Friday, January 1, 2016

$10/day for $3,600! Option Writing Challenge: Failed.


Back around January 2015 when I first started using Option Writing; my friend spoke about wanting to earn an extra $10 per day or more simply: $3,600 a year. Based on my (at that time) successful Option Writing I told my friend it was entirely possibly to achieve this goal.

Calculation
$10 x ~30 days x 12 months = $3,600.
$3,600 per year additional income / 12 months = $300 per month.

Options Closed
Number of Traded: 57
Losses: -$311.41
Number of Trades: 131
Trade Commission: $1,615.04

Options Expired
Number of Traded: 9
Gains: $592.25
Number of Trades: 10
Trade Commission: $133.75

Totals
Total Number of Traded: 66
Total Gains: $280.84
Total Number of Trades: 141
Total Trade Commission: $1,748.79
Total Revenues: $2,029.63

*Not including FX conversions and Option Assignments.

Surprisingly, coming out of 2016, despite some massive losses, I eked out out a gain of $280.84. Breaking it down further that turned out to be $0.7694/day or ~$23.4033/month.

Tallying up the commissions for the 141 trades, shows that the cost of making $280.84 was astronomical, hitting $1,748.79 or 622.6997% of the year's gains.

Despite my goal of using Options to earn money and to generate lower average purchase costs for stocks I want to own; a lot of the resulting trades was the result of inexperience:

  1. Making dumb moves from writing and lucking out on expiry or short term turn around for Stocks that I ended up not being that certain or keep on holding for the long term.
  2. Over-extending myself and writing too many options at once. This resulted in me needing to take opportunities pull back.
  3. General market uncertainty; causing me to want to reduce exposure.
  4. Impatience with waiting for the Expiry Date for Assignment or Option Expiry.

One might think that it was not worth the time and worry that I put into using this new strategy in my toolbox, but it really showed me the potential of being more active and from writing Options. This coming year I definitely want to continue Option Writing, but hopefully can put to use my 2015 experiences to be more careful with my targets; focus more on what I currently have in holdings; and be more patient. In addition to Option Writing, I want to get back into the buy side and work on using other Option Strategies.

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