Author: dukeofpuddles

  • July 2025

    The Universe has a subtle way of giving you little warnings before having to resort to more drastic measures to get your attention.

    I’ve been into tarot for a few years now and I have a tendency to overexplain myself so to not come off too weird so I’ll just say I do not see them as some sort of spooky fortune telling device that prophesies your unchangeable future.

    Often when I draw a card I’m reminded of a character trait that I could lean into a little more. Self-control, generosity, nurturing, patience, compassion – all these things are inside of us but for one reason or another they sometimes aren’t the easiest to bring to light. But the suggestion of one small change can make big, lasting changes when compounded over time. You hold a lot of wisdom inside of you, these cards are just something else to help remind you of that. They’re a tool to help you on a journey of self-reflection if that’s your thing.

    On my last card pull I had gotten the King of Swords and kinda half-assed the whole thing to be honest. I didn’t give it the time and thought that I normally would. I have a whole journal dedicated to these sort of mystical endeavors but I wrote nothing about it, just went through the motions.

    There are 78 cards in a tarot deck so imagine my surprise as I shuffled and pulled the King of Swords again a week or so later. This time I decided to sit with it and really contemplate what I could learn from this card and apply it to my life.

    • Strategic Action – Don’t just react—plan. Consider long-term consequences before making a move.
    • Clear Thinking – Strip away bias, wishful thinking, and emotional fog. See the situation as it truly is, not as you hope it to be.

    When I trade I can easily get swept up in my emotions. I trade impulsively or over-trade more times than I’d like to admit. Although I’ve only had, like, 4 losing trades this year I could be doing better by not making silly mistakes that leave my money tied up for a long time or messing with cheap meme stocks. So to accomplish this I needed to start working on a plan and a set of rules. And let me tell ya, doing this lead me down a whole ‘nother rabbit hole that has completely changed the way I’m currently trading and will be even more apparent next month. (I’m already at my monthly goal of 10% in the first two weeks of August. – Future Chris)

    I’m very pleased with my results from trading but there has been a nagging feeling that I needed to refine my rules a little. I shoot from the hip a tad too much for my liking. This was made clear after some LEAPS I bought shot up to $2000 in profit then went negative and I did nothing because I didn’t have an exit strategy for that position. I told ya’ll last month that I would be buying more LEAPS but I didn’t take the time to figure out when to take profit on them causing me to not make as much money as I could have.

    Hope is not a strategy in trading. You need to be able to take any situation, look at it with total impartiality, and then come to a balanced and insightful decision.

    I needed to hunt for setups like the American cougar hunts for food. Not searching frantically everywhere wasting energy, but up in a tree watching the patterns of prey and striking when the opportunity arises.

    I am, what they call, a technical trader meaning I make decisions based off of chart patterns and not from reading a bunch of boring financial statements.

    So I needed to decide on a setup that I felt the most comfortable with and just trade that, it’s just that simple. And that leads us to …

    The 50-Day EMA

    When you’re looking at a chart there are all kinds of indicators that you can overlay and use to help make more informed decisions. One of those indicators is the 50-day EMA (Estimated Moving Average). It tracks the average price of a stock over the past 50 trading days and is a good indicator of the current trend. A rising 50-day EMA suggests an uptrend, while a falling one indicates a downtrend. 

    The 50-day EMA can act as a dynamic support level in an uptrend (price bounces off it) and a resistance level in a downtrend (price struggles to break above it). Things trading above the 50-day EMA is good sign. Things trading below it could mean something’s amiss.

    Let’s take a look at the setup that I’m on the hunt for rawrrr…

    You can see on my little chart there that after a huge drop the price will rise above the 50-day EMA (pink horizontal line), pull back some to re-test it, and will either rocket upward or take the fast elevator down. This is usually a volatile moment so you want to be correct when choosing if and when to enter the trade.

    That’s why it’s so important to wait for conformation after a retest. You want a nice, fat candle with plenty of volume supporting it. I miss out on a small amount of profits from not getting in at the very bottom but I’ve been faked out so many times it’s not even funny. So I will take a small decrease in profits in exchange for putting the odds greatly in my favor. I don’t want ALL the profits, only some of them.

    By waiting for an event like this to happen (and it does often) I greater my chances astronomically because I’m going with the flow of the markets and not guessing what’s going to happen next.

    I’m tired of trying to time tops and bottoms. I’ve had to change my mindset to watching the action play out and sometimes waiting days to take on a trade. I’m not a market wizard and it doesn’t do much good being a contrarian in this area of my life. I gotta go with the flow.

    Candlesticks

    Candlesticks will show you a more detailed picture of what’s going on with price more clearly than the plain line graph we’re all used to seeing. There’s tons of videos on learning how to read candlesticks so I won’t go into that right now but it’s a skill worth picking up.

    You can toggle the time frame that each candle represents from nanoseconds up to days. Until recently I hadn’t realized how much I was also getting faked out by looking at the shorter timeframe candles. I needed to scale back and look at the bigger picture so I started with the 15 minute then eventually settled on the 30 minute and 1 hour candle.

    Here’s an example of how different those candlesticks can appear when looking at the same stock event on different timeframes.

    5 MINUTE – This gives the illusion that things are taking off and you better hop on unless you hate money. One green candle after another with the price appearing to break above the previous high.
    30 MINUTE – This would have seemed promising and if I had been watching it in real time it would’ve been tempting to enter. Price is not shown breaking above the previous high.
    1 HOUR – Obvious rejection by a big red candle soon after it crosses over the 50-day EMA just before diving off a cliff.

    … kinda like life, huh? Sometimes we need to zoom out and slow down a little to get a better vantage point and see how things are going and how they might play out from here if we continue down the same path so we don’t rush into things …

    Anyways, being in a trade way longer than you planned while clogging up money because you got impulsive and bought on the first big swing you see feels bad, man. I’m still in a trade I did that exact same thing with 2 months ago. I’m here to help you not do the same.

    There’s a lot of trading going on second by second but I don’t need to hear all that noise and that’s what I’m doing by looking at the shorter 5-15 min timeframe candles. The trend of the hour is stronger than the trend of the minute. Tides vs waves.

    “Rushing into action, you fail.
    Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
    Forcing a project to completion,
    you ruin what was almost ripe.

    Therefore the Master takes action
    by letting things take their course.
    He remains as calm at the end
    as at the beginning.

    He has nothing,
    thus has nothing to lose.
    What he desires is non-desire;
    what he learns is to unlearn.

    He simply reminds people
    of who they have always been.
    He cares about nothing but the Tao.
    Thus he can care for all things.”
    ― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

    Alright, wrap it up already Lord have mercy!

