As a trader who mostly sells options, it makes sense to track progress from expiration to expiration (always the 3rd Friday of each month). For the trading month up to July expiration, I have five winners, one loser. The headline is 3-1-2 because two of the winners are what I term "break even winners" where the broker makes more than I do. Losers of the same ilk are "break even losers."
The one loser was X (U. S. Steel) and it would have been a winner had I held until expiration, instead of cutting my loss. The five winners are short RIMM, long SPY, EEM, IWM, SPY again. The trades this week with the tailwind of the big rally helped move me above break even for the period.
Overall, this month can be described as treading water with a tiny gain. Still, considering that most of my trades were longs (short puts), and the market had another down month, it is something. Better to be cautious and eek out a tiny gain, than that guy that I wrote about in "Another Sad Story." He "graduated" from an option seminar that taught the strategy of buying straddles (both puts and calls hoping for a big, big move either way) ahead of earning reports. That guy lost 100% of his account in a few months worth of trading. Options are not for everyone and like I said, my trading style would not work for some others.
long BUD is my only remaining position
Cheers.
No comments:
Post a Comment