Monthly 85-12 Treading water, grade C

I count 85 winners, 12 losers for the May option cycle. Sounds good at first, but some of the those losers were over 1000% (basis premium collected). Self-grade is C. So far in 2016, that's four not so good months, and only one good month. Overall, I am up a bit for the year, and the slimmest of gains for the month.

Monsanto was this May's main culprit. MON gapped higher on takeover news and I was short three legs of calls. I also had losers in ATVI JNJ MCD.

Tracking a few etfs from best to worst:

SLV +19.0% silver

GLD +18.0% gold

TLT +7.9% 20-year US treasuries

SPY +0.8% S&P 500 U.S. large cap

EEM +0.1% Emerging market equity

IWM -1.6% Russell 2000 U.S. small cap

My trading account is +1.4% for 2016, which isn't half bad, but not exactly good either. It is beating the U.S. stock indexes, which is mostly what I have been trading. Treading water is a good description. A lot of effort, a lot of activity, not much progress. The biggest losers for 2016 by ticker: BA UA MON. 

The biggest winners for 2016 by ticker: CMG TSLA SPY MCD. Sometimes a stock gets on the avoid list, if I continue to struggle with it. Sometimes I might take more chances if it is on the winner list.

The last few weeks have felt stressful, so it may be good for me, to take it easy for a little bit. With Memorial Day marking the beginning of vacation season for many of the big market fish, we will see if we settle into quiet summer trading, or not.