A Wednesday version of Financial Freedom Friday as I’m going to take a little time away from the computer and I hope you do as well!
Just like I do every year, as 2025 comes to a close I like to reflect on the goals, the performance, and the “why” behind my trading and my goals.
It’s been an amazing year, but not just because of the numbers on a screen. I spent my 45th birthday running across the Brooklyn Bridge in the NYC Half Marathon. I finally closed on my dream lake house, and my trading continued fund my life of freedom.
2025 was a great year I exceeded $10,000 a month in passive income. I tell you that because it’s important to set dreams bigger than you think you can achieve. You have to surround yourself with a group of people who push you when the motivation starts to wane…
Motivation always gets weak from time to time… It’s about having the discipline to stick to the system and goals!
2025 trading: Starting with the “Ugly”
Getting back to trading, and for this Financial Freedom Friday that is hitting your mailbox on a Wednesday… because Merry Christmas friends!
The first thing I do is go into my brokers and look for the “ugly.” My biggest losses first (and my biggest winners.)
My biggest losses this year were in QQQ and SPY. WHAT?????? How did $Maxwell lose in SPY and QQQ when both indexes are up??? It’s probably not what you’re thinking. I don’t normally trade SPY and QQQ because my 85% of my retirement is in SPY/QQQ
SPY and QQQ are my biggest trading losers because almost all of my hedges lost this year.
But that’s actually good news. I hedge such a small amount of my beta-weighted delta that the losses maxing out at 25 to 33% of my delta that my portfolio grew nicely. Sure if I had no hedges I would have had even better performance, but what if we ended up in a bear market this year?
The Lesson: My plan for 2026 is to update my hedging strategy a bit. I’ll be selling bear call spreads in SPY and QQQ for credits instead of buying put verticals for debits. Every trader is going to lose sometimes… the only way you can’t lose is to never sell.
The Winners:
My biggest winners were two positions about $20 apart: selling puts in HOOD and buying shares of NVDA and selling covered calls, covered strangles, and collars.
HOOD worked so well in 2024, why stop in 2025?
NVDA is a huge stock, but it’s chips are also powering the world around us… The best way to profit from a red hot stock longer term is owning shares. Remember shares of stock never expire. I think of shares of NVDA like owning a rental property without the headaches of tenants or property managers.
The “Noise” vs. The Reality
We had a significant drawdown this year. “Liberation Day” ]liberated my account with a HUGE drawdown, it was a swift and quick pull back. I listened to a lot of supposedly smart guru’s and furu’s tell us how “this time is different” and how America isn’t the leader of the world anymore…
To be honest, I almost believed the rhetoric.
But I’ve been here and done this for 30 years. I knew better than to sell my losers. I knew the market would bounce back, I didn’t know when. I didn’t expect the bounce to happen as fast as it did. I don’t regret how we traded the pullback. Hindsight being 20/20, I wish I added more shares than I did. I should have been buying small amounts of shares from my primary watchlist every single week.
Remember: Shares NEVER expire, friends.
Looking at 2026
Will you be surprised when I tell you the theme for 2026 looks a lot like 2025?
I’m going to make darn sure I take advantage of pullbacks. I’m not letting the “gurus” and financial know-it-alls get inside my head. I’ll build my 2026 watchlist and I’ll execute.
If you want access to my trades and my WIN’s, you should join the inner circle. Prices are going up in January. If you’ve been reading this email long enough, you had a chance to get in at $99 a year. Now it’s $199. In 2026, it’s going up again because, honestly, it’s still a steal.
No one really knows what will happen in the short term. But I do know that the strategies and the system I use work in the long term.. and I’m going to continue to share my ideas and my trades with you.
I hope you all have warm and happy holidays, a Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year.
Thank you all for taking time to read my emails. I love hearing about your success.
I’m curious… what was your biggest winner and your biggest loser this year? Let me know. And what do you plan to do differently in 2026? Take a little time to think about it!
Turning wealth into knowledge,
$Maxwell
P.S. Spending a tiny amount of time reviewing your trading performance is so important to your success for 2026. Don’t skip this exercise.