    Now usually this is everyone’s favorite part where I say, “My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%”, but after much thought I’m gonna give myself a little more wiggle room and shoot for a range of 5-10%. Things change up quite a bit next month so I feel now is a good time for the switch. In July I achieved an increase of 4.5% bringing in $757.20 total.

    I know what you may be thinking and it may seem as if I’m lowering expectations and the bar for myself but this decision will hopefully be made more clear in next month’s post. I can assure you that is not the case.

    I’m up 82% this year increasing my accounts by $7,411 so far in the year of our Lord 2025. Even though it keeps touching all time highs, the S&P 500 has only returned 9.5% in this same timeframe.

    Profit and Loss Calendar for July

    Here are the trades.

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes.

    Here’s a table of my monthly performance compared to the S&P 500’s.

    Profit% ChangeS&P 500
    Jan$1,214+13.7%+2.7%
    Feb$1,741+16.85%-1.42%
    March$339+2.8%+5.75%
    April$182+1.46%-0.76%
    May$459+3.64%+5.9%
    June$3,840+38.6%+5%
    July$757+4.5%+2.2%

    10 Things I Hate About Skew

    And before we go, it’s not really visible in my charts here, yet, but in the spirit of transparency I did take a big loss that’s spread out over a couple of months. I finally admitted defeat and closed out all of my SMST trades for around a $900 loss. Didn’t let it get to me and put the remainder of that money to good use. I love being a contrarian but I’ll have better luck going with the flow and trading with momentum, not trying to bet that a stock is going down when they usually just want to go up, even when their dumb.

    This was an inverse ETF based off MicroStrategy which I still think will crash and burn but obviously not in the timeline I had hoped.

    Thanks to SMST going through a reverse stock split, some weird math, and a call with my brokerage it took me a long time to calculate this loss into my stats. I will still need go back and edit some numbers.

    This one stock has been behind the only losing trades I’ve made this year and the only time I followed someone else blindly. I went in heavy, too, and paid the price. Important lesson here. I would’ve had over 100 trades with no losses had it not been for this hiccup.

    But, in the end, this all made me consider that maybe the real profits are the friends we make along the way.

    From our charts to yours,
    Chris

    PS – I hope this goes without saying and, perhaps, something I should’ve been stating this whole time, but obviously this is not financial advice. I’m just showing you what I do and trying to spare the people close to me from some of my rants.

    If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.

  • June 2025

    I always had a passion for flashin’

    My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%. In June I achieved an increase of 31.86% bringing in $3,840 total.

    I’m up 83% this year increasing my accounts by $7,575 so far in the year of our Lord 2025. Even though it’s been on a tear and recently hit an all time high, the S&P 500 has only returned 5.5% in this same timeframe.

    Profit and Loss Calendar for June.

    Here are the trades.

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes.

    Here’s a table of my monthly performance compared to the S&P 500’s.

    Profit% ChangeS&P 500
    Jan$1,214+13.7%+2.7%
    Feb$1,741+16.85%-1.42%
    March$339+2.8%+5.75%
    April$182+1.46%-0.76%
    May$459+3.64%+5.9%
    June$3,840+38.6%+5%

    Calls to the Wall

    Alright, so how did I make over $3000 this month?

    Well it allll began way back in March when I started buying Long Calls (aka LEAPS) on SOFI.

    Now if you think a stock is going to go up and you don’t want to buy shares, LEAPS (Long-term Equity AnticiPation Securities) are what you’re looking for. You can think of them as a stock replacement. The game plan is to buy contracts at a low price and sell them at a higher price. Simple enough.

    In this situation the difference between buying a LEAP and buying 100 shares was $150 vs $1,500 with SOFI. I’m able to control around the same amount of shares, depending on the contract selected, for a fraction of the cost! That’s leverage, baby!!

    In my Roth IRA I purchased 18 of these $150 contracts over the course of the year. I sold them all for $270 each bringing home $2,160!

    Once I noticed a lot of momentum I got brave and bought some more LEAPS in my brokerage account. I bought 8 at an average price of $226 and 5 days later I sold them for $350 making another $992 in profit.

    Here’s what the position looked like in one of my Robinhood accounts towards the end. You can see I’m holding 18 contracts with an average cost of $1.50. That’s actually $150 because contracts “control” 100 shares, so you must multiply by 100. The value of the contract grew by $1.11 and now the current price is $2.61. That difference is multiplied by how many contracts I own and that’s my profit minus fees.

    $261 – $150 = $111
    $111 x 18 = $1998

    No Free Lunch

    The trick is these bad boys have expirations so you must be correct on many factors like volatility and time, not just price movement, to be profitable. That’s why I tend to buy them at least 1 year out to expiration giving me plenty of time to be wrong. And for a while I was wrong as they were down 50% for a minute and there’s always the possibility of losing the total amount of capital that you put in when you buy options. In this case that would’ve been thousands of dollars. These contracts didn’t expire until March, I just chose to take profits now to be safe.

    But, admittedly, it wasn’t without a fight. It took the counsel of 2 people close to me to gently remind me that I had a wild look in my eyes and that it didn’t seem like I was following my rules.

    Artist’s Rendition

    Just a few days before, there I was happy and content about the trade being up $200 only to find myself being a greedy little pig wanting even more as I was sitting on $3000 in profits. That’s a dedgum 90% return on my investment and I was still wanting to squeeze out more juice! How ungrateful!

    This is just another time when I’m reminded that trading is almost completely a mental game and I must not be swayed by emotions.

    Now in full transparency had I stayed in the trade I would have actually made several more thousand dollars at this point and that leaves me with a choice between being grateful for the $3000 I just made or dwelling on what could’ve been. Ultimately I made the right decision by sticking to my rules and I have no regrets. I’ve already started loading up on new contracts that expire 2.5 years from now.

    I mostly sell options so that I’m paid to open contracts. Buying them is much more risky and, you know, costs money so I prefer selling Cash Secured Puts on stocks I wouldn’t mind owning and selling Covered Calls on stocks I own at a price I’m willing to sell at. But done correctly LEAPS can be very powerful and will be something I utilize more from now on.

    Alright… but fool me THREE times…

    Some good news followed by a picture with Jeff Bezos and the CEO of AST SpaceMobile being posted caused a stir and made all my precious shares get ripped out of my arms again. This is the second time this has happened to my favorite stock.

    I had to sell them at $24 while the stock shot to $50. That’s around $3000 of opportunity loss because I was Selling Calls in low volatility environment on a stock I didn’t particularly want to get rid of at that price. Funny how obvious things are in hindsight when you say them out loud.

