Ho.. been away from posting to the journal for a while, here is an update of the current positions & motivations. Looking back on this journal I can say I did some fucking stupid shit (and probably still am doing, which I will recognize in a month or so

) and lost a lot of (for me) money. Too bad, but I knew the risk when I decided to enter the financial markets.
Looking back I also can (happily?) conclude that I also learnt a lot of stuff. Check out the first trade, its a 1:1 calender on the AEX index, which would have killed me if there would be some nice trending moves in it. Then came the 'perfect option positions' which were poorly managed, and a couple of trades that, due to lack of a well-thought-out risk management plan and fear or greed kicking in hard were not profitable.
Another big thing certainly learnt was that there is no perfect strategy, there is no perfect tactic, not even given a certain market environment. Thinking I found 'magic bullets' only made me hold on to losing trades for 'being sure' it would work out 'cuz the position is gold!'
Having said that, I can also tell my loyal reader that I havent given up and lets jolt down the positions & motivations here!!
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VDM / Van der Moolen --> specialist (7.78)
2x APR04P@5.00 - leftover from an old position, worthless & not worth the transaction cost to eliminate.
Orig. price 0.48, cur. price 0.01
2x APR04C@7.00 - leftover from an old position, ITM and I am letting this one ride out and cash whatever its value is thursday before expiration. SEC fine is settled, Moolen has been trading all over the place lately, lets see what happens
Orig. price 0.73, cur. price 1.01
AEG / Aegon --> insurer (11.36)
2x APR04C@13.00 - leftover from an old position, worthless & not worth the transaction cost to eliminate.
Orig. price 0.49, cur. price 0.01
HGM / Hagemeyer --> trading company (1.84)
2xOCT05C@0.88 (call multiplyer 139.0) - long-term position, Hagemeyer was facing deep debt and has been saved by ABN Amro, extra stock has been given out and the company is making a (market trend-driven?) comeback, plan is to hold for a while.
Orig. price 1.41 (mult.100), cur. price 1.07 (mult. 139.0)
RCNC / RCN Corp. --> cable corp. (0.31)
200 shares - penny stock gamble, entered when I spotted heavy volume, crazy monkey call but lets see what happens to this monkey.
Orig. price 0.40, cur. price 0.31
GTN / Getronics --> computer guys (2.63)
100 shares - position taken because the company has been recovering quite well after critical moments almost 2 years ago, this one also trends very nicely with the overall market trends.
Orig. price 2.73, cur. price 2.63
1xOCT04P@3.00 - Insurance for the long position
Orig. price 0.73, cur. price 0.73
IFX / Infineon --> computer chips guys (12.48)
100 shares - thought it was a good stock

Orig. price 11.45, cur. price 12.48
1xMAY04P@12.00 - Insurance for the long position
Orig. price 1.14, cur. price 0.41
1xMAY04C@11.00 - Part of a callspread.
Orig. price 0.87, cur. price 1.67
-1xMAY04C@12.00 - Part of callspread.
Orig. price 0.37, cur. price 0.92
Callspread was put on as a simple directional trade with a 1:1 risk/reward.
BAY / Bayer --> chemist & lifescientist (20.65)
200 shares - faith in the company & collecting dividend
Orig. price 19.96, cur. price 20.65
-2xAPR04C@20.00 - part of a callspread
Orig. price 0.65, cur. price 1.09
2xAPR04C@22.00 - part of a callspread
Orig. price 0.15, cur. price 0.07
2xMAY04P@20.00 - insurance for the stock, the callspread was put on to refinance the insurance
Orig. price 1.44, cur. price 0.83
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Haa so there you have another chapter in the book of disaster im writing down here. As usual, comments&questions very welcome!
Tiki