Monday, April 20, 2009

Enter the Crash

So Friday I was feeling pretty good about expiration week. Closed out some decent trades. Let a couple puts expire worthless. Did an April naked put on Wed on C @ a $4 strike and bought it back Friday under 3.90 and still made money so I was feeling like a rockstar on that. Today I got stopped out of a long call on BMC but I have a put verticle on it that still looks ok. Even thought everything else is down with the market my overall positions look ok to me other than most of them are ultimately bullish. I'm still not very comfortable right now with neutral plays. How did expiration treat everyone else and how are you starting off the May cycle?

Monday, April 13, 2009

April Expiration Week - What Is & Isn't Working?

Ok guys here we go down to the wire for April. Any thoughts going into expiration? I didn't do very well the last two months with neutral trades likes Iron Condors and Calendars in part because of the changing market directions but also because I misread or mismanaged the positions through inexperience. Have to get much better and controling the risk and downside. I did do pretty good on calls and puts , mainly naked puts and credit verticles although these had smaller overall returns per trade. What is and isn't working for you?

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Welcome Newbie Traders

Welcome to the "The Newbie Trader" The basic purpose of this blog is to help us "Newbies" learn to trade by interactively sharing and exchanging ideas, experiences and references. Feel free to leave your thoughts or ask questions as a beginning trader here. If you as excited about learning to trade as me this should be the start of something fun!