    I turned around and sold 4 Cash Secured Puts on ASTS in total making $324. I changed my strategy on this as I was selling puts while the stock price was rising this time around. I normally sell puts when the price is going down because I’m paid more premium to do so. Selling puts while the stock price goes up puts the odds in my favor even more with the trade off being less premium being paid to me.

    But if I sell puts on a stock that is ripping upwards my chances of winning are greatly increased, the only downside is I’m paid less premium. And because I was so very correct these trades were only open for 2-3 days each allowing me to rinse and repeat.

    AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) going back to April.

    Honestly, this was a very trying time for me. Seeing my favorite stock get called away again while it rockets off truly hurts. Psychology says FOMO is more painful than loss.

    Ultimately I have paused on Selling Puts on ASTS because it’s in a downtrend and I’m not trying to catch a falling knife. This stock has mooned then gradually slid back down to where it was before. I just have to be patient and hope it does the same this time. I’ve made this mistake in the past and see people wiser than I do it all the time…

    … People like Sir Isaac Newton! A couple of months ago I quoted him as saying,

    “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of men.”

    – Sir Isaac Newton, sore loser.

    The quote is a reminder of the importance of understanding human psychology in speculating financial matters and he said it after he lost a fortune in the South Sea Bubble. Long story short, Newton makes a lot of money, lets FOMO get the best of him, then loses everything.

    Its helping me hold a strong resolve as I fight the temptation of getting back into a stock that I think is priced too high, especially for a pre-revenue company, along with a price movement that was unwarranted by the news. I know nothing but my gut is telling me to wait and let the dust settle.

    If I sell a Cash Secured Put with a strike price of $44 and the stock continues to drop back to the $22 range, that misjudgment just cost me $2,200 in unrealized losses and a lot of frustration. I’m attempting to avoid that and wait for confirmation that the stock is trending back up. It’s this new thing I’m trying that doesn’t involve gazing into a crystal ball.

    Feel free to shoot any questions or comments my way.

    Live
    Laugh
    Leverage

    Chris

    Oh, we also went on a week’s vacation to D.C. this month. Here’s video proof.

    If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.

  • May 2025

    OOOO WEEEEEEEEE!!!

    Last month I was able to close out my Nvidia position and this month my 100 shares of Robinhood were finally called away freeing up around $7,100 so I’m back in the saddle, babyyy.

    I got right back to it and starting selling Cash Secured Puts on AST Space Mobile (ASTS). I sold 7 in total bringing in most of this month’s profits.

    On the flip side I did a Buy/Write on the same stock. I bought 100 shares at $25.94 and started selling Covered Calls against them. 3 in total with 2 of them closed out on the same day. Those brought in $98 in one week dropping my average share costs down a dollar to $24.96 in just 3 trades! One of the many advantages of Covered Calls.

    To quickly summarize I sold 7 contracts agreeing to buy 100 shares if the price fell to a certain point. It never did and I got to keep the premium paid to me for selling them. I also bought 100 shares of the same stock at market price and wrote 3 contracts agreeing to sell them if the price rose to a certain point. Which it did on the final one and they were called away.

    I explain these strategies here if you’d like a primer.

    Rodeo Roundup

    My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%. In May I achieved an increase of 3.64% bringing in $459 total with 15 trades and no losses.

    I’m up 43% this year increasing my accounts by $3,935 so far in the year of our Lord 2025. The S&P 500 has only returned 0.5% in this same time.

    Profit and Loss Calendar for May.

    Here are the trades.

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes.

    Here’s a table of my monthly performance compared to the S&P 500’s.

    Profit% ChangeS&P 500
    Jan$1,214+13.7%+2.7%
    Feb$1,741+16.85%-1.42%
    March$339+2.8%+5.75%
    April$182+1.46%-0.76%
    May$459+3.64%+5.9%

    Now it’s time for Chris to relate trading to everyday life.

    I’ve been gardening for a little over 3 years and after many disastrous attempts in the past I can safely say that things have clicked. It’s even what I do for work now! As I gained more experience I started taking note of things that I would do differently in my garden if I got the chance to start over.

    Well my time has come because my lady and I just bought our first home together! It has a large yard and I’m doing things bigger and better this time. I even called before I dug!

    My life seems to flow between different themes. This month my yard and stock portfolio are blank canvases and I’m getting to approach both with a little more experience. We’re creatures of habit and trading can be an emotional game so I will freely admit that I have still made some of the old mistakes this month when it comes to patience and FOMO, but I was able to recognize my behavior and change course a little quicker than in times past. I’m improving, it’s calculatable, and that’s all I could ask for.

    It takes going through many seasons to see all the different ways things can play out and take shape, not to mention you and your tastes evolving as well. You see what you like, how to manage what you have, what’s not worth the hassle, and learn from your mishaps.

    Look, I could sit here and come up with gardening metaphors till the cows come home. I get excited and want to get to the finish line but gardening and investing don’t really have finish lines. I have to remind myself of that and slow down. I have a big yard with lots of room for growth just as I have lots of time to grow my wealth. In both I’ve got to do the tough thing sometimes, then remember to sit back, enjoy it, and be grateful, as well. Finding balance in life is crucial.

    Some photos of the old garden.

    One of my main jobs is assisting people with plants and the most common beginner mistakes comes from fiddlin’ with them too much. Too much water, moving ’em all around, and just generally worrying too much. They can smell the fear on you.

    But by selling my contracts only one week out instead of several I’m doing the same exact same thing in my own, adorable, way. I’m just doing too much fiddlin’ and taking too much risk. Now I already have things set up to auto-trigger at my price targets so it’s not as if I’m staring at charts all day. I sell a contract then immediately set an order to close that contract once it hits my profit target. Most of the time I’m buying back the contract at 50% profit so I can take risk off the table and move on to the next trade. Below is a look at my order screen using Robinhood.

    Up top under “Pending Orders” is where I’m set to automatically close out of the positions (below) once it reaches 50% profit.

    Under “Positions Held” at the bottom you can see my open orders along with how much profit I’ve made since opening it in the green.


    Some of these previous failed gardening attempts were quite large. Fenced in raised beds with chickens, 250 gallon aquaponics tanks, and enough houseplant blood on my hands that I’ll never be let through those pearly garden gates.

    I tend to go all-in on things and figure it out as I go. Below is a chart with an arrow showing the exact moment I discovered trading options and the subsequent abyss I slogged through in the wake of that pivotal moment.

    This IS my first rodeo!

