Bah... The bad news : impeccably bad timing. Lots of bad trading and decision making. The good news : mostly user error. Lack of discipline. Impatience. Public posting messes with my head, too. Better suited for mostly positional trades. Cost of tuition, I suppose, if you're the type to rationalize. Many distractions, but no excuses. I have to decide on SPX or oil. Can't do both. I like the change of scenery.
What have you had the most success with? I try CL now and then but over the years ES has just worked better for me. Others do very well with CL
CL, no doubt, but it took some learning. Honestly, over the past 7 years, I've become a much better trader. Just happens that I latched on to CL during most of that time. CL is a great trader, options are good, too. QM may be designed for slippage, but I've had a pretty good experience with it. Many decent fills as well as the slippage kind. I won't even touch USO, anymore. That's one reason why I like SPX, a vast array of products. And you know YM can even act as a pretty good surrogate. I used to trade YM many years ago until option liquidity dried up. But YM itself is still pretty good. I've always had a little trouble with the DOM of ES. Intimidating, I guess. I like CL and YM because you can set back orders and if it hits your price , you have a reasonable chance of a fill. BTW, remember late 2008. ES B/A in the teens, near DOM in the 100s. Huge fear.
I remember that terrible morning of 9/11 as well. TV news reporters in shock, as well as the rest of us. I had relatives in Manhattan that day. They later told stories of fleeing from the dust clouds that rolled up the canyons of lower NYC. My East Coast relatives also lost a few friends that day. Some images remain crystal clear. I remember where I was when I heard John Lennon was shot. A little less clear, but I remember the announcement in grammar school when Robert Kennedy was shot. I also remember where I was just before the 10th anniversary of 9/11 - about 3 years ago to the day. I was in Cleveland, Ohio after a trip to western NY. New England had just had terrible storms, flooding, and many emergency personnel from Ohio had gone up to help out. In the hotel lobby there were lots of them returning home. Great bunch of guys, easy to talk to. But as the images of airplanes crashing into buildings appeared on the big screen, the mood grew a little somber. They had lost so many brothers that day. Since I was flying out the next day, I didn't particularly care to watch too much of it, and kindly excused myself, and returned to my room.
A couple of other problems with CL. The month to month roll. 4 expiries per year (ES) seems like a luxury. And with the monthly options, trying anything cal. or diag. gets you trading the spread, as well. I don't know how to trade the spread, so I rarely have done those kinds of trades - mostly on short duration rolls.
Agree there seems to be more flexibility and liquidity in ES options (spreading weekly and monthly) vs CL options