Last year I was all over the place – Calendars, Double Calendars, Butterflies, Unbalanced Butterflies and more. I went in so many different directions that I made myself dizzy. Many of my trades made a nice return, and some did not. One thing, though, they were a learning experience.
What did I learn? That I should stick to what works consistently (for me), follow my established rules and do not over trade.
What works? Well, for my Spread Account it’s Verticals (Credit and Debit). For my Conservative Account it’s Naked Puts and for the Profit Tent Portfolio™ it’s Iron Condors with an occasional Calendar for adjustments.
The name of the game for 2012 is D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E. Holding my right hand over my heart, that is the pledge I am taking. I was thinking that this might make my blog posts sort of boring, but maybe not. Or, it just might end up like going to an AA meeting – talking about my struggles and demons. Heck, it might even be funny, now that I think about it!
Last year turned out really well for my Spread Account, blowing away the S&P 500 return (effectively zero). My PTP™? Not so good. I think I went a bit crazy with adjustments on that account.
Up until now, I never counted commissions either. Maybe I never admitted that, but I’m saying it now. So this year I am including it in all my returns and performance tables.
You may have noticed I made some cosmetic changes to the blog and I removed the In Play tab. It’s a little easier to just track everything by the month – open and closed.
I’ll be writing more this year as well. I sort of let things slide a bit. I might want to just make comments too – I mean this is an election year and there will be plenty of material. No, I really should just stick to options, right? You don’t care what I think about politics – I don’t think much of it at all.
Happy Trading
◄Jeff ►
