Monthly: Blessing or a curse? 23-1 Grade B

I count 23 winners 1 loser for the December option cycle. Grade is B because I lagged behind the market during the sharp rally. More than a few premium sellers got burned by the rally. Some got burned badly. So perhaps I was fortunate to be too busy to do much trading. Some might see the other side, however, my history is that I lag behind during sharp rallies. So probably I was fortunate to be too busy to do much trading.

The six-pack of etfs that I track from best to worst YTD:

IWM +20.7% U.S. small cap stocks

SLV +15.8% silver

SPY +10.4% U.S. large cap stocks

EEM +9.2% Emerging market equity

GLD +6.9% gold

TLT -2.9% U.S. 20-year Treasuries

My trading account is at +9.8, so I am now behind SPY buy and hold. This is what tends to happen during sharp rallies. Factor in another 2% for the SPY annual yield and the underperformance becomes more annoying. Still, I'll repeat that if someone told me at the beginning of the year, I could sign up for +9%, I would have taken it. If they had told me that when I was down more than -5% during February, I might have been talked down to +5%. 

There are no guarantees for the trading that I do. The odds are in my favor, but even so, some will lose, some will lose big.

I'll take some time during the holidays to clear my head, and have more time for trading. We will see if that means more trades, and hopefully more profits.