    I’ve never looked at the past and thought I had things more figured out than I do now. I’m meant to evolve just like every thing else. So I try to keep in mind that currently, even right this very second, there is something I’m wrong about and something I will change my mind on in the near future.

    And, boy, it’s easy to be wrong in the stock market. Thankfully, selling options has less risk so when I’m wrong it’s usually only costing me time and frustration.

    I’m writing this from the future and let me tell ya I would definitely do things differently this month. The last Covered Call I sold on my 100 shares of ASTS ending up getting called away at $24.50 a share while the price mooned to about $40 a share. That’s almost $2000 I missed out on so it looks like I’ll be changing some things up.

    Seeing what I was able to do in such a short time has me hopeful for next month. It at least makes Mondays exciting.

    Ya’ll come back now,
    Chris

    If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.

  • April 2025

    Boy Howdy!!

    I’m not here to discuss the cons & cons of tariffs so here’s a quick run-down and comparison to show you just how much of an impact they are having on the market. I’ll keep it fun. Maybe even use a meme!

    Stocks had been dropping in reaction to the trade war until a fake tweet went out saying tariffs were going to be paused sending markets soaring. That was until the White House later came out that day and said they would not be pausing tariffs. Then the following day the White House announces that actually they are pausing tariffs.

    yowza

    The market doesn’t have these huge fluctuations often, remember it’s made up of the top 500 companies so it has to be big news to move the needle … and tariffs be big. The S&P 500 lost approximately $2.4 trillion in value on April 3, marking its largest one-day loss since March 2020 (Covid). In total $10 trillion was wiped from the market in all of April 2025.

    fun!

    There were only 2 days in all of 2024 where the market had more than a 2% drop in a single day. So it was a wild ride to watch it sink 5% several days in a row. It was like watching a slow car crash but one of the cars has an open bag of my money inside of it with all the windows down. And while this has calmed down for the moment this is only a pause on tariffs and there doesn’t seem to be a real game plan on account of all the flippin’ and floppin’. (Note: I have listed examples of the aforementioned flippin’ and floppin’ at the bottom of the page for the sake of brevity)

    Now, while I brought home some of my biggest losses this month others are having to postpone their retirement because their 401ks have plummeted. So you won’t find me complaining because I’m too busy out here counting my blessings.

    “If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.”

    ― Regina Brett

    Speaking of problems let’s see how I did this month.

    My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%. In April I achieved an increase of 1.46% bringing in $182 total.

    I’m up 38% this year increasing my accounts by $3,476 so far in the year of our Lord 2025.

    On a side note, I found out while filing my taxes that you get credit for contributing to your 401k. I maxed out mine ($7,000 in 2024) and got $1000 back on my refund! I put most of that back in and made some trades with SMST. We’ll see how that’s playing out below where I give an update on my positions.

    Profit and Loss Calendar for April. Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes.

    Here’s a table of my monthly performance compared to the S&P 500’s.

    Profit% ChangeS&P 500
    Jan$1,214+13.7%+2.7%
    Feb$1,741+16.85%-1.42%
    March$339+2.8%+5.75%
    April$182+1.46%-0.76%

    And here’s a sad update on my positions.

    SMST – This was my anti-MicroStrategy/Bitcoin play I carried on about last month. I believe this company is doomed to fail. This stock is Inverse and 2x Leveraged so it does the opposite of what MicroStrategy (MSTR) does at double the speed. These “opposite day” ETFs are handy when the stock it follows is very expensive, as is the case with MicroStrategy which is currently trading around $400. In my case I’m using it in lieu of buying Put options in hopes to profit off of a declining stock price.

    I own 600 shares that started with a cost basis of $6 per share but I’ve lowered that to $5.17 with the use of options. It’s currently trading around $1.30. Total return as of writing this is -$1,780. ouch.

    The share price is so far below my cost basis that it’s near impossible to even sell a Covered Call against the shares.

    HOOD – Last month this stock was in the same boat as SMST is now. I was down almost $2k on it and was just having to wait for the price to recover while selling Covered Calls against my shares with very little premium. Well, it finally bounced back and now I’m up over $600 on it. I own 100 shares that I bought at $56.17 each and have made $303 selling covered calls, bringing my share cost down to $53.

    Spoiler alert – These shares finally get called away next month thanks to one of the Covered Calls I sold, freeing up $5,500.

    SOFI – Been selling Covered Calls against my 100 shares for very little premium. In doing so I’ve brought my cost down from $15.41 to $14.86. Really hoping to get these called away soon, the premium has not been worth it.

    NVIDIA – Before all this tariff nonsense went down Nvidia was experiencing a drop in price thanks to some news about DeepSeek in China. They were able to develop an AI model without the use of Nvidia’s latest and greatest chip causing the stock to nosedive. Nvidia designs chips but relies heavily on the global supply chain and their manufacturing is outsourced mostly to Taiwan. So when they started in with all the tariffs that price dipped a lot more.

    I bought 11 shares at ~$125 each but since the market conditions have changed I was quick to sell them for a small profit when the opportunity finally presented itself after a few months of waiting. I only made $55 off the trade but I got $1,400 back off the table. The risk vs reward was not worth it and now I can make better use of that capital elsewhere. Especially combined with the profits from Robinhood mentioned above.

    The Misery Hymns Of Mammon

    I told ya’ll buying Calls was risky on my Options Explained Gently page and you’re about to see why. These were bought back in October and December with plenty of time till expiration, so I was at least playing it on the safer side. Safe as a snail in a sandstorm, look at these losses!

    Denison Mines (DNN) – $210

    I bought 22 Calls with an average price of $10 over the course of a few months. This was a 205 day trade. DNN was a play on the possibility of the Uranium sector growing because of it’s use in nuclear energy. They reported significant losses at the end of last year and this recent change in global market dynamics was the nail in the coffin. Lessons learned? Stop messing with penny stocks.

    Hanesbrand (HBI) – $780

    I bought 8 Calls with an average price of $130 over the course of a few months. This was a 163 day trade. Hanes, I wish I knew how to quit you. This was one of my first stocks to trade because of it’s cheaper price and it seemed to be undervalued while, at the same time, aggressively paying off it’s debt.

    In hindsight, Michael Jordan with a Hitler mustache in that one Hanes commercial should’ve been a red flag.

    Back when I really didn’t know what I was doing I had sold a Put Credit Spread with the strike price wayyyy above the current stock price. Simply put, I had unknowingly offered to buy something at a much higher price than what it was currently being sold at. I was assigned 100 shares late at night while in the middle of a hurricane with the power out because of this dumb thing I did from a lack of understanding. I’m still getting teased for nervously waking my girlfriend up so I could use her hotspot to figure out what just happened and how badly I goofed. I was also mocked online when asking for clarification which I deserve and humbly accept.


