Some thoughts on SO vs. my other trading/investments

[Guest Corto]

I've tried many different strategies in the past, most recently I had been doing pyramids (Stewart Thomson, Graceland Updates, https://www.gracelandupdates.com/) with GDXJ and SIL. Of everything I've tried over the years, it had been the best because of giving a lot of emphasis on taking profits and limiting position size. However, even this method breaks down if a stock, such as GDXJ, goes down and pretty much stays down.

The more I watch my portfolio oscillate up and down, the more I think I have made the right decision with SO. The strategy with the straddles and strangles is a "come on, throw whatever you've got at me, it can't hurt me too much" setup. Sure, a lot of the trades end up stagnant or small losers or small winners. But you know, that is better than watching a long term holding drip, drip, drip losses forever!

It's really weird for me today. I have watched my main holding outside of SO, which is GDXJ, go from 24 last month to a bit above 20 today. I do sell calls on it to hedge and make a little money back when it goes down, but for the most part I am shaking my head wondering why the f*@! have I been in this for the past three years at a loss waiting for some grand event to start a rise in the price. Gold, silver and the miners should go up over time, if you expect money to continue to be printed, but it sure is a long, slow agonizing ride!

SO offers me the best opportunity to limit risk in almost any market situation, and personally I am ready to step up my trades from the 1k/trade average I have been doing. If I look at some of my current losses on other issues, it would literally take years of SO trades doing badly to reach those levels of losses! And I don't expect that.

It seems I have had the mental epiphany I was hoping for today. Time to focus more on what SO offers!

Mike

[tjlocke99 18]

Good luck Mike.

One thing is for sure. There are some great members on this site, and Kim is a top notch honest guy.

I just wish I could find a gamma strategy that worked for someone who can't monitor during the day!

[Kim 7,943]

Mike, I came to the same conclusion about stocks. No matter how safe the stock appears, in a 2008 like event everything goes down. Covered calls can only reduce the loss by few percent.