14-3 for April, grade C+

Fourteen winners, three losers for closed trades during the April option cycle. I give myself a grade of C+. The losers were some whoppers in terms of percentages. The SPY was up slightly during this time frame and my account down just a smidge.

This was an event filled month, with a crash in gold, a flash-crash on the German stock exchange, a terrorist attack in Boston. I got a bit too complacent. My defensive action during the Korean saber rattling did not work out, and resulted in two of the three losers.

The mini-crash in gold caught me by surprise. What is more surprising, in some ways, is that gold hasn't had those kind of moves before. Every other commodity has experienced it. Stock traders are taught to expect -10% down days about once every five years or so during normal markets. That a 10% down day in gold was categorized as such an unusual event is interesting and revealing to me.

Going forward I have more exposure than I would like. The market movements gave me a jolt, and I am a still out of balance.

A lot of folks are interested in gold. For now I want to steer clear and leave it to the more nimble traders. Again, V-bottoms tend to be rare, and by definition, only a very few buy at the low of a V-shaped chart bottom. I want to let the dust settle, and let the ducks line up in a more organized fashion. I may take a small position here or there, but gold is a muddled market.

Long BA LGF PG WFC TSLA

Net long APC LEN SPY