2018 in review, down 8%, grade C-

SPY close down about 6% for the year. My account about -7%, so in line. Russell 2000 got shelled -12%, while the QQQ was down a modest -1%. I stopped logging every trade. When the crap hit the fan, I was doing

Tracking etfs best to worst for 2018 (close to close, no dividends)

GLD -1.9%
TLT -4.2%

SPY -6.0%
SLV -9.2%

IWM -12.1%
EEM -29.8%

All of these etfs were losers. The big cap gainers in SPY included MRK and PFE. The losers CAT, MMM.

For me, the five best trading tickers (non-etfs): TSLA, BA, GOOGL, TLRY, AAPL. The worst five were: AMZN, CMG, FB, BRKB, CAT. Amazon by far was the biggest loser. I got caught both on the upside and downside. At one time AMZN was my best trading stock for the year, then the fall swoon happened and I got crushed. Similarly, at one time TSLA was my worst ticker for the year, then it came back. It is easy to read too much into this.

At the Christmas Eve lows I was down 20% for the year. As volatility declined, I narrowed the loss to -8% in a week. Far be it for me to give advice. I’ll take it as it comes. All things are possible, new highs, new lows, a trading range. I’ve been rolling up and down, to stay closer to delta neutral, rather than try to guess which way the market is going.