The First Trade on the Record

Week of Feb 16–Feb 22, 2026

Every record starts somewhere. This one starts on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, with a single order: sell two /ES short strangles, April 10 expiration, the 4500 put and the 7800 call, for a 4.15 credit. That’s it. That’s the whole week. One trade opened, nothing closed, no adjustments, because there was nothing else on the books to adjust. Markets were closed Monday for Presidents’ Day, the order filled Wednesday evening, and the rest of the week the position just sat there doing what short premium does: nothing visible.

What actually happened

One fill, Wednesday, February 18: sold 2 contracts of the /ESM6 April 10 strangle, short the 4500 put and short the 7800 call, 4.15 credit. Both strikes sat far out of the money, put side and call side, with about seven and a half weeks to expiration.

Worth writing down now, because it holds for months: this exact shape, a 2-lot /ES short strangle, wide wings, six-to-eight weeks out, turned out to be the template for almost everything the account did through spring. Nobody knew that on February 18. But the record shows the first trade wasn’t a warm-up or an experiment that got abandoned. It was the pattern.

What moved the market this week?

It was a holiday-shortened week, and the headline event landed on the same Wednesday the trade went on: the Fed published the minutes from its January meeting. The minutes flagged concentration in AI-related names as a building financial-stability concern and signaled no rate cut before June. Stocks spent the week regaining footing after a shaky stretch.

Honestly: there’s no line in the trade log connecting the entry to the minutes. The same-day timing is a coincidence of the record, and a strangle this wide isn’t a bet on any single release. It’s a bet that the index stays inside a very large range for seven weeks. The minutes were the week’s news; they weren’t this trade’s reason.

Anything new tried?

Everything, in the sense that a first trade is all firsts. Nothing, in the sense that no existing position changed. This section gets more interesting in later weeks.

Takeaway

The one thing the data supports without any embellishment: the account opened its record with the same structure, size, and duration it would keep using for months. The first trade and the template are the same trade.

Frequently asked questions

What was the first trade in this journal?

A 2-contract short strangle on /ES (E-mini S&P 500) futures options: selling the April 10 expiration 4500 put and 7800 call for a combined 4.15-point credit, about $415 total, opened February 18, 2026.

What is a short strangle?

Selling both an out-of-the-money put and an out-of-the-money call on the same underlying and expiration, collecting premium from both sides. It profits if the underlying stays between the two strikes as time passes. Unlike the defined-risk spreads elsewhere in this journal, a short strangle has undefined risk on both sides.

Did any economic events affect this trade during the week?

The Fed released its January meeting minutes on February 18, the same day the trade was opened. Whether that timing was deliberate is a fair question, but nothing in the trade log ties the entry to the release, and the position wasn't touched again for a month either way.