November Trade Review

As part of my trading process, it's time for my monthly trading review for November, based on my template for the review.

Trading Rules

• Adherence consistency

Did OK on this one. Did not attempt anything fancy-:)

• Skillful application/execution

Made a regrettable error in rolling IC. Since I had not done the IC rolling for a while and did not review the IC rolling rules for a long time, the rule was kind of hazy at the moment when market was surging quickly. I was carried away by the temporary market rises on stronger volumes for a couple of days and moved the new IC boundaries too high. The new short call had delta of 0.25, which was unnecessary. This move costed over $350 extra. The proper move would be moving strikes to such a higher place that the new IC would not cost anything extra, even if the delta would be around 0.35.

• Monthly rule review/study

Need to spend time this weekend to review/update trading rules. The update is to include a new "must have" step to review potential cancellation of strikes in existing position when new order is about to be placed. The longer expiration option trading rule, mentioned in the last month review, will be updated next month most likely, after further paper trading and analysis.

Psychology

• Action during uncertainty

Good. Not much hesitation in initiating or adjusting trades.

• Risk Comfort ability/Adverse damage impact

Need futher study on risks at adjustment points.

• Trade anxiety
• Winning Altitude Development

I did work on the psychology of consistent winning altitude and plan to complete it later this month.

Trading Time

• Trading days

I was overwhelmed in daily hours by the adjustments this month. It far exceeded my 15 minutes daily average expectation. If I were trading the 2 month-out paper account, I would be nicely satisfied with my time requirement. Plus, this method appeared to be even more smooth process.

• Rest days

Did trading process related studies.

Trades and Market Replay

• Market Forecast

Did OK.

• Trades and Adjustments 

The break-even zones are shown in the following image capturing my trades for November. The oval days were closing days. Overall, it has a little bit smell of over-adjustments, probably due to my trading error on the IC roll as described above. Still need to work on the risk tolerance part to have better adjustment points.