June 2010 OPEX Results

The results this month are misleading so I backed out the two long-dated plays from the average win/loss calculations. These were MTM gains for many months and just happened to turn in to realized gains this month as I finally decided to close them out. I don't consider their gains having anything to do with this month's portfolio. I do however obviously have to consider them for the overall P/L. I'm now understanding more how a diversified options trader really needs to measure results based off of starting capital on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. Trying to keep track of trades where you close out one leg at a different time frame than another gets tedious and can be misleading. Once I complete logging my past trade history, I think I'll smooth out the numbers and look to analyze things like average monthly and quarterly gain. I will also back out the largest positions as these are not indicative of my past or current style. They were kind of a one time big gamble. 

But to that point, my style over the years keep changing so I don't know that any comparisons I do are really legitimate. That's why going forward I feel I'm narrowing the scope of what I need to try and keep track of. I want to concentrate on good initial trade set ups, good mgmt of those positions, and proper capital allocation given my risk/reward tolerance, capital levels, and investing goals. Then I'll just kind of let the numbers be whatever they are. I'm certainly not going to target a monthly dollar or percentage return. I think concentrating on the items mentioned above will simplify the portfolio mgmt process and results can speak for themselves later. Ideally, once I'm comfortable that all trades have a valid reason for entry, then I'm just looking to see that I'm consistently profitable. I'll make judgments about the quality of profitability as time goes on and I find my personal portfolio mgmt style.