Spontaneous Proof?

Sean McLaughlin
April 13, 2023

On Monday evening, my family ordered some takeout barbeque from the local joint here in town. Everything was delicious and I went to bed that night feeling just fine.

But I awoke around 1 a.m. to a twisting feeling in my stomach. Before long I was keeled over my bathroom toilet, puking my guts out. I wasn’t able to sleep at all, as I always felt I was moments away from hurling again.

The upchucking eventually subsided by sunrise, but I was left battling a ping-pong game of sweaty overheating and teeth-chattering cold shivers. All of this continued in between bouts of near-total unconsciousness as I could barely get myself out of bed for more than five or ten minutes at a time.

And when I was able to get on my feet, every muscle in my body ached and it took a herculean effort to put one foot in front of the other in a feeble attempt of movement that looked something like walking. It was as if I’d suddenly aged 40 years and needed a walker.

Food poisoning is a bitch. It was worse than I ever felt when I had Covid a year ago. Way worse.

It wasn’t until after 6 p.m. that I could finally start putting solid foods in my stomach. Amazingly, I was nearly back to “normal” by bedtime.

As quickly as the food poisoning came on, it left. And the next morning, I woke up hungry and ready to attack the day as if nothing had happened. It was a 24-hour experience that I don’t wish upon anyone!

This horrible experience got me thinking…

Is my trading “spontaneous proof?”

Meaning, do I have the freedom to take on other projects, responsibilities, or random days off without too much trouble to my portfolio/trading?

Unfortunately, the markets don’t take the day off just because my body decided to check out for a day. And this presented some logistical challenges for me. I was able to bring my laptop into bed in order to check on things when I needed to, but the real struggle for me was remaining conscious. When I wasn’t either cold shivering or sweating through my bedsheets, I could barely keep my eyes open.

Not exactly the ideal state for making trading decisions.

Thankfully, much of my trading doesn’t require tick-by-tick position monitoring. Except for one strategy that I’ve been playing around with involving daily expiring Index Options – to an extent.

Tuesday ended up being a pretty sleepy trading day, so my diminished capacity didn’t have any negative impacts on my positioning. But it could have. And that’s what’s got me thinking about disaster prevention.

How will I handle a sudden, unexpected situation that prevents me from trading (power outage, natural disaster, sudden illness, etc)? Or a six-sigma trading event that catches everyone by surprise (think 9/11)? Or even something as simple, fun, and head-clearing as wanting to take advantage of sudden great weather and head off for a two-day backpacking trip in Northern California’s Redwood Forests?

Is it reasonable for me to expect that my trading accounts can handle these sudden deviations from “normal”? Am I at risk of creating my own prison? If so, that would fly in the face of one of the key attractions of trading – freedom. No bueno, compadre.

I don’t have any answers. But sometimes, just asking questions leads me down interesting and productive paths.

On that note, see you down the trail!

Trade 'em Well,

Sean McLaughlin
Chief Options Strategist
All Star Charts, Technical Analysis Research

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