I definitely underperformed this week.

Overall, my returns were strong, and there were moments where I caught myself before acting impulsively, which is progress. But when I sat down to do my end of week evaluation, I wanted to understand why I didn’t optimize this week’s price action. So I slowed down and noticed how much emotional carryover was influencing my decisions from one day to the next.

I’d like to call out two main things I uncovered:

Part 1

I had positions in NFLX and NVDA, and I had bought enough time for both trades. NFLX was still OTM but hadn’t hit my invalidation. NVDA was sitting at break even, but I also had trades on like AMD and MU that were moving parabolically. Watching those expand while these weren’t moving started creating frustration and impatience, and that’s when the negotiations crept in:

My entries themselves were structurally fine, but I struggled with emotionally tolerating the time between entry and expansion.

I know not everything moves immediately. Some trades need time before momentum shows up. But when some names are exploding higher and I’m babysitting trades that are sitting there doing nothing, I start thinking, what am I doing here?

What I didn’t notice at the time was how much the frustration and comparison had started blurring my ability to make clear decisions. I pulled runners off too early, hesitated on valid re-entries like XSP and RMBS, and flattened NFLX and NVDA without individually assessing the positions. The more emotional residue that built up, the harder it became to remain objective.

Part 2

Now…my NFLX position had me questioning something else this week.

While it was sitting OTM, I kept thinking about what would have happened if I had simply cut it, even before it technically hit my exit criteria. What if I used that mental and capital bandwidth to add to positions that were already working exceptionally well?

I’ve always traded across several names because different setups can trigger at different times, and something that isn’t taking off immediately isn’t necessarily a bad trade. But this week made me think much more deeply about selectivity and timing. So I am asking myself:

I don’t fully have that answer yet, and I want to be careful not to overcorrect from one week of reflection.

Questions to keep top of mind:

Trading is such a fast environment that there’s barely space between one decision and the next. One trade rolls into another, one missed setup carries into the next day, and emotional reactions can quietly spill into the next decision if you don’t stop long enough to recognize what is happening.

This week’s takeaways:

Last week, SPX spent most of the week moving sideways before finally breaking higher with a gap up and new highs into Friday’s close. At the same time, a lot of individual names continued parabolic runs, like AMD, CRDO, ARM, and RMBS.

A side note: I always keep an eye on the Dow and the NASDAQ throughout the week, but SPX is my anchor for the overall market sentiment since it includes stocks across different sectors, including names that trade on both indices. I like to keep things simple, so for the purpose of this newsletter and gauging the broader tone, I just use SPX as my reference point.

We saw some back and forth throughout the week, indecision on Monday, a decline Tuesday, a gap up Wednesday with an attempt at new highs, selling on Thursday that ultimately got bought up, and then continuation into Friday where price pushed into a new all-time high of 7,168.59.

So now the question becomes, how does price behave from here inside this uptrend?

I drew a box from the top of Thursday’s doji (Apr 16) to the top of Friday’s green candle (Apr 17) that framed the sideways consolidation last week. This area gives us some structure as we look at potential scenarios.

One of the things I always ask is: how is price behaving at key levels and around the edges of my boxes?

The bottom of the box sits around ~7,050, and the top lands at ~7,150. Last week, price rotated within those edges, and Friday broke above. What was resistance may now act as support.

So, the question becomes whether that small amount of sideways digestion was enough for continuation higher, or if price needs a bit more time consolidating before another leg up.

Continuation

We could continue higher from here. In strong trends, price can stay extended longer than what seems normal. Pullbacks tend to stay relatively shallow.

Right now, price is still holding above the 5 EMA, which is the thin white line on my chart. We could continue riding along this moving average with only brief pauses along the way.

If that continues, then the consolidation from last week may have been enough digestion before another push higher.

Retest of the Box

Another scenario is that price pulls back toward the top of the box around ~7,150 and uses that area as support before continuing higher.

We could even dip slightly deeper into the box, somewhere around ~7,100, and still keep the structure intact.

This would still be a shallow digestion, with some sideways action as price dances around this new key level (7,150).

Deeper Digestion

We could see a deeper pullback develop toward ~7,050 or even back toward the 7,000 level. 7,000 remains an important psychological level, and it also marks the previous high before the February breakdown.

Even then, in strong markets, pullbacks can still stay constructive unless something materially shifts. A test of the daily 10 EMA could just create better entry points for more upside, especially if buyers step in quickly.

If price pulls back deeper, or if we spend more time drifting sideways while the moving averages catch up, then the daily 20 EMA could come into play too. That would be a steeper retracement after the run we’ve had, so I’d be paying close attention to how price gets there. A quick move into it that gets bought up is different from a weak drift where buyers stop responding.

So whether we continue first and retrace later, or retrace first and then continue, the bigger thing I’m watching is how price behaves around these levels.

Welcome to all the new readers, happy to have you here! As always, take what resonates and throw out the rest. As I continue to work on myself, refine my process, and become a better trader and mentor along the way, some of the things I share may work for you, some may not. Just remember, I’m forever a student of the market too. ✨