Opposite Day

Apparently my account thought it should fall apart yesterday and go in the opposite directions I want. I feel like yesterday was the options expiration shenanigans we normally see because as we were breaking below 900 the VIX was down, people were likely bailing out of their calls(like me) and the market makers were buying them back and making a killing.

Absolutely nothing worked yesterday, when we were flat, all my calls were down and all my puts were up. I basically got frustrated and threw in the towel because obviously my positions were not working and at the time it looked like we could continue downward and I didn't want to lose more money. Of course I got out, after the first hour as I tried to let the BS subside but even having a bit of patience I was the one capitulating only to see things reverse as I was hoping they might to begin with.

In the end my exit earlier in the day didn't really matter as I calculated it saved me a whole 20 dollars instead of selling at the close. The reason I feel like it is partial manipulation is you saw most stocks break below support and then finish back at them. If I had hard stops on all my positions I essentially would have been taken out of all my longs and stayed in my puts only to see them lose money too. By exiting everything I basically locked in my put gains and call losses so I had no more exposure. I have seen my account slide 20% over the past couple weeks so something is not right. I will step back and wait until next week to initiate some new positions that present themselves and look to take a day trade or two with front month contracts if things look good.

I discovered again that I seem to be off at trading FOREX which is odd cause it should be like any other trading vehicle, it is essentially just that I have less confidence doing it. I traded the AUD/USD, hopped in only to see it break down to new lows, so when it makes a new low(and at that point was breaking support on a long term chart) I cut my loss being disciplined only again to see it completely reverse higher by days end. There will be more opportunities but I seem to be a little too impatient with currency right now.

The problem with stopping out of my positions that technically held support so far is that I still like them long term so the dilemma comes as to when should I get back in? The good news is that this now allows me to roll my contracts to some longer dated paper. I just need patience, that will solve my problems.

Total Return for 2009: 148%