Market Volatility Rising --> Do you want the ball in your hands?
My daughter woke me up today at 5:30am. I tried to put her back to sleep but she refused and her tantrums go longer than I can bear. So we just decided to start our day at 6am and that meant that instead of sleeping, I got to look at my phone 182x times as everything continued to spill over.
VIX elevated. Indices seeing 2-3% intraday moves. Crypto experiencing larger rolling 10-25% moves. There's opportunity here and there are many approaches.
Do you want to buy the crash? Do you want to short pops? Do you want to short VXX instruments because the always go to zero? Do you want to trade bubble stocks or tech leaders? Do you want to scalp 10-20 different names and just hit a bunch of singles? Buy the bitcoin dip?
Moments like these serve as a litmus test. Do you want the ball in your hands? Do you wake up with sweaty palms and a tight tummy because all your nerves are tingling, thinking about your performance this morning or for the next forseeable period of elevated volatility?
That ain't me no more. Now there's just this general apathy and emotional flatness. I felt the same way when there was a Japan Black Monday in August and we had a huge gap down to SPY 508. I hadn't traded in months. I woke up, I flipped 500 shares of SPY near the bottom and sold it for nearly ten points, and then I didn't give a shit. The old Pete would've wanted to bank a huge day. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but he passed the litmus test... he wanted the ball in his hands. That's passion, that's desire, that's a guy who wants to compete and achieve great things in his profession.
How do I feel today? Well, I don't want to do anything. I want to shut off all my screens and pretend none of it is happening. I decidedly do not want the ball in my hands. I am instead contemplating how to wind down my career. I had a good year, maybe it's time to end on a relatively high note. Why end it like MJ on the Wizards, Jerry Rice on the Seahawks, or Aaron Rodgers on the Jets? I can always tell friends and family that I traded for 15 years, I never lost money in any year, and I ended my career because I wanted to, not because the market forced me to.
There's no juice left. Pete 2.0 style of trading part time did work well for a bit but I had to fuck it up by overreaching--watching my screens all day without high quality setups, getting emotionally invested, scalping, making dumb fuck trades until my fragile confidence breaks. It makes me wonder if it's not possible to keep one foot in and keep one foot out.
After my no-good, very-bad 2023, I had this very modest PnL number in mind, that if I made in 2024, I told myself I'd be 100% fine with that. Think in the ballpark of a doctor or a VP finance--that kind of money. I'd be fine with making that in perpetuity (if it meant never trading or working) and investing all the profits in SPY like a normal person. I instead managed to make multiples of that number. It doesn't give me any happiness whatsoever. Maybe that's just the calamity of this week's results still speaking.
Speaking of bitcoin... I sold about 40% of my core holdings between 101-102k. I bought back 94k on a bid this morning but quickly sold it a small loss when it didn't show any support there and then I cancelled all remaining bids lower. That's usually a sign of a bottom when I give up and convince myself it can go lower after already being extended...I can't bottom catch btc anymore. Not like the old days. It's not as volatile as it used to be but my mind keeps thinking it could crash into the 20-25% range (which would the 80k handle). Low and behold, 8:30 economic numbers come out and everything bounces and my 94k buy would have been green. That's another thing I hate about 2024 btc trading now--how often it trades with economic numbers. I don't want to pay attention to that shit. I'm kind of sick of tracking this thing and want to just flatten it out. It's my best trade of the year, I've been long since 30k. I'm not calling a top on it, I'm just calling my own top.
On second thought--I shouldn't make any more decisions while under this mindset... I'll just keep holding a modest amount. I'm not going to trade this move outside of a placing an extreme, unlikely to be hit flash-crash bid. I call it Rudy Gobert trading--I don't want the ball in my hands unless I can fucking dunk it.