Not knowing anything about options cost me plenty in the market meltdown of 1999. Now that I know about options, I trade both calls and puts and have made money doing both. My best trades have been on UAI KH, UST MH, XTO AH and last and best one was on IRF MG. UAI KH (ANSI) was bought out. I had already sold my call option on this one but, the option shot up from around $8 to over $21 in one day. I sold out around $5.60 at a cost of $3.70 so, that could have been a huge winner there. In hindsight, I just started trading options then, so, I did not want to lose the profit on my 3 contracts. Another option UWT XE, I sold too soon at a loss. It turned into a good winner, over 100% about 1 month after I sold it. Patience is a virtue I still have to learn but, hopefully, as I trade more and more----the mistakes will be less and less.
Took a nice hit from holding PMCS calls bought the monday before 9/11. Lesson learned is anything can happen. Highest percent gain came on PMCS 7.5 puts bought for .20 when the stock spiked to 8.80 and sold 3 or 4 days later for 1.00 when it fell to 6.80. One of my worst losses came from holding 30 WMT 55 puts bought at 2.5 right before the election and when bush won the stock ran up 5 points and I puked them for a 4k loss.