    Thanks, Mr. Fyxet!

    Long story short, every thing was fine and I did profit but it showed me that I really needed to slow down and learn the mechanics behind it all before diving in head first. Unsurprisingly, this is not new behavior for me. I’m prone to want to skip ahead and get to the fun stuff.

    How you do anything is how you do everything.

    For example, I’ve been playing drums and guitar for about 25 years but I’m still having to go back and learn some rudiments or music theory that I rushed over when I started out. I want to advance quickly and that rarely works for me as I find myself having to backtrack or not being able to go up a level because I never even put in the ground floor.

    In my defense I bought these Calls before drastically changing my game plan and strategy last year. The consequences just caught up to me this month. Karma takes it sweet time.

    It’s no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy.

    If I could turn back time (Final thought’s I’d like to Cher)

    Cash is a position. I need to have money ready for when an opportunity presents itself. I thought I could quickly grow the extra cash I had sitting there but all I’ve done is miss out on a lot of opportunities over these last few months because my capital was tied up elsewhere. There’s money to be made when there’s blood in the streets.

    In regards to SMST, I probably shouldn’t speculate like that. This is where most of my capital is tied up currently. The markets are unpredictable and they will surprise you. We got up at 4am once to watch a satellite launch I was invested in. Everything went smoothly and it was a huge success and then I watched the stock immediately drop 15%.

    Bad times serve as points of refinement. We’re going to make mistakes and things will be out of our control, that’s inevitable. The quicker you can realize, admit, then learn, the more fun you’ll have.

    Yabba dabba doo,
    Chris

    If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.

    PS – Here are the flip flops from earlier.

    March 2025: Trump announced a 25% tariff on auto imports from Mexico and Canada, only to postpone them days later amid concerns over supply chain disruptions. Source

    April 2025: A sweeping 10% global tariff was introduced, followed by a 90-day pause just hours after implementation to allow for trade negotiations. Source

    April 2025: Tariffs on Chinese goods were raised to 145%, then reduced to 30% as part of a temporary truce.

    April 2025: An initial plan to impose cumulative tariffs on imported vehicles and steel was modified to exempt automakers from overlapping tariffs. Source

    February 2025: Trump proposed “reciprocal” tariffs to match other countries’ rates, a significant shift from previous trade policies. Source

  • March 2025

    Welp, things get a little worse this month as more tariff policies lead to instability in our everyday lives and that’s being reflected in the market. The market price measures the value that we place on everything and it’s a good indicator of the overall health of the economy. It contains two values; today’s value and the future’s potential value while simultaneously reflecting our needs, desires, and fears and from the looks of it there’s a lot of fear in the streets.

    When you hear the market being talked about in the news what’s usually being referenced is the S&P 500 which is a weighted index of America’s top 500 publicly traded companies. The weighting system ensures that the largest and most valuable companies will carry the greatest weight in the index.

    Breakdown of the weighting in the S&P 500

    The top 10 companies in the S&P 500 carry 30% of the weight. To keep it short and sweet I’ll just say that I find these company’s stocks overpriced and overvalued and the whole thing doesn’t sit right with me. I recently sold all of my holdings of the index, a month later Warren Buffet made the same move, and now the market has dropped significantly in reaction to Trump’s trade war nonsense leaving me feeling like Dashboard Confessional’s 2004 smash hit from the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack.

    Now whatever spices the good Lord has decided to flavor me with can lead me to find my interests a bit all-consuming and I’m known to hyper-fixate for stretches of time. I have to be mindful of this and remember to take breaks to keep the obsessions healthy and maintaining balance in my life. These pauses allow me to approach things again with fresh eyes and a new perspective and that’s how this recent slow down in trading has been for me. It’s been a nice, healthy pullback that has allowed me to focus on a lot of other, less dorky things while reminding me that there’s no need to rush when it comes to investing. Or anything else for that matter.

    “The stock market is a device to transfer money from the impatient to the patient”
    Warren Buffet

    I feel like a lot of times we can view our weaknesses or flaws as things that needs to be fixed or completely eradicated. What many myths and spiritual teachings emphasize is that true growth and transformation come from facing and embracing our weaknesses, not just from exploiting our strengths. That our real strength can be found in our weaknesses.

    On top of my downright addictive behavior another of my weaknesses has been patience, which I feel many can relate with. Through lessons learned from hobbies, mindfulness practices, and fatherhood I now experience the joys of delayed gratification and don’t find it as much of a struggle to hold my horses. Nature grows and moves slowly. When she moves swiftly it is usually destructive.

    “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished”
    Lao Tzu

    Alright alright I’ll get on with it. Here are the numbers for March.

    Profit and Loss Calendar for March

    My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%. In March I achieved an increase of 2.8% bringing in $339 total. womp.

    I’m up 36% this year increasing my accounts by $3,294 so far in the year of our Lord 2025.

    As an options seller I profit the most when volatility is high. While things right now are shaky, the market is efficient and every thing is already priced in. Meaning the tariffs were no surprise as it’s something that Trump campaigned on, so even though it’s tanking the market it doesn’t necessarily lead to higher volatility. The stocks that I’ve been writing Covered Calls on (SOFI, HOOD, SMST) have dropped so far below my cost basis that I spent a lot of time waiting on the sidelines for premiums to increase. In hindsight I would’ve done better settling for the lower premium than waiting for things to get better.

    Let’s talk about my first losing trade since December 2024 and it’s a Bitcoin rant! MicroStrategy is a failing computer company that doesn’t make any thing new or make a profit for that matter and I’ve decided to take a bet against them. What they’ve chosen to do instead of investing back into the growth of their own company is to buy Bitcoin and have their value be based on something that’s value is based on sentiment.

    For a time people who didn’t want to go through the hassle of setting up a crypto wallet would buy MicroStrategy stock using it as a work around for owning Bitcoin. But as the hype train rolled into the station and every one wanted in, the price of the stock was driven so high that if you bought in you’re actually buying Bitcoin at double it’s value. Not every one has realized this, yet.

    This is their CEO for crying out loud.

    But it appears I called their downfall a little early this month. I made a guess that people would wise up and the stock would plummet soon. I was wrong.

    I sold a Cash Secured Put for 100 shares where I received $140 credit then used that to buy a Call for $85 that ended up expiring worthless. So all in all I’ve only lost $85 so far but it’s no skin off my back as I was playing with house money. But overall I’m currently down over $1000 on this contrarian position while I wait for things to recover. It’s not a loss if you never sell!!!

