September 2026 Swing Trades Recap: I Was Late on $MRNA

Disclosure: As of September 30, 2026 I hold positions in CDNS, KOD, NCLH, TTWO in the account this recap covers. This is a record of trades already taken, not a trade idea; open positions can change at any time after publication without notice. Not personalized investment advice. See full disclaimer below.

Quick note first: this recap is a month late. It was written on October 1 and sat in my drafts, and I didn't catch it until the end of October. That's on me, sorry about that. Everything below is as of September 30, so some of these prices and positions have moved since then. The October recap is out today too and has the current book.

The Month in One Paragraph

1 swing closed in September and I finished the month with 4 open. $MRNA was the one that came off, and I closed it later than I should have because I was on vacation and not watching it. Everything else on the book is new: a $CDNS lot on September 1, $KOD on September 28 after a day trade turned into something worth holding, and a starter in $NCLH calls that I added to on the last day of the month. $TTWO carried over from August and I left it alone the whole time.

Closed This Month

$MRNA

I took $MRNA as an EP long at the open back on August 19 and kept roughly 1/4 of the size as the swing piece at a $124.03 average, so September was really just the back half of that trade. It was marked at $144.32 on September 1, up 16.36% versus my cost, and that turned out to be as good as it got. My exit signal came and went on the daily chart while I was on vacation and I wasn't watching the position at all, so I closed it on September 10 around $133 instead. That works out to about 7% above my average, which is a win on the scorecard and a bad trade in practice.

The read was never the issue here. I was right on the setup, right to keep the leftover piece as a swing, and then I gave most of what it had made back by being away from the desk when the chart said to go. What I wrote down that day is that I need a way to watch a swing for its exit even when I'm nowhere near a screen, because a swing I can't monitor isn't really being managed.

Adds and Trims

$NCLH is the only swing I scaled in September, and it's the one options position on the book. I bought the January 15, 2027 $15 calls at $1.62 as a starter in the last week of the month, then bought more at $1.63 on September 30. The two fills are a penny apart, so the add barely moved my cost on it.

Still Open

$KOD is the one that's working. It was my best EP long of September 28, it kept grinding higher all day instead of fading into the close, and I kept it as a swing at a $71.99 average instead of closing it out at the bell. By September 30 it was near $93.59, which is about 30% above my cost in 3 days. There's no fundamental story on this one, it's a momentum hold, so it stops making sense the day the trend does.

$NCLH went on the book in the last week of September, and those calls run all the way to January 2027, so time isn't the pressure on this one. It's a starter and it's still a starter, which means there's nothing in it to grade yet.

The $CDNS swing lot dates to September 1 at $312.49, bought as a 1 to 2 week hold, and it's still sitting there a month later. I run $CDNS in two different accounts as two separate trades, and this is the swing one. Nothing happened to it after the entry.

$TTWO has been on since August 31 at $219.97, opened as a starter on the last day of that month. I didn't add to it, trim it, or sell it in September. It goes into October exactly the way I opened it.

Carrying Into Next Month

4 swings go into October and 3 of them I opened in September. $KOD matters most and it's a pure momentum hold, so the only question that counts is whether the trend keeps holding or rolls over. $NCLH is the opposite kind of trade, an options swing with months left on it, so what would change the read there is the cruise business itself rather than a few ugly sessions. The $MRNA lesson is the other thing I'm taking into October, and it isn't about a ticker, it's about being reachable when a position needs a decision.

Related Reading: Klarman and Elliott Both Opened NCLH in Q1. The Stock Is Now at 52-Week Lows and Why I Closed My $PLTR Calls After the $122.50 Break

Howard is a full-time trader based in New Jersey with 13 years of experience across Forex, crypto, equities, and futures. He started Position Note to document his trades and analysis in public. All positions are disclosed. Nothing here is personalized investment advice.