Down $1,000 on Paper Mid-Speech. It Still Closed as the Week's Best Trade.

Week of Aug 24–Aug 30, 2026

Five SPX 0DTE cycles closed green this week for $539.88, and on paper that’s a clean week. It isn’t the real story. On Friday, a short SPX call went roughly $1,000 underwater at its worst point as the index rallied hard into a Fed Chair’s speech, and it took a mid-session reversal driven by that same speech to turn it into the week’s single biggest win. Layered underneath both: a six-week /ES strangle saga finally closed out for a real -$106.88, an honest, if modest, loss across its whole arc, not the win a partial glance at the ledger might suggest.

Friday: the real story of the week

A 2-lot SPX call credit spread went on Friday morning, August 28, short the 7770 call and long the 7790 call, entered at 10:14 AM ET for a 0.90 combined credit. The account owner’s own account of what happened next is the actual point of this entry, not the mechanics:

Stay on top of the trade. If you think your analysis was good, hold on to it, but the market can surprise you. So you have to plan for two scenarios, that you’re winning or not winning. In this case, I won, but it could easily turn to a loss.

Here’s what actually happened. Thursday had already been a strong session, Nvidia’s earnings beat sending the S&P up 0.7% on a broad tech rally. That momentum carried into Friday morning, and the index kept climbing, pressuring the short 7770 call hard enough that the position’s paper loss reached roughly $1,000 at its worst point, a real, physically uncomfortable number to watch on a 2-lot position. Then, at 10:12 AM ET, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh began his Jackson Hole remarks, and the tape turned almost immediately. His emphasis on inflation and price stability read as hawkish, pushing the odds of a September rate hike from 35% to 57% within the session, and the rally that had been building since Thursday came apart. By the close, the S&P had given back its gains to finish at 7,711.76, comfortably below the 7770 strike, and both legs of the spread expired worthless in the account’s favor: a $173.12 profit, the largest single credit of the week.

The position was held through that entire swing on conviction that the analysis behind it was sound. It worked. The framing that matters here, the same one this site has held to on every high-stakes entry before this one, is that a good outcome doesn’t retroactively make the risk taken to get there okay. A position that goes $1,000 against its size at the worst point carried real, uncomfortable uncertainty the whole way through, and the honest lesson isn’t “the analysis was right.” It’s the one stated above: plan for both outcomes, winning and not winning, because the same conviction that produced a $173.12 win here could just as easily have produced a real loss on a session that reversed the other way.

The rest of the week: four more clean cycles

Date	Trade	Result
Mon Aug 24	SPX 7680/7700 call credit spread, 2 lots, 0.50 credit	Expired worthless. +$93.12
Tue Aug 25	SPX 7700/7720 call credit spread, 2 lots, 0.45 credit	Expired worthless. +$83.12
Wed Aug 26	SPX 7635/7615 put credit spread, 2 lots, 0.50 credit	Expired worthless. +$93.12
Thu Aug 27	SPX 7640/7620 put credit spread, 2 lots, 0.55 credit	One short bought back at 0.05, rest expired. +$97.40
Fri Aug 28	SPX 7770/7790 call credit spread, 2 lots, 0.90 credit	Expired worthless after the Warsh reversal. +$173.12

Monday through Wednesday were ordinary, boring 0DTE cycles, exactly what this strategy looks like on a calm week: sell a defined-risk spread, let it expire, move on. Thursday had one small piece of real management, closing one of the two short puts early for a nickel rather than letting every leg ride to expiration, a minor, sensible adjustment that didn’t change the outcome much. None of the first four days needed the kind of nerve Friday did.

The /ESU6 saga, finally closed

This is a real position finally getting its full, honest resolution. The 2-lot /ESU6 strangle opened July 31 for a combined $781.56 credit closed in two separate pieces, weeks apart: one lot on August 4 for a real -$393.44 loss, and the second, remaining lot this week, on August 24, closed for a real +$286.56. Looked at as the single position it actually was, credit in minus both debits paid out, the full arc nets to -$106.88. That’s a real, if modest, loss across the whole six-week life of the trade, and it’s worth stating plainly rather than letting the August 24 close read as an isolated win it wasn’t.

The August 24 close itself was executed as a roll: the same order that bought back the last of the old position also opened a new, smaller 1-lot strangle on the September 18 expiration, entered for a 3.00 combined credit. That position didn’t last long. Three days later, on August 27, it was closed out for a real, separate +$41.56, a small, clean win in its own right, distinct from the six-week position it grew out of.

Later that same day, a new, unrelated 2-lot /ESZ6 strangle went on, short the October 12 6200 put and 8600 call, for a combined 6.60 credit. That position is still open, the account’s next chapter on the /ES side, with weeks of runway ahead of it.

What moved the market this week

Thursday’s Nvidia earnings beat set the tone: the chipmaker’s stock jumped as much as 8.7% on strong guidance, pulling the S&P 500 up 0.7% in a broad tech rally that also lifted names like Salesforce. That momentum carried into Friday morning before Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech reversed it midday, his hawkish read on inflation pushing September rate-hike odds from 35% to 57% and dragging the S&P back down to close the week at 7,711.76, still positive for the week overall despite Friday’s pullback. It’s a real, clean example of a single scheduled speech moving the tape enough to flip a session, and by extension a position, from one kind of day into the opposite kind within a couple of hours.

Takeaway

Two real stories closed out this week, and neither one should be read as simpler than it actually was. The /ESU6 saga’s honest ending is a real, small loss across its full six-week arc, not a win, once the whole thing is looked at together instead of in pieces. Friday’s trade made real money, $173.12, the week’s best, but it did so by surviving a genuine $1,000 paper swing that could have gone the other way just as easily. The lesson from that one isn’t about being right. It’s about staying on top of a position through real uncertainty, planning honestly for both outcomes before knowing which one you’ll get, and not mistaking a good result for proof the risk was fine to take.

Frequently asked questions

How did this account do the week of August 24, 2026?

Up $539.88 in realized SPX trading across five green same-day cycles, Monday through Friday. Separately, a six-week /ES strangle saga fully closed out for a real net -$106.88 across its whole lifecycle, a small short-lived roll position added +$41.56, and a new 2-lot /ESZ6 strangle opened and remains running.

What happened with Friday's trade specifically?

A 2-lot SPX call credit spread was entered Friday morning, and the index rallied hard enough intraday to put the position roughly $1,000 underwater on paper at the worst point, driven by carryover momentum from Thursday's Nvidia-led rally. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's hawkish Jackson Hole remarks then reversed the tape mid-session, and the position expired worthless in the account's favor for a $173.12 profit, the week's largest single win.

What actually happened with the long-running /ESU6 position?

The 2-lot /ESU6 strangle opened July 31 closed in two tranches, one on August 4 and the final lot on August 24 via a roll into a new short-lived position. Taken together as one lifecycle, the original position netted a real -$106.88. The roll's new leg (a 1-lot Sep 18 strangle) closed three days later for its own separate +$41.56, and a new, unrelated 2-lot /ESZ6 strangle opened the same day and is still open.