Y’all. I’d like to whine a bit if you don’t mind.
I’ve been a little stuck.
I’ve been having trouble closing regret loops, mostly from negotiating myself out of staying in a trades, and also not building at the pace I did last year. I am up 50% YTD as I write this.
A lot of the chatter in my head is also because I’ve been thinking about how I can level up from where I am now. My goal is to grow my first million within 2 years (by December 31st, 2027) with the current pot I have, meaning if I do earn any outside income, I will not add to this pot.
With this strong run we’ve had this year, I keep having a nagging stomach pang that I “missed my chance” and thoughts like “you could have just gone heavy and sat still in one of the manyyy parabolic moves and already be halfway to your goal”.
Don’t you love how the mind wants to draw you to the negatives?
As a mentor, if a student was talking like this I’d say, “Don’t be silly, there is always an opportunity and you are so resilient! Remember how you lost tens of thousands of dollars in your first two years of trading and stayed the course and you now trade full-time? Or how you realized over 120K in one quarter?”.
From losing to profitable.
To realizing 120K in a single quarter.
These are cookies…
A concept that comes from my favorite book: Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. When we take on an ambitious goal that feels insane in the moment, in order to get through the muck, the mundane, and the failures one will ultimately face, you want to have a Cookie Jar of all the wins you’ve had thus far in life, big or small.
“The Cookie Jar is your shortcut to taking control of your own thought process.”
Excerpt from David Goggins’ Book: Can’t Hurt Me
As I mentioned above, negative thoughts are relentless, and to move forward, you’ve got to stop them in their tracks. I have to remind myself that those thoughts are just thoughts, not the truth. Then reframe and dig in my Cookie Jar to remember who I am and what I’m capable of.
Here are some of my cookies, trading related and a few others:
Placing 4th in my division in a national trading competition with a verified 260% YTD return.
Building a trading plan that led me to my first $100K.
Choosing to see trading through as a full-time career.
Rebuilding after drawdowns that rocked my sense of stability and crushed my confidence.
Changing my relationship with alcohol after staying sober for four years.
Learning the language of my nervous system and understanding how activation shows up in my body.
Building this newsletter and writing weekly, even when I’m going through it or sick, or when my only subscribers were 12 friends and family members who stopped reading after the first edition 😂.
The mind is very willing to replay what you missed, so you need to be just as willing to replay what you’ve already accomplished.
SPX Review and Outlook
Last week, SPX briefly retested the 7,180 area on Monday, closed back near 7,200, then gapped up the next day and continued higher through the rest of the week. Price is still moving within the rising channel I have marked on the chart, and we closed the week right around 7,400 after putting in another new high.
The scenarios will continue to be similar week to week, mostly describing light retests, until we get a change of structure, something like range-bound action with potential for a deeper retracement.
SPX Daily Chart
Scenarios for the Coming Week
Continuation Along the Channel
price holds near or above the 5 EMA
intraday selling gets bought up quickly
pullbacks stay shallow
price keeps pressing higher before any deeper reset
Retest Toward the 10 EMA / Prior Consolidation
pullback toward 7,255-7,275
top of the prior consolidation area
near the rising daily 10 EMA
buyers stepping in there would still fit with shallow digestion inside the current uptrend
Deeper Pullback Into Prior Structure
pullback toward 7,150
near the rising daily 20 EMA
this would be deeper than the shallow pullbacks we’ve been seeing, but still within the larger uptrend if buyers continue responding
Deeper Digestion Toward 7,050
larger reset toward 7,050
lower end of the prior sideways structure from the third week of April
watch for a quick undercut and reclaim, a clean hold, or weaker action that needs more time
For now, the levels are marked. Do we keep riding the channel, retest the 10 or 20 EMA, or pull deeper into prior structure? That’s what I’m watching.
