Category: Account Summary

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 …

October has been a good options expiration for me.  Six out of seven positions are closing for a profit.

NFLX – Bear $130/140 Call Spread – This one worked even better than planned.  I could’ve been more aggressive, but am happy to have been able to ride this one to the end without stressing much about the potential of a snap back high enough to cost me any profit.  I don’t think I’ll make this same trade again unless NFLX gets …

September was just an ugly month for me.  There’s no way to sugar coat it.  I expected a flattening or possibly even a rise from the lows of the end of August, but we didn’t see the carry through that started at the end of August, instead we saw further selling and since my account was sitting at a tipping point my losses were bigger than the market’s losses on a percentage basis.  Throw in an ill timed short trade …

September is a fairly light month for me on the options expiration front.  I only have three options expiring – two puts and one covered call.

SSO – September $45 Naked Put – I sold this put in late January when SSO was trading at $49.78.  This morning while it was trading at $43.94 I bought back my one SSO September $45 naked put for $1.15 and paid $115.34 with commissions.  Since I used an option instead of just going long …

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 lost close to 4.5% and 5.5% respectfully in July.  My losses were more than that, but it appears some of it is tied up in time value as volatility spiked which leaves me good room to recover, even if the markets stay flat.  The shift pushed me below the year to date returns for most of the major indexes.  The chase for performance through December 31st is going to be interesting with only four months …

Not that it’s a surprise to anyone, but this is not a good options expiration Friday for my account.  All of my naked puts finished in the money and all of my covered calls finished out of the money.

These are the 11 options I was short going into the day.

CSX – 1 August $25 put - Expiring in the money CSX rallied nicely for a few days from its lows, but then fell off a cliff again this week.  I like …