I need to get this off my chest because it’s eating me alive.
The market opened down about 0.3% that morning. For some reason, purely on feeling, I wanted to buy out-of-the-money SPY calls and put my entire non-registered account into that trade.
The contracts were trading at $0.05 each.
I was honestly confident. But I didn’t pull the trigger because I didn’t want to sell my S&P 500 shares and deal with taxes. So I stayed disciplined and did nothing.
Two hours later, Trump announces he found an arrangement with Greenland.
SPY pumps 1.2% almost instantly.
Those same calls go from $0.05 to $2.65.
That’s a 53x move. About a 5,200% gain.
If I had gone all in like my instinct told me, it would’ve been life-changing money.
Instead, I watched it happen from the sidelines.
Now every day when I go to work, I think about it. I replay it in my head. “What if I just clicked buy.” It’s brutal. I know logically this is just part of trading and you can’t catch everything, but emotionally it feels different when it’s that big.
How do you actually move on from missing something like this?
How do you stop letting a single trade live rent-free in your head?
Would really appreciate advice from people who’ve been through similar situations.