Quote from my7tvette:
Congrats on your weekly performance! I am curious as to how you intend to reach your 500k goal considering some pretty stiff cash withdrawals, 5k in Feb and so far 7k in Mar?
Also, to what do you attribute your Jan. losses? Have you made adjustments to your trading since then, or do you consider that an isolated occurrence?
Good luck and be careful with your use of leverage as volatility is on the rise.
Thanks for your insightful observation. It has been my target to take out money from time to time. I would still be delighted if I COULD HAVE reached my target after adjusting for withdrawals. As for the January loss, it was due to some stupid veangeance option trades, all in a two-day period. Here is my transaction list
Killer option trades in January
OPTION,entrytime(YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS),exittime,purchase amt, sold amt, profit/loss,type of trade
GOPAO,2007-01-17-14-37-26,2007-01-17-15-11-57,52120,27610,-24750.7,OPTIONS
GOPMO,2007-01-17-15-23-31,2007-01-17-15-40-01,27200,21600,-5680.7,OPTIONS
QAAMR,2007-01-18-10-10-43,2007-01-18-11-20-17,48000,18000,-30620.53,OPTIONS
If I could avoid throwing away money frivously, I should be happy. The two losses that killed me in January were two options (one on GOOG and another on AAPL) that I day-traded to my demise. In general I know I should not even trade options, because on the whole it is has been a loser in my account. At the time I had some minor (normal) losses in my stock trades, and out of vengeance (foolishness is the better word) I committed like 50% of my account balance in options that were at or out of the money expiring in a day or two. One cost me $30K, the other $24K. The above records show them. Up till that time I was still very positive for the month.
That stupidity led me to develop an automated monitor that checks my positions and closes out any position just initiated that is above a certain threshold (5% of account balance for options, about 90% for stocks). This at least protects me from myself: the psychology training is still ongoing.