    “I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.”
    Sir Issac Newton

    Newton actually said that after losing a fortune in the stock market and maybe we’ll talk about that later but I’ve kept you long enough so, finally, here are all my trades for the month.

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes.

    Be patient.
    Be kind.
    Pay attention.

    Thanks for stopping by!
    Chris

  • February 2025

    I know ya’ll are itchin’ to get your grubby little eyes on these numbers so we’ll start there.

    My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%. In February I achieved an increase of 16.37% bringing in $1,691 total.

    20 trades with no losses. That’s 2 months and 42 trades in a row with no losses for those who are counting. Don’t worry, there’s some big blunders coming up next month. Stay tuned!

    I’m up 31.76% this year increasing my accounts by $2,905 so far in the year of our Lord 2025.

    Profit and Loss Calendar for February

    Market’s on the fritz thanks to tariffs so you’ll notice I traded small and less often. I find it helpful to try and see my trading as matter of preserving capital instead of increasing it quickly.

    “Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.”
    Proverbs 13:11

    That’s right, it’s my website and I’ll quote whatever I damn well please!

    My Tip-Top Trade

    Here’s a quick breakdown of my favorite trade of the month and once again I owe it to being inspired by someone else. I have a coworker that I convinced to start trading who, through their trading, reminded me I was completely forgetting about just buying and flipping shares and was limiting myself by primarily focusing on options. So with some extra cash in my buying power I bought almost 50 shares of HIMS (Hims & Hers) at $45.75 per share.

    When you start seeing numbers flying all over the screen and those numbers represent real money your emotions can easily get the best of you. When you read about trading you’ll find that a huge portion will actually be discussing the psychology involved and the importance of having a plan.

    Even though my profits were huge I was finding great difficulty in deciding when to sell. On paper it was clear as day it was time. The difficulty came because I wanted to make even more money. That’s embarrassing to admit but you’d be surprised the emotions you go through when things are moving fast. This is why it’s important to have rules and to stick to those rules. If you are at the mercy of your emotions you will not trade well. Life will also prove to be difficult for you.

    “If you wouldn’t pay the current price it’s time to sell.”

    That’s the rule that repeated in my head when I was in peril and I’m very grateful for it. The shares were way overpriced and it was time to sell, it was that simple. I trusted my gut and sold the shares that I bought at $45.75 for $65 for a profit of $935 in 10 days time.

    The next day the stock dropped 25%. The same thing happened the following day. In fact, as of writing this in March the price still hasn’t recovered.

    I try to learn from mistakes. This painting is one of mine that my partner immortalized on a mini canvas. I didn’t sell when I should’ve causing me to be in the trade for weeks longer than I wanted and tying up lots of capital. It was frustrating. Now the painting is by my desk as a tiny reminder. Looks similar to the chart above, eh?

    Kill Your Darlings

    AST Space Mobile (ASTS) has been one of my favorite stocks since I started trading. It’s a satellite company aiming to eliminate all cellular dead zones.

    Over time I was able to slowly buy stock as well as sell Cash Secured Puts in order to acquire 200 shares. Then I started selling Covered Calls against them. By trading options around the underlying stock I was able to drop the average price of my 200 shares from $22 to $17 a share. Neat!

    Since September of last year it has traded in a range between $20 and $25. Up and down, up and down, sideways for months.

    Recognizing something like this you can better time your entries and exits and receive the most premium. I made $906 selling Covered Calls while simply owning the stock would have done nothing for me during the same timeframe.

    But it finally happened where 2 Covered Calls I sold were assigned and I was obligated to sell my 200 shares at $22 each. Meanwhile the stock jumped up to $35 revealing the biggest downside to Covered Calls. But I knew the risks going in and I made a profit in the end.

    The stock has been on a steady downtrend since (currently mid $20’s) and I’ve already made $178 selling Cash Secured Puts in an attempt to buy back into the stock.

    It still stings a little, though.

    Subtracting and Adding Insult to Injury


    What stings a little more is I used the $4,500 in profits to open a position in Robinhood (HOOD). I bought 100 shares at $56.

    I held through an earnings report where the price soared and I gained over $1,000 in profits overnight … except I didn’t do anything but sit on my hands. I assumed the stock would settle down after the huge spike and continue the trend upwards, at which point I would start selling Covered Calls.

    “If you wanna hear God laugh tell him your plans.”

    Very, very silly in hindsight because it’s been on a downtrend ever since and now I’m currently down just shy of $2000. Only once I saw the writing on the wall did I begin selling Calls, which to date has only netted me $168. The only thing that concerns me is the opportunity loss from tying up that much capital and waiting on it’s value to rise again. The market is very down right now and it’s a great time to buy, however this stock is holding most of my equity preventing me from doing so.

    Lessons Learned … again

    I shouldn’t have written covered calls on ASTS after a big drop in price, I should’ve waited for it to rise again. I was impatient and it caused my shares to get called away unnecessarily. But ultimately selling 200 shares at $22 when my cost was $17 while getting paid another $170 in premium ain’t so bad.

    As far as the HOOD trade goes I need to not “marry my shares” and be OK with letting them go. If I would’ve had the same conviction as I did with the HIMS trade I would’ve been smooth sailing by now. When I see something shoot that high that fast I should know that a pull back in price is soon to follow in most cases or freefall in this case.

    I actually set my self back by trying to get the most premium paid to me. Even though I was doing it safely, I was still attempting to speed things up a little. I haven’t lost money, just time by being impatient. But I guess time is money??

    There you have it. I broke and obeyed the same rule and you see the bed that I’m lying in now. I made it myself. Stuck to the rule and profited over $900. Broke the rule and I’m down $2k.

    “Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered”

    Didn’t I say something earlier about learning from mistakes? I got some things right and some things wrong but that’s life, baby. Just gotta do a little better each time and don’t beat yourself up too bad over it. Finding compassion with yourself over your mistakes will ultimately lead you to showing compassion towards others.

    On the bright side even with those blunders I still did pretty well for myself this month while learning some lessons and simultaneously not learning some lessons.

    Finally, here are all my trades for the month.

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes.

    Thanks for stopping by!
    Chris

    PS – If you’d like your own tiny painting check out her Etsy store at Teeny Tiny Paintings. You can even custom order your own shortcomings to be commemorated!

  • January 2025

    Before we get started on my inaugural review be sure to check out this page if you need a simple primer on the different strategies discussed here.

    Recently the market has been uneasy about the car wash of stupidity we’re about to drive through. Now that’s just a cheeky way for me to say the market has not been doing so hot lately, but when you are on the side of selling options you can make money when things trade up, down, and sideways.

