I’m with Chris_Scoreboard that the 770% (or 570% or whatever) profit claim might more accurately describe the percentage increase in bullshit postings in this forum since Oct ’07.!
This very thread has seen a good appreciation in the level of BS postings!
And I had better acknowledge my claim of +20% was a guess, and I have to admit I didn’t pull off that 20% appreciation soley on trades that were all round-tripped within in the last three weeks.
For example, let’s look at one collection of puts against the NASDAQ, and S&P500, that I collected over the last 12 months. I just sold all those to close.
I just now put those into the spreadsheet and confirmed an aggregate net (including commission cost in/out) gain of 21% across all those closed option trades. How much was initially invested on that set of puts? Total initial cost was $24,437, which frankly is a lot of options for a light trader like me to be buying. Obviously I consider that amount to be “throw-away” money relative to my overall retirement portfolio because when you buy options you gotta be ready to lose every cent!
My biggest mistake on that collection of puts came with two of the positions purchased too early at original cost of $5000 (JAN08 QQQ strike at 42, and 44) both of which are now totally worthless, expiring in matter of few days. If I had only broke even on those two I would have made ten grand on the original twenty-five grand, a more respectible gain. The worst part is during the low lows of March ’07, those two options were UP about 25% (on paper in my account), and I didn’t sell them. (oops!)
Frankly, I’m not proud of making 20% return on that overall collection of options (held that long) because the risk was so high relative to that return.
I’m not a trader by profession. I’m just an engineer who makes trades weekly or monthly as a hobby.
