 Hey everyone welcome to this week's video update today's Saturday morning April 13th Hope everybody had a good week of trading Let's take a quick review of the markets, and then we'll jump into my trades for the week. All right, so Vicks Popped its head above 19 briefly before retracing and settling in at 17.31, but that's the highest Vicks print That we've seen since October Basically end of October about the 27th or 30th was when we were higher so Will this volatility continue? Well, that's the magic question, right? I guess it depends on a lot of different factors You know what's gonna go on with Iran and Israel. What's gonna go on with the Fed? I think the the Middle East war situation was was the bigger Factor for the spike here on Friday in the Vicks But we'll see what happens, but the reality is we have as premium sellers. We have some higher juiced up premiums, which is nice S&P obviously on the downside Gave back all the gains that it's accumulated for the last month basically NASDAQ not quite as weak relative to its recent lows, but still a big big down day, especially Friday the Russell puking Dow puking Gold and silver rocking higher gold pushed new all-time high before a big reversal Same with silver Notes and bonds bounced on Friday, but weak overall 10 year yield stronger and a little pullback on Friday settling in at 4.5 to Oil big reversal on Friday kind of sideways for the week natural gas A little back and forth on the week soybeans Bounce on Friday, but down for the week same with wheat corn sideways Euro and the pound really weak Wednesday Thursday and Friday versus a strong US dollar and then Bitcoin Pullback on Friday to the tune of about down almost 5% settling in at 67,000 445 all right, so let's jump into my trades So it was a a red week for me My normal trades overall were down net net down And then I just had I had one big just stupid Blundered discretionary trade that I'll talk about too. All right, so let's start with zero DTE on the AM trades three of those Two losers one winner minus 3k on those In my challenge portfolio Which is my one DTE my ricks and my re-entry zero DTE's If I look at just the challenge portfolio together down about 10 5 If I break these down by the different categories, I've got my one DTE was green Three out of four trades winners plus 2100 my re-entries Well, let's do one on the one-to-ones a little bit red minus 1500 the three twos really got hit down 19 And then just one day of power hour And that was on Thursday Yeah, the 11th That was a winner my plus 8500 on those No ricks this week. No Mahomes. No FOMC my one DTE hedge Two winners two losers net red Come back to that one Ndx So Ndx was red for the week should have been green shoulda coulda woulda On this one, I did have a bot error where it picked the wrong width on my strikes Instead of fixing it I decided to let it go and then we had a huge drop and so I closed it out and wouldn't you know it It would have bounced back and been a winner. So that was a that was a $2,600 loss that should have been a $2,000 winner so But read on those for the week My power hour outside of my challenge portfolio get all these checked Red for the week. Let me uncheck that one Yeah, minus 4600 you can see the ninth and 10th were we're pretty bad and then I Had a little winner on the 10th there and then the 11th and 12th were green For power hour My PM trades good just had two Basically two trades But they were good One was the PM tranches that I do So all those hit for plus 4200 and then a PM update iron condor for 3,000 so plus 7,000 on those trades all together My price action Iron condors Four for four plus 5,000 on those My quad 41 DTE so this is something that I just started testing you see I'm only doing a couple lots one winner one loser I'll put that on my trade plan if I like it by the end of this month still Quiet midday tranches Just one day all five hit plus 2700 And then my re-entry is outside of my challenge portfolio minus 11k No ricks my O2 call calendar two trades one winner one loser small red and Then my one DTE outside of my challenge portfolio small green All right, so that is zero DTE Let's go to I'll come back to that Iron ducks just one trade Let's get rid of that give her that Just one trade minus 628 Dynamic butterflies Yeah, no no closing trades just one open Dynamic calendars had a good week in calendars only one losing trade and that was a 3 5 DTE all the rest were winners a 3 6 a 3 7 a 4 5 a 4 6 a 4 7 a 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 3 6 7 and a 1 2 That one came off the same day So almost 5,000 on the calendars for the week option selling Got smoked out of a gold trade So lost 4,300 on that had I been a little bit more patient I'd still be in it with that reversal in gold that we saw Friday, but could not hit my exit point So just had to bail So that was a $4,300 loss and then a couple other small winners in ES and MES and then portfolio margin Had it had a close to manage risk had to close a shark for minus 5,000 didn't want to hold that over the weekend Small loser or small winner or $1,400 winner on our verse vertigo and then a small small loser on a Humpty So that is it for my trades. The only other thing I want to talk about is Let's go to there So this is a trade that I took That was just selling puts in SPX Not part of my plan not part of any plan Just decided that I thought I knew something just decided that I knew that I knew price was at a short-term bottom Well, guess what? I was wrong and I was wrong to the tune of 35,000 bucks and so this is You know, this is something that I mean my note to myself. I think kind of says it all one word dumbass so this is this is something that You know, I've been trading for 24 years now and this is something that has Happened more than a handful of times where I will be Doing good following my plan trading my plan Making consistent money. Everything's going great and then I'll open the window to a little bit of discretionary trading and That goes great for the for You know a long time Staying small keeping my position size in check It's actually enhancing the rest of my trading because I'm scratching that discretionary itch Staying more in tune with the markets because I'm following the flow of the markets and trading it and that's all going good and then All it takes is one day where I'm not dialed in I'm not locked in and I go off the rails and do something stupid like this and It's it's happened like I said more than a few times and so Until I can Trust myself again to not do something like this. I am I'm putting myself in time out from any discretionary Directional trades so that includes futures Discretionary directional trades with options whatever it's it's I'm in I'm in time out. In fact, I Haven't decided yet. It may be a permanent ban because I've proven to myself that for whatever reason I have this little guy inside me who rears his ugly fat little head every once in a while and Decides he wants to be a gambler with size and something like this happens so Anyway, you know, I share this with you for a couple reasons a just because I share all my wins and my losses and my Mistakes and everything else and and hopefully it you know if it helps one person who kind of struggles with that same kind of thing You know like I've been trading for 24 years and the fact that this would still happen at this point my trading journey is Extremely frustrating But it is what it is, I guess and and so again that you know until I can figure out How not to have that little lapse in judgment After being so good for such a long period of time Then I just I can't I can't do this because I just I I don't like that I don't like $35,000 losses in one day and one trade for no reason no plan nothing So anyway, if that helps one person, I guess it was worth a $35,000 loss to me You know, it's just so frustrating anyway That's it for me guys. Have a good weekend back at it this coming week back to being a boring mechanical Trader who makes money without stupid mistakes. All right. Have a good weekend everybody. Take care