Actually he did, but the big losses were in stocks. He lost half million in WISH 3 years ago. I think he lost in ROOT too. Had 2 big positions in GME, not sure how those went. Also in post #37 there are 3 losing positions.
"No more trades since the last update, perhaps I will do one last play next week for CPI. Stay tuned for part 4. I am debating going all-in or not for CPI, will see."
The long option you buy could easily have been part of a credit spread pair (one long, one short). That could have been Tom or Tony. They work hard to make their 35% per year without any directional bias. What that basically means is that long buyers, if their method is not better than random, start out with a -35% per year dis-advantage. Yes, they would be fools if their directional plays were not better than random. I've seen Tom and Tony look at research that shows their edge is not a guarantee if they don't follow some rules built up around statistics, even a narrow set of rules. This means that long buyers can possibly start out with a break-even chance, even with a random entry/exit, if they just do what Tom and Tony are not supposed to do. (Example: if they do best in the first two hours by taking profits at 25% potential, then a buyer might do well to hold into the afternoon [or start in the afternoon], and be prepared to drop 50% of value before stopping out) This is to say that the Black-Sholes model, and modern versions of it, tend to give each side of a position (long or short) almost an even money chance at success. That's why Tom and Tony still have to work hard despite models. The market is tight. (you might be a fool if you didn't work with some kind of theoretical price formula though. Probably more sellers work with such models than buyers, contributing to the buyer/fool reputation). Because i think i have a directional advantage, i would probably go into the options market as a buyer, because your rightness about direction offers more profits, almost exponentially, the more right you are on a consistent basis. So, rather than being fools, the buyers of options will typically be almost anyone with less than a million dollars in capital. At which point you can just forget about being right and just collect premium for $350k per year with not much variance from year to year. That said, i don't really like the reddit guy's criteria for his convictions. He may well be a fool. Given his record so far though, looks like he can afford to lose 50% of a position from time to time.
The argument against that: The short side of 0DTEs is managed by MMs and not guys in their bedrooms. Compare versus the XIV ETN implosion of February 2018, where the short vol trade was stuffed with casual retail traders being loaded on XIV (or SVXY) w/ leverage based on that trade's performance on a two year lookback.