Category: Account Summary

March was a pretty good month for me.  I increased my exposure close to the right time and was able to ride the rally off the lows to a profitable month while the major indexes lost value.  The smartest move I made was not closing any positions when the market started to look shaky.  My prediction of a 5% correction was close as the dip went a little over 4% before snapping higher again.  I’m not expecting this to be …

March was a much better month for stocks than I expected and because I wasn’t bullish enough I trailed the market and lost some ground on my comparisons with the indexes for year to date returns again.  My lack of stupid moves is still working for me with respect to not taking big losses, but I’m also not taking enough chances to keep up.  There is a middle ground I need to find still.  Then again, if we had seen …

This was another good options expiration for me.  My naked puts expired worthless and my covered calls were assigned.  That’s generally how I like it, finish with a clean slate and start over.  My one MDY March $175 covered call was assigned overnight.  This morning the short call and my 100 shares of MDY were called out of my account and $17,500 was added back in place of it.

I’m still not enthused about adding too much more exposure with the VIX …

I haven’t made many trades lately because I’ve been waiting for a pull back like we’ve seen the past couple of days.  Now that the correction has started the question has to be how long and far will it last.  I don’t know the answer, but I do know that with most of my positions out of the money I’m not worried too much yet.  If it looks like it’s going to last, I might close out a position or …

February surprised me and stocks stayed healthy all month.  I’m still trying to avoid flat out stupid moves and have held back in some respects.  That allowed most of the indexes to move ahead of my returns for the year so far.  With 10 months remaining I’m not too concerned.  Eventually stocks will stop moving higher every single month and I’ll gain back some ground.  I think keeping my options’ expiration periods to the two front months will continue to …

January was a great month for me and set me up for a great start to the year with my returns better than most stock indexes so far.  My goal for the year is to avoid stupidity.  It sounds so easy up front, but yet somehow I’m not so sure I can pass up the lure of the exciting trade every day for a full year.  I’m trying to keep most of my trades with closer month expiration dates to …

December was a pretty good month for me and allowed me to salvage a mediocre year.  I’m actually not upset with my 2011 performance considering I made a couple of stupid trades that cost me big and I still ended up coming close to the average of the indexes’ returns.  However, the goal isn’t to tie the index returns.  I could do that much more tax efficiently by using a diversified buy and hold technique.  The goal is to beat …

November showed how good October was.  It made flat feel like a loss after having such easy money the month before.  I gained a little, but was essentially flat.  I could’ve done better if I didn’t pull back on my risk exposure as much as I did, but sometimes it’s better to reduce risk and wait for a better day to trade than lose money.  I have roughly $3,500 in time value left to melt away between now and the …

October was nothing but beautiful for my accounts.  I gained more than 17% for the month while the major indexes were closer to 11% higher on the month.  That leverage I have in place to create such a positive month is also the reason I’m trailing the markets for the year to date.  It’s a volatile time and I’m riding it all up and down.  I have a chunk of time value left to expire over the next two and …