A Frustrating February

February 2015 was the month of coulda-shoulda-woulda...

I SHOULDA stayed short TLT, it would have been big profits. I SHOULDA gone long AAPL after the ATH breakout, it would have been huge profits. I SHOULDA liquidated my positions at the beginning of the week, I WOULDA been up $160, and now I'm down $230.

The TLT and AAPL trades were good set-ups, everything else, not so much. XLU looked like a good setup, and yeah, at one point I was up 50% on that position. But I got greedy: I wanted to leg out and make big $$$ but should have taken what Mr. Market had to offer. I've been punished and am now down $18 on it.

I made a couple good earnings trades, but I should have been more "awake" to place more of those. February was still profitable, and I didn't do too bad in the first week. Marking to market (since I haven't closed a few positions), I've made $868 gross, and $688 after commissions, or +2.29% ROC. The S&P and the DOW beat me this month, my worst since November.

What have I learned from Fuck-You February? Swing trading doesn't always work; you need a directional market to trade directionally. When the market just chops around, nothing gets overbought/oversold and nothing quite hits support/resistance. There's no momentum to drive anything anywhere, and volatility comes down too.

While I will still stick to my directional trades, going forward I'm going to focus more on smaller profit, better probability trading, because being directional and using debit spreads just isn't working right now.

January was a superb month, February was disappointing. It's my goal to get back on my horse in March. Historically, Q1 of any year has the most "jitters." I guess the cold not only makes people apathetic to venture outside, but also to venture out in the markets. Let's hope the Spring gets us moving again - up or down!