    … and slantways, and longways, and backways.

    My monthly goal is to increase my accounts by 10%. In January I achieved 13.27% with around 2/3 of those profits coming from trading options and the other 1/3 from trading stocks.

    Profit and Loss Calendar for January

    22 total trades with no losses and increasing the accounts by $1,214.

    Here’s the play I’m most proud of this month and I’ll break every thing down but first let me just say I owe a lot to the inspiration I get from others in all areas of my life. I find myself constantly inspired by someone’s tenacity and dedication towards their passions. I had been peeping what other positions people were taking in the market when I stumbled upon a series of trades one person was able to pull off so smoothly that I had to give it a whirl.

    Over the course of a few days I would simply pull up their handful of trades, like the ones listed below, and admire them which would lead me to work out how I could replicate it in my trading. Here is what I pulled off.

    Listed first you’ll see I sold 3 consecutive Cash Secured Puts in hopes that the stock price would drop and I would be assigned 100 shares. Although the price rose and I wasn’t assigned the shares I was paid a total of $247 in premium for taking on the obligation. That’s money earned without actually owning any stock!

    After that I decided to perform a Buy/Write where I purchased 100 shares then sold a Covered Call against them. In total I opened 3 Covered Calls agreeing that I would sell my 100 shares if it rose to a certain price by a certain time. It didn’t and in total I was paid $151 in premium while getting to keep my shares. That’s extra money earned just for owning stock!

    After this I sold all 100 shares at a $30 profit because my sentiment had changed and I wanted to lock in my profits. I made $428 in total when it was all said and done.

    Easy-peasy.

    The beauty is any of the above strategies can work alone or you can make them dance together. You can just buy and sell stock. You can just focus on cash secured puts. You can put all your energy into finding proven, blue-chip companies with a strong dividend and writing covered calls against shares that you own using the premium collected to buy even more shares. It’s why they’re called options.

    Lastly I’ll leave you with the full list of my trades for the month.

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes.

    Handstanding on the shoulders of giants

    I wouldn’t know most things were possible unless someone did them first and was willing to share that knowledge and experience. Take Roger Bannister beating the 4 minute mile, for example. For decades all thought this was impossible but once the record was broken by one person suddenly thousands were able to follow suit around the world. So I keep a look out for my own Roger Bannisters.

    I work best by building on the work of others, not coming up with completely new discoveries. I’m OK with that. I like getting fired up by other people’s achievements. I’ll take that over the alternative.

    So get on out there and find your own inspiration in whatever it is that you’re up to. Stare at it. Ponder it. Let it marinate in your subconscious. Show it to your co-workers who don’t care.

  • Options Explained Gently

    My goal on this page is to give you a brief explanation of the strategies you’ll mostly see me using on this site. If you are brand new to the stock market most people would suggest dipping your toe in with buying and holding ETFs for long periods of time. I started that way and I would agree with them.

    What I will be discussing is the next natural progression – the trading of stock options. I have 3 or 4 strategies that I stick to and only focus on a handful of stocks at a time while maintaining a small watchlist. This keeps me focused and my trading simple and mostly passive. I don’t like being on my phone.

    My bag of tricks

    When I sell option contracts they provide me the obligation to buy or sell stocks in 100 unit increments at an agreed-upon price by a given date. Put in simpler terms, I’ll buy/sell this if it’s X price by X date.

    Options give you leverage allowing you to control a lot more for a lot less. The trade off is they carry greater risks than the classic buy-and-hold method because option contracts expire making it crucial that you are correct by a certain date.

    When it comes to selling options it’s easiest to think of it like car insurance. We pay a premium every month in the event that something bad happens while simultaneously praying that it doesn’t. Whether an accident occurs or not the insurance company gets paid a premium and the price of that premium is based on the risks involved. Higher risks = higher premiums.

    You’re selling contracts then waiting for the value of those contracts to decrease so you can buy them back at a lower price.

    Really trying to drive it home here. Buy Low, Sell High.

    If the probability that the stock price will be at the strike price of your contract by the expiration date decreases, so does the value of your contract.

    I sell Puts on red days and I sell Covered Calls on green days. You get paid a premium on day 1 of writing a new contract. The goal is to keep as much of that premium as possible. In most cases I close the trade when I reach 50% profit and never let the contract expire. So if I’m paid a $50 premium I only aim to keep $25 of that. This means I will buy back the same contract I sold to close it for $25 before it expires. This allows me to sell several contracts in the same amount of time, catching all of the fluctuations, and taking risks off the table sooner. Things do not go up or down in a straight line. The longer you’re in a trade the longer you’re risking something going against you that’s out of your control. Any time I’ve broken the 50% rule in the past I’ve regretted it.

    Combining the first two strategies below together creates what is called “The Wheel Strategy”. You sell puts until you are assigned the shares. Then you sell calls until they get called away while collecting premium at every step. By reinvesting those premiums you lower your average cost down.

    Now onto the strategies…

    Selling Puts

    When selling puts you profit when the stock price goes up.

    I only sell puts on stocks that I wouldn’t mind owning. This opens a new contract that says, “OK, the current price is $10 a share. If the stock is $9 by the time the contract expires I agree to buy 100 shares at that price at $9 each. But for taking on that obligation you have to pay me a premium of $50 right up front.” This means the stock can go up and down and all over but as long as it’s above the $9 strike price by expiration I don’t have to buy it and I keep the $50 premium. You will then be required to set aside the collateral to own 100 shares of the stock in the account.

    In the above example the stock price was above the strike price by expiration. This means I get to keep the $50 premium and my collateral is released back to me.

    If the stock price is at or below $9 by expiration date you are assigned 100 shares. You must now hope that the dip in price is only temporary and not based on a big, scary event. If bad news comes out about the stock and it drops all the way to $4 you’re still under obligation to buy it at $9 or close the contract out for a large loss. So you must really want to own the stocks you’re dealing with while trying to use some technical analysis to help narrow down the best times to sell these contracts.

    Below is an example from today. By watching a few indicators I was able to make a highly probable guess that the price was going to rise. I waited until the price rose above the 50 day moving average, pulled back to re-test that moving average, and finally I took on the trade once was there was confirmation that it was going to bounce off that moving average upward.

    In an attempt to get the most premium paid to me I sell puts on days when the stock is doing very poorly, say, a drop around 5% or so. The premium on selling puts is higher when the price is going down because demand for those contracts increases. So in the same way that the car insurance company collects a higher premium for covering a teenager in a sports car, I collect the most premium for covering a stock when things are volatile and risky.

