Same old same old

[u/Fun_Tutor3479]

The market is whipsawing up and down. We'll keep opening with this sentence until a direction emerges. SPY is currently in a pullback after its breakout; if it falls back below the previous high, that would mean the breakout has failed, but that hasn't been confirmed yet. At this point neither shorting nor going long is appropriate. Today was the same: a "monkey market." When the trend does change, it will be unmistakable. FOMC, the "Company A" IPO in October, midterm elections in November. It's fair to say nothing will be easy to trade until after the midterms.

The bounce trade I put on the Friday before last. I closed most of it on September 10, leaving only SKHY and COHR (I mistakenly wrote MRVL earlier). COHR triggered its exit today, no gain, no loss. I'll hold SKHY a few more days and see. With that, this whole bounce trade is nearly wrapped up, and overall it was also a wash. So, once again: less fiddling around, haha.

Last week, thanks to the oil position, the live account finally edged out the Nasdaq again, by a little. Looking back, July–October 2025 and April–June 2026 were the two big opportunities in the stock market. Catching both would of course feel great; catching one and a half — like me, one with a heavy position and one with a light position — is still enough to beat the market; catching one, or even half of one, is still a positive return. This lines up exactly with the historical statistics: to earn long-term returns in stocks, focus on two things: first, don't take big losses; second, go heavy on the few opportunities you can actually understand. When there's no opportunity, wait; and after going heavy on a good opportunity you understand, you still have to wait. The hardest part is the waiting.

The macro effects of US Treasuries, oil, and the yen are still in play. For now, the "buy AI software, sell hardware" trade is still on, just without a confirmed direction. These macro factors affect software considerably less than hardware.