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With the month virtually over I thought I'd give an update of my results since I stopped doing the stuff Im bad at (8 Aug to today): 7.8% return on capital including commissions 27 trades with 77.8% win rate Worst loss of 27.3% and best return of 30.2% with an average of 6.8% My trades consisted of most of the official trades along with a number of unofficial trades/strategies that I've learnt directly from the SO forum/members. The official trades that I missed were usually good ones (like BILI) and I whiffed a number of otherwise good ones (BBY was a 1.2% return after I hit BUY rather than sell and had to quickly unwind that mess). Id put the total result down to a combination of focus and luck. Focus in that I used my results to tell me what I seemed to do well and what I wasnt getting the hang of...then eliminating what wasnt working and focusing single mindedly on getting good at the one or two strategies I continued to trade. I cant emphasise strongly enough the benefits I got from just focusing on one thing at a time and relentlessly focusing on improving at it. Luck in that the outcome of each trade is random..so its kind of illogical to think that one or two trades is going to be consistently profitable...but applying the law of large numbers to a strategy with an established edge -ie do it a lot- and the numbers work out in your favour. Its been mentioned that an important step in the learning is putting on your own trades. Through having to identify my own potential stocks, identify my entry points, plan and execute my own exits countless times....well....the learning multiplies. One other thought: trading is the most honest task Ive ever experienced. There is no room for delusion, bias, negativity, optimism, excuses or blame. It demands total honesty of the self. Ive worked in jobs where the majority of the role involved wearing a suit, being likable and appearing to know what was going on...actually generating money for shareholders was an optional extra and could be frowned upon if done in a way that made others feel inadequate...ie most of the job was playing 'dress ups' as a busy business men in business. Trading couldnt be further from it. If you make a profit; thats on you. If you make a loss; thats on you. If you waste time not focusing on how to make a profit; thats on you. So without being provocative -and with the non-existant authority of someone who had a couple of lucky weeks in a row and still has too much to learn- if you're not making money then it stands to reason that its your fault. Putting aside the emotion this statement would conjure up in any human with a pulse, the correct response is to ask yourself what can I do to improve. I dont know if the discussion has moved on or not but I unfollowed the thread when there was a lot of finger pointing about commissions and impossible fills...it was bumming me out and screwing with my mental. The only thing that matters is how each of us can improve; blame is a waste of time. My biggest loss this month was on a low open interest CIEN ratio where the MMs immediately jacked the IV after I entered; the previous me would have bitched and moaned about how it was rigged or unfair. The me that's developed during my time with SO instinctively thought that sucked...how do I reduce the risk of it happening again in future. So I pulled some data, identified some micro structure behaviour, got a sense of where the punji traps were and adjusted my approach. Im still nervous as hell about it happening again and Ive by no means gotten to the bottom of it but the adjustments in my approach allowed me to close out a position today for a overnight gain of 16% all off the back of RV change in a low liquidity/wide spread market. I wouldnt have been able to do that had I not been punched in the face a week earlier and resolve to minimise its future frequency. Iago said whats done is done and John Galt said what is, is but a less esoteric boss once told me that its not how many times you get knocked down that counts, its how many times you get back up. As this last point is becoming a bit abstract but I'll try to bring it down to earth by summarising that a critical part of trading seems to be having an appropriate mentality; specifically one of complete honesty, resilience and self ownership of all outcomes good or bad. If you feel the urge to blame then youre probably on the wrong track. If you feel the urge to find a way to avoid that happening again then youre on a more profitable course. What that one improvement is going to be different for everyone but look at your trading log -you have been keeping one havent you?-, pick only one thing that will make a difference and ignore everything else until you've improved it.

@gf58 I went ahead and ran my numbers and I thought they looked good: So for the month of August with just one trading day to go I have closed on 8 SO trades----for me there were 7 winners and one loser. Overall performance after commissions was 8.75%--please see explanation below as I have already closed 2 active open SO trades. I have already closed out CPB and KR for my profit targets and they are still open trades with SO---the main reason for closing these early is I will be spotty next week at being able to monitor the trades--my big winner this month was the TLT trade. In addition using SO trade theses and using smaller allocations ( because I am still learning ) for these trades I added another 1.3% after commissions with 7 winners and 2 losers and actually the 7 winners came after the 2 losers--so 7 in a row. If I had used the usual allocations I use for SO official trades the gain after commissions would have been 6.3%. My losers on my own trades were: BYND through earnings hedged straddle X 2, Winners were ZM pre-earnings calendar, PTON pre-earnings calendar, BBY earnings straddle, ZM pre-earnings calendar #2, ZM pe-earnings calendar #3, and CRWD pre-earnings Cal, and PTON pre-earnings calendar #2 Obviously I am more comfortable with the pre-earnings calendars than the straddles, but my comfort level is growing with time on screening for the straddles. Next to try to learn better over time is the ratios--note I have not traded any of these on my own as I do not feel I have studied them enough to really understand how to pick high probability winners. The real reason for my post is not to boast but to show other new members what learning the strategies and being patient and selective with entering trades can do to increase the odds of winners and add to overall returns/success So overall a gain of 10% on the month--not bad for an amateur.....I think many others probably did better than this.... P.S> I am also in the Anchor Trades on EFA, IWM, and SPY and these are also doing quite well