This was a bad month for me overall and a lousy quarter too. I had lots of winners and one big loser. By my own admission I took on too much risk on one position and when it moved against me I didn't have the stomach to stay in and manage it. I lost over 50% of my monthly profits on one short trade which only had a max possible gain of $200 to begin with. The 5 delta sure looked like stealing money when I put in on. Lesson learned, hopefully. As I posted when I closed this particular trade for a loss, I would have continued to sell short the weeklys and roll the trade up and out until it bit me. It's probably better that it bit me early because I would have got a false sense of confidence with it. I need to stick with what got me to the dance and stop trying to be a cowboy. This is the sort of trade that would have never made it past a risk manager had I been employed or in a trading group. Since I have to be my own filter and thus restrain myself, I need to work on making sure no trades get put on that don't pass the smell test. This will be a hard habit to break as disciplining myself isn't my strong point. But if I want to be a better trader I will simply need to learn to do so. Also, even though this month was a winner as far as realized trades, I've currently got a MTM loss of about ($1500) for OCT OPEX plays that were put on during September.
Many of you have been reading this blog may have noticed that my blogging frequency has increased over the past few weeks as I got short the market. As you can imagine I am down money since getting short the market, this is the time when most people pull away from posting. But my goal is to stay active and involved and show you that trading is not always rainbows and butterflies. It is times like these that the things I have been sharing over the past couple of weeks are so important. You need to trade small relative to your account. I have a decent short position in the market and my portfolios are set up to make some awesome returns if we finally turn lower. But something I would like to point out is that my account is 70% Cash. I learned a long time ago how important it is to live by the rules you preach. Because of my discipline I am able to continue to hold my positions, I have time and capital on my side. I can't stress enough how important it is not to get to big....

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