March got off to a bit of a quiet start, but it did pick up in the middle of the month resulting in a few winning trades at the end.
In this portfolio, I closed out the month with $188 in realised profits from the following trades.
New trades in March:
Older trades:
And a running total of realised profits since the course's inception:
Sep 2022 - $100
Oct 2022 - $180
Nov 2022 - $219
Dec 2022 - $211
Jan 2023 - $142
Feb 2023 - $92
Mar 2023 - $188
If you're familiar with options and want to follow along the trade updates, you can sign up for my Bread Crumb subscription which is priced at $49/month.
i.e. over the last 7 months you would have paid $343 and made $1,132 - or more than 3x the subscription fee. You decide if that's worth it.
Do note none of these are recommendations - I'm just sharing trade updates within my own portfolio which may or may not be right for you.
For the trade updates this week:
$55 profit from the Apple put ratio spread
$51 profit in Best Buy
$55 profit in AAPL
I shared the AAPL $140/145 put ratio spread a few weeks ago and was hoping for a down move so that the embedded put spread would come into play.
Unfortunately that didn