I got stopped out on the PETD pullback at my BE of $17.02 so that was a no gainer, I sold July 15 calls on UNG for $1.65 so my BE on that is at $13 and I will hold UNG at least until the end of the year. My BE on COP is $39. 75 with the short LEAPS and with the current dividend I'm content to hold COP at that price for a long period of time. I guess you could look at these as losers since I could have taken $2 profit on PETD and didn't, $1.50 on UNG and didn't, and $6 on the COP. But I'm content with the prices on each I'm holding.
"No Plans, No Rules, No Success." My plan on COP was to get the stock at a price lower than $40 or to get it called away for a 20% profit on the trade, so that trade is successful. If it goes lower, I will add to the position. The PETD was a small gamble that cost me nothing.
I believe what you wrote and congratulations to the success. I would guess it is getting much harder for you to repeat your success as options are much more expensive than few years back. OTM calls are very expensive now. You have been very patient on your trading, and my gut feeling is you have be more patient from now on. Finding a 20X bagger is very hard, unless you are willing to take more risks.
Perhaps you could clear up a small detail for me. You say you opened an account with $50,000. With this you bought some calls....$30,000 worth. Your plan you say is to short 10,000 Qs against those calls. So here is my question: let's say the Qs were trading at $25. Shorting 10,000 Qs at $25 would take $125,000 or so on margin. And what you got left is $20K in the trading account. Perhaps you could clear this detail up. What am I missing? OldTrader
You're not missing anything. It was my 1st trade and I would have gotten a quick lesson in margin requirements. That order would have been rejected and I would have had to take a .07 loss, which I was willing to risk when I entered the trade. You would have had to been watching the screen then to realize just how fast the Q's were moving to understand my willingness to jump on the trade like that. That fact that they ran for 10 days was just pure luck, I was just hoping to make .20-.30 on the contracts. I find it interesting that people think I'm full of shit because I say that IMO most people who try to make a living trading a retail account willl evantually lose from a slow bleed . People here think I'm conceited because I say " I realize I can't beat beat the market on a regular basis by enough to make it worth my while, but believe that if you are patient and observant you can jump in and out occassionally with substantial gains." I think the people here boasting how they have figured out a system to beat the makets are more conceited.
Those trades are boring. Even if you had sold those position as you wished, how much could you make? Those would be ordinary gains that day traders make everyday. It is not the same type of home run trades you reported in your first post. What was you last home run trade? I mean 10X bagger?