As I was getting organized, defining and refining my plan, updating my buy and sell lists and setting stops, life changed with one phone call…

I was out planning the “Live Fire” training that I was scheduled to give along with the other fire company officers, and I got the call on my cell phone.

Emergency room… Ok, I’ll be right over.

After a few quick conversations to line up other instructors for the Fire Company Training, I hit the road for the hospital to see how I could help. Family takes care of family. My Firefighting Brothers, said “Go, we got your back”. So I did. Leaving one family for my other family.

Now as I look back over the past couple weeks, we have gone from ER to surgery, recovery and then to Transitional Rehab Care. The road back will be long but we will do our best together as a family…

The good news is that we are past the point of 18 hour days. It seems we are approaching stability. So I need to figure out where I left off. I haven’t looked at my portfolio since before the call.

The good news is that I set some protective stops back before I knew when the next crisis would come. The bad news is that the market went up and I could have moved the stops up a bit to capture more gains. This didn’t happen. I am getting notifications that I have “Trade Executions”. So I didn’t sell at the highest tick. You never do. You always try to and you never do.

So I may have a stop or two still set or maybe they all executed. I don’t know. Have had other priorities lately. Making a living is important, so is this sideline but it is only money. Money is not as important as people and I have been helping family during a family emergency. Now that things are stable, it is time to get back to work and see where I left off and figure out how best to move forward.

So I am in mostly cash. Stops have executed to lock in some gains. I sold the MGM outright after my last post. I looked at the chart and it had been down 10% for me and it came back to even money and then it was down about 1% so I sold it before I lost more…

The F Call Options that I am holding and seemed like a good play on the recovery don’t seem so good lately… The September Calls expired worthless. That is the thing about options. You can magnify your upside but you can also lose everything (plus commissions!).

So in the future when we discuss my option trading success, remember this failure. It is all part of the process. Learning how to make profits and limit losses.

In this case, I bought a small position and didn’t sell back when I had a small profit. I wanted more and the market didn’t give it to me. You have to trade the market that you have, not the one that you want.

So the goal here is to get caught up on where the market is and try to anticipate where it might go. Figure out where I left off and figure out what is going to happen when the game changes next. That might be due the U.S. election or some event in Europe or The Middle East or it might be right down the street in the local Emergency Room, because you never know when a crisis will come along and change everything.

You always have to be ready, because you never know…