Update, October 4, 2026: this was the largest single loss on the record until September 30, when a put spread lost $784.44. The week-of-September-28 recap has the details. The rest of this entry is as written on September 18.
This cycle closed for a $393.44 loss, the largest single loss on the record when it happened, and unlike the record’s largest win, nobody had to be asleep for it to happen. It happened in the middle of a trading day, in full view, as a deliberate decision rather than something that simply occurred.
Result
-$393.44
1 of 2 contracts, held 4 days, Jul 31 to Aug 4, 2026
Entry credit
7.90 pts
Same combined credit as the record's biggest win, a coincidence of timing, not strategy
Exit debit
15.60 pts
Bought back one lot of each leg, call and put, as the S&P ran to record highs
The trade
Sold July 31, 2026: 2 contracts of the /ESU6 September 14 strangle, short the 8200 call and the 5800 put, for a combined 7.90 credit, about $781.56 after fees. The number is the same entry credit as the record’s biggest win, and that’s where the resemblance ends. That trade was sold into fear, war premium paying double for someone to underwrite a range. This one was sold into an ordinary market, and the market didn’t stay ordinary for long.
What happened while it was on
The S&P 500 didn’t chop or pull back. It ran, 3.6% over five sessions to a record close of 7,757.64, driven by a Monday relief rally after planned U.S. strikes on Iran were called off, and a Friday jump on a much weaker-than-expected July jobs report that revived rate-cut hopes. For a strangle short both tails, a clean, sustained melt-up is close to the worst case on one side: the put was never threatened, but the short 8200 call got squeezed hard as the index climbed toward it. By Tuesday, August 4, the position was underwater and the tape showed no sign of stopping.
The close
The instinct in a losing trade during a rally that won’t quit is to close the whole thing and make the discomfort stop, or to hold everything on conviction and hope it turns. Neither happened. One lot of each leg, call and put, was bought back at a 15.60 combined debit against the 7.90 credit, realizing a $393.44 loss on that half while the second lot stayed open, in line with the original thesis. That’s a managed decision, not a panicked one: less exposure, less pressure, the position not abandoned outright. That week’s full account covers it in real time, including the four green SPX 0DTE cycles that closed the same week and clawed back part of the damage.
What it taught
The number by itself reads as a bad week. It wasn’t the end of the position’s story. The remaining lot rode out three more weeks before closing for a real +$286.56 on August 24, which means the full, honest arc of this trade, both lots, credit in against both debits paid out, nets to -$106.88 across its whole six-week life, a real, modest loss, not the isolated $393.44 hit this entry covers on its own. The record’s biggest win happened because a resting order filled while no one was watching. The record’s biggest loss at the time happened because someone was watching, made a real decision under real pressure, and cut a losing position down instead of either freezing on it or bailing out of it entirely. On an account whose earlier entries include a 1:00 AM forced exit made under exactly that kind of pressure, that difference is the actual point of writing this one up.