Well alot has happened in the last month.
In August I had an open position of 40 contracts of the QQQQ Sep 40 calls (QQQIW) with a cost basis of $0.80. I started this trade and it basically fell out of bed. I ended up closing the trade with a greater than 87% loss when I sold the contracts for $0.10 at the beginning of September.
This was well before the "Black Monday" we had this week. Before this trade I was up over 40% on the year and after the trade I was up 12% for the year. That type of hit was hard to the portfolio and the main reason was I took my eye of the ball on an open trade. You can't wish and hope a trade into profitability and you have to take your losses when they hit your stops.
Then some family issues came up and I had to take all of the funds from this trading portfolio out to pay for some unexpected expenses. So it looked like my experiment of trading $10,000 this year was over. In addition to this my day job we went through a major reorganization that took a fair amount of my time.
The good news is that all of my money was out of the market during this massive downturn in the market and I didn't loose anything. The bad news is all my money was out of the market and I was unable to profit from this massive downturn.
Last week I was able to refund this account with some additional funds (roughly about $5000.) So I'm starting to trade again, but with less money than before. Today I made a quick day trade to get my feet wet and purposely invested less than 10% of my portfolio so I can get the feel of the market back.
I expect that we may see a retest of the lows from Monday this week, but with various bailout bills and attempts by the government I have to stay nimble with the trades.
In August I had an open position of 40 contracts of the QQQQ Sep 40 calls (QQQIW) with a cost basis of $0.80. I started this trade and it basically fell out of bed. I ended up closing the trade with a greater than 87% loss when I sold the contracts for $0.10 at the beginning of September.
This was well before the "Black Monday" we had this week. Before this trade I was up over 40% on the year and after the trade I was up 12% for the year. That type of hit was hard to the portfolio and the main reason was I took my eye of the ball on an open trade. You can't wish and hope a trade into profitability and you have to take your losses when they hit your stops.
Then some family issues came up and I had to take all of the funds from this trading portfolio out to pay for some unexpected expenses. So it looked like my experiment of trading $10,000 this year was over. In addition to this my day job we went through a major reorganization that took a fair amount of my time.
The good news is that all of my money was out of the market during this massive downturn in the market and I didn't loose anything. The bad news is all my money was out of the market and I was unable to profit from this massive downturn.
Last week I was able to refund this account with some additional funds (roughly about $5000.) So I'm starting to trade again, but with less money than before. Today I made a quick day trade to get my feet wet and purposely invested less than 10% of my portfolio so I can get the feel of the market back.
I expect that we may see a retest of the lows from Monday this week, but with various bailout bills and attempts by the government I have to stay nimble with the trades.
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