neke great job.. you are on your way, and reaching 500 k is doable, considering where you are now, its good to see someone be aggresive with risk capital & earning these huge returns. your risking money you could afford to lose which is the only way to trade, regardless of your drawdowns.. wish you all the best in reaching your goals. your doing what most traders wish they can afford to do, no pain... no gain. you have a gameplan & the balls to trade on your own terms, way to go.. you will be laughing all the way to the bank soon enough.
I have always believed there is great potentials in options. But like any other strategy, I scale down considerably when it does not show good returns. Up till the start of this thread I have made bad losses in options, so it was not worth committing much buying power to it. Ultimately going over my records it boiled down to not picking my trades, trading too actively and spending tons of money in bid/ask spread and commissions. What I started doing differently was putting a premium on asking the question (what expected move am I looking at from this trade? Is it much more than sufficient to cover the spread costs). I have only scaled up ( subject to the absolute limit I impose on options) as things turned out fine. Normally that question is usually YES for very liquid stocks/options where the stock price is above $50 when there is a qualifying set-up. Of course there are exceptions. The trade on CMI like I mentioned put me in a dilemma. Ultimately I thought the expectations was worth the spread. Trust me, I will not take on such a spread unless the sun, the moon, and the stars all align (figurative!). By the way I still trade stocks actively. It is just they haven't been ranking frequently on the top/bottom trades because of the size of the moves in options. Last week I made 23 stock trades vs. 12 option trades. The second question I though I have answered before. The goal is to have a balance of $500K adjusted for withdrawals at year-end. So the balance needs to stay at or above at year-end. It is a target! Much like an earnings target. I am working towards it. It just helps to keep one focused. I won't cut off my head if I do not attain it.
That is a good question. I try to multi-task (work and check positions). So far my work is not suffering (at least my employers do not think so). Besides my company allows some flexibility in meeting my deadlines (like working from home outside of market hours to complete some tasks). Meetings are normally the dreaded times - when I might have a position and be away for 2-3 hours. But all in all, I am OK. If it ever comes to a situation when I think I cannot cope with a potential 20K loss while working for a $350 day, I might reconsider employment. But normally I take positions that I think 1-2 hours of tardiness will not wreck my account (it has worked both ways. I have come back from meetings and seen steep gains from positions, just like I have seen the opposite). I am not scalping for 2 minute trades, the average holding duration is a day, more or less
Your up big, the market is going nuts. Why not take out at least the initial deposit and then play with the rest?
Weekly Update for week 25 ended 08/17/2007 What a turbulent market! What a turbulence in my own account this week!! Really awful trading for the most part this week. Was down about 48K on Thursday morning before being rescued by the right call on FWLT as the market bottomed, closing the trade on Friday morning. Unfortunately ran with the herd and bought GS CALL Friday morning after the rate cut. Got out one hour later with half of the exposure (22.5K) gone. Then another bad trade. How could anyone have lost money shorting CFC on Wednesday! I did. Shorted at the worst possible time running with the herd and got out at close for a 17k loss. As if that was not enough, bought the put once again Thurday morning on the follow up bad news (drawing on credit) at an insane premium, getting out two hours later with a loss of 50% even though the stock price was about the same as when I bought the puts. Was watching on the sidelines as the stock took a plunge soon afterwards to 15 and rebounded mightily to about 20 near the close of trading. What a spectacle! Lost 14K buying DEERE calls after that good result on Wednesday, forgetting that the market had changed from MOMENTUM mode. Watchord for next week is CAUTION. Look for the high-probability set-ups, and don't be afraid to be on the sidelines if nothing shows up. Code: Balance B/F: 260,174 Gain for the week (less Interest) 9,291 ------------------------------------------------ Balance C/F: 269,465 Number of Trades 32 Number of Profitable Trades 16 Since Inception of Thread 2/25/2007 - 08/17/2007 Balance B/F: 76,636 Net Gain (Less Margin Interest) 233,829 Cash Withdrawal -41,000 ------------------------------------------------ Balance C/F: 269,465 (Adjusted balance before withdrawals is 310465, up 305% ) Number of Trades 640 Number of Profitable Trades 369 Expected Balance at this time to be on track for Year-End Target : 222,456 Status: Ahead of Target (Based on adjusted balance before withdrawals) Top/Bottom Discretionary Trades for the week TICKER ENTRY DATE/TIME EXIT DATE/TIME QTY PURCHASE AMT SOLD AMT GAINS/LOSS TYPE UFBHQ 2007-08-16-10-45-42 2007-08-17-10-39-34 20000 60000 139900 79548 OPTIONS (FWLT AUG 85 CALL) TMA 2007-08-15-10-03-53 2007-08-15-10-14-12 10000 93879 104062 10162 LONG ----------------------------------------------- DEHE 2007-08-15-10-17-11 2007-08-15-13-42-59 70000 124500 111330 -14312 OPTIONS (DEERE AUG 125 CALL) CFC 2007-08-15-14-50-56 2007-08-15-15-47-33 20000 415778 398558 -17276 SHORT GPYHO 2007-08-17-09-32-42 2007-08-17-10-30-04 15000 45000 22500 -22755 OPTIONS (GS AUG 175 CALL) CFCTT 2007-08-16-09-38-30 2007-08-16-11-52-11 40000 62815 32330 -31136 OPTIONS (CFC AUG 17.50 PUT) (Before Interest and Other charges) TRANSACTIONS ANALYSIS FROM 2007-02-25 TO 2007-08-18 Current Week | Since Inception of Thread | Method Gains/Loss No Of Profitable | Gains/Loss No Of Profitable Trades Trades | Trades Trades Automated AutoTrade1 -5179 9 4 | 5004 161 89 AutoTrade2 0 0 0 | 12886 7 6 AutoTrade3 0 0 0 | -4523 3 0 ----------- -------- ------------ | ----------- ------ ------------ Total Automated -5179 9 4 | 13368 171 95 ----------- -------- ------------ | ----------- ------ ------------ Discretionary Long 15565 9 6 | -31551 167 97 Short -20217 5 2 | 24223 159 94 Options(long) 18926 9 4 | 228862 143 83 ----------- -------- ------------ | ----------- ------ ------------ Total Discretionary 14275 23 12 | 221534 469 274 =========== ======== ============ | =========== ====== ============ Net Totals 9096 32 16 | 234902 640 369 =========== ======== ============ | =========== ====== ============
huh ... neke ... you do this trading in such size and do not follow the market all the time ( i.e. have another job during market hours )? sorry ... that is not the way I would be trading but good luck to you stay cautious ... remember you are not going to be a failure if you only make 100 or even 200 K by yrs end instead of this 500K ET stuff