out, is the key to longevity as a trader.

With that said, I am still very hard on myself with losses. It’s more of a mindset thing for me that I continue to work on. I know red trades and being wrong is a part of the trading, part of life. Learning from losses is important, and I know I have plenty of room to grow. Trade to trade well, including knowing how to lose.

SPY ended up playing this range perfectly all afternoon before small afternoon squeeze. QQQ played the same way, slicing through first area, finding support at second area. If you break it down, the market is full of if/then scenarios. It is rare (I’d argue 10%) for a first level of support to not get a measurable reaction. It’s even less likely (maybe 5-8 times a year) that the market blows through multiple support levels. Today we bounced and held nicely multiple times at second level.