Tuition Week: Five Days of SPX

Week of Jul 13–Jul 19, 2026

The best-oiled week of the record was immediately followed by the most expensive one. Monday almost included a PLTR put, canceled unfilled. Tuesday was the warm-up: two tiny XSP spreads and one SPX put spread, all three closed or expired green inside a few hours. Wednesday the account walked into 0DTE SPX size, and the market, mid chip-rout, with the war back in the headlines, started charging for the lessons. Nine round trips by Friday night: six wins, three stop-outs, net -$258.68. Tuition week.

What actually happened

Date	Action	Details
Tue Jul 14	Round trips	XSP 748/745 +$8.52, XSP 749/746 (3 lots) +$7.56, SPX 7525/7520 expired +$26.56
Wed Jul 15	Stopped	SPX 7510/7480 put spread, 1.35 credit, bought back 2.80 ten minutes later. -$149.88
Wed Jul 15	Stopped	SPX 7460/7490/7560/7590 iron condor, 1.75 credit, stopped at 3.50. -$184.76
Wed Jul 15	Expired	SPX 7505/7535/7580/7610 iron condor, 1.35 credit, all four legs expired. +$128.12
Thu Jul 16	Stopped	SPX 7490/7520/7595/7625 iron condor, 2.35 credit, put side stopped at 4.10, calls closed 0.05. -$188.32
Thu Jul 16	Re-entry	Sold the 7495 put against the surviving long 7490, 0.30 credit, expired. +$28.28
Fri Jul 17	Round trip	SPX 7370/7400/7530/7560 iron condor, 1.00 credit, closed 0.25. +$65.24
Sat Jul 18	Deposit	$653.25 ACH, spare cash in, portfolio kept high on the priority list

Two things the raw log shows that the P&L alone doesn’t. First, the stops were real: resting stop-limit orders sat behind the condors all week, and the three losses were stop executions, not frozen staring. This was executed like a professional experiment, not a tilt spiral, and that distinction is something the trader is genuinely proud of. Second, Thursday’s re-entry, selling the 7495 put against the long leg the stop-out had left behind, salvaging $28.28 from the wreckage, is the kind of detail that only shows up when someone is still thinking clearly mid-loss.

What moved the market this week?

A bad week to be short volatility on an index. Semiconductors had their steepest weekly loss in over a year, down 18% on the month after a Chinese AI model release rattled the whole trade; the S&P lost about 1.5% and dropped below its 50-day average; the VIX jumped 11% on Friday alone. And the war came back: energy was the only green sector as crude spiked on renewed hostilities. Wednesday and Thursday, the days all three stop-outs happened, were exactly the days the index was moving hardest. That’s not ambiguous causation for once. The new strategy got its stress test in a genuinely stressed market, war time, in the trader’s own shorthand.

Anything new tried?

Nearly everything: first XSP trades, first SPX 0DTE spreads and iron condors, first stop-limit brackets, first same-leg salvage trade. In the trader’s own framing, trying new strategies is part of the point of the account, and the acceptance comes with it: when you go big you can win or lose.

Takeaway

The lessons, stated plainly, in the trader’s own terms. Set better stop losses: the 2x-credit stops worked but were tight enough that ordinary 0DTE noise clipped them. Understand what a break-even iron condor actually is before selling one, because credit that only covers the exit isn’t income. Be more careful trading during war time, when geopolitical stress is moving the tape. In volatile stretches, use lower deltas, or simply don’t trade at all. The verdict on the week isn’t retreat, it’s discipline: the stated intent is to make this money back with better execution of the same craft. Each of these trades gets a full write-up in the trade journal; the two stop-out stories publish as their own entries.

Frequently asked questions

How much did this account lose in the week of July 13, 2026?

Net -$258.68 across nine closed same-day trades: six winners totaling +$264.28 and three stopped-out losers totaling -$522.96. It was the worst week of the documented record, and every trade in it had a defined-risk structure and a stop order in place.

What is a break-even iron condor?

An iron condor whose credit roughly equals what it costs to exit when one side gets tested, so the realistic outcome range collapses toward zero-minus-fees unless the market sits still. Understanding when a condor's width and credit make it effectively break-even before it's placed is one of the explicit lessons this account took from the week.

Why trade 0DTE SPX at all with a small account?

In this trader's own words, trying new strategies is genuinely enjoyable, and going big means you can win or lose. The account accepts occasional tuition weeks as the cost of learning new structures, with defined risk and stops, and the stated intent is to make the money back with better discipline rather than swear off the strategy.