    Usually the idea is to avoid getting assigned the shares and keep the premium or to purchase a stock you want to own at a price lower than the current market price. When you do finally get assigned 100 shares you can deploy the bizarro brother…

    Covered Calls

    Now that you’ve bought low its time to sell high! Covered Calls allow you to generate income on stocks you own while giving you downside protection if the stock drops in price. To continue with the above example we’re now saying, “Ok, I got these stocks I just purchased at $9. If they are $10 by the time the contract expires I agree to sell 100 of them at that price. But to take on that obligation you have to pay me an $80 premium.”

    As pictured above, if the stock price is below the $10 strike price by expiration I get to keep my shares and the $80 premium. If the price of the stock is above the strike price at expiration then I sell 100 shares at $10 a piece while also keeping the $80 premium.

    The biggest downside here is that some fantastic news comes out about the stock and it shoots up to $20 a share. You will still be obligated to sell 100 shares at $10 unless you choose to buy back the contract and close it at a loss in order to keep them. Ultimately with these strategies, though, there are defined risks going in so there are no surprises. Only pick prices you’re comfortable buying or selling shares at.

    Below is a Covered Call that I sold today. By looking at volume and the RSI Indicator at the very bottom I could make an educated guess that the stock was currently overbought and due for a pull back in price soon. Covered Calls make money when there is a pull back in price so you profit even when the stock you own goes down. They’re hedging instruments, after all.

    I sold the covered call at a high premium while the stock price was rising. I bought it back a few hours later at a lower price once the stock price went down. The option contract I sold was worth more when everyone thought the price was going to continue to go up. Now every one isn’t so sure so they’re not willing to pay as much making that option contract worth less. I profited on this change in sentiment by buying something back at a lower price than what I sold for.

    Sometimes I skip selling puts and perform what’s called a Buy/Write. Meaning that on a day the stock is performing well I buy 100 shares then immediately sell a Covered Call against those shares. I honestly prefer this method as I personally feel better owning the shares in most cases, even if it’s only for a week or two.

    Swing Trading

    This is just buying shares of stock without the use of options and waiting for the price to go up. I will do this after a big drop in price on a solid company or when I believe a large swing upward is coming. This strategy is overall less risky because there is not a date that you need to be correct by. It requires more capital because it does not give you the leverage that options have. These trades are only meant to last a few days to a week.

    And Last But Least –

    Buying Calls

    On occasion I will buy a Long Call or “LEAP” but honestly these are way more risky and they’ve burned me the most so I’m choosing not to go into detail about them here. They can be used as a stock replacement and they will pop up from time to time in my monthly reviews where I may attempt to justify my use of them. Buying options, as opposed to selling options, carries much more risk so you won’t see me doing much of it. When I do I make sure I purchase a contract with many months (sometimes years) until expiration so that I have plenty of time to be correct. When you buy options you have to spend money. When you sell options you are paid money. Guess which one I prefer.

    Do what now?

    I will be the first to tell you that I am NOT a fast learner. It took me many months to wrap my head around these things and I still have much to learn so don’t feel discouraged if it doesn’t make sense on the first readthrough. The vastness of information can almost feel overwhelming when starting something new, especially when you’re in a hurry to be good at it. Just ask my 13 other hobbies.

    That’s all for now and I will get into what factors I look for when entering or exiting trades in future posts. Feel free to leave any questions or comments below.

    If you’d like further info on any of these strategies check out Investopedia for a plethora of knowledge and less silliness.

  • Let’s Get Ready To Fumble!

    A brief history of me and why I’ve decided to buy a website and talk to myself on it. I lived a large portion of my life with very loose rules and mostly concerned only about myself. I was living my dream as a professional brewer when it became glaringly obvious to me that I was not heading in the right direction, I was not living up to my full potential, and was becoming increasingly unhappy. This also made a lot of other people unhappy.

    A tale as old as time.
    A tale as old as time.

    I was also involved in an accident while brewing that left me with a PTSD diagnosis which shook things up a little. Since I gave up drinking in October 2021 my life has taken on a whole new direction and purpose and I owe a lot of that to discipline. I’ve found freedom in it. I started gardening and working at a plant nursery, became vegetarian, and began a daily practice of yoga, meditation, and learning a second language. Although I’ve been a runner for over 10 years I now have a commitment of at least one run a week to keep me from backsliding.

    Now trust me I know how all that sounds and I want to fight me, too. I’m not preaching that my path is the path to take. I had it put to me this way once…

    People tend to spend a lot of energy digging many different holes all over the place, spending a little time here and there attempting to find a source of water flowing somewhere beneath to fill their well.

    Ask me how I know.

    What many fail to realize is that it doesn’t necessarily matter where you dig the hole. It’s the dedication and time spent digging the same hole that reveals that there’s a source of water flowing beneath everything.

    Discipline has paved the way for many wonderful things to enter into my life. On top of every thing else I was also able to start a mobile art studio for kids with my lovely partner last year. In the past the notion that I would start a business would seem unfathomable to me. The peace that I’m able to cultivate within myself and around me thanks to these practices leads me to weaving what I learn from them into everything that I do.

    “How you do anything is how you do everything.”

    My kids love this one.

    My ultimate goal with this site is to show and discuss the progress of my humble trading accounts. I hope that you are able to witness what I, a certified dingus, am able to accomplish as well as my failures and it will, perhaps, inspire you to start your own journey.

    I began my adventures in the stock market a little under a year ago. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in trading and in life and I’m a better person because of it. I’m keen to talk and laugh about these experiences and perhaps help others avoid similar pitfalls. It’s helpful for working out my thoughts and as an added, unforeseen bonus I began trading more responsibly when I made my positions public.

    I have separate journals for different aspects of my life and I’ve found the ability to track and critique my results has allowed me to recognize my strengths and weaknesses in these areas. It’s challenging to be aware of the progress you’ve made without having the data to refer back to. This can lead to ungratefulness – a grave sin.

    Now admittedly it can be awkward to talk about money though it is connected to nearly everything we do and the driving force behind a lot of our actions and our stresses. I do not want to give off the impression that I have or want lots of money and that the stock market is the answer to your problems. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I will say, though, that taking an interest and some responsibility in your management of money will likely steer you to a more successful path. We’re here to be useful, not happy. Money is a tool, its not the end goal. It is more important to acknowledge that everything you have was given to you and it is better to live life with an open hand. Accept what is given and freely give.

    So there is my intro in all its glory. For now my only plan is to post my monthly trading results, review them, and discuss them. We’ll see what unfolds from there.

    I do appreaciate you stopping by,
    Chris

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