Idea of this journal is to document my trades. I have visitied this site in the past but never posted anything. Posting my trades & maintaining a journal is more for me to document my trades & to get into a discipline habit of trading. & hopefully would get comments from others too, which may help improving my skills & knowledge. Brief history about my trading experience. I have traded on & off for last 15 years, in both stocks & options, but very rarely & in general i would say i have broke even mostly, not really making a profit or loss (other than IRA / 401k accounts), which are up. from 2003 to 2010, i did not own much of anything in stocks or options at all (other than retirement accounts). Starting this year (2011) i started trading actively (to my standards). Started with $100k initial investment in Feb-2011 & was up about 15% till April 14th of this year & then came April options expiry & lost $32k in a single GOOG trade. So i will start off with the loosing trade (i am trying to get over it & will take me few days), but anyways here is (was) my 1st trade for this journal. Bought BULL Put Spread of GOOG Apr-11 expiry (550/540) on tuesday. Sold 550 Puts Bought 540 puts for a credit of $8000. & if only i had sold them on thursday, i would have made a nice $3000 in 3 days, but i violated my own rule & held it during earnings call & hence the result. Anyways - enough about me & sorry for the lost post, but promise that next posts will be way shorter & only about actual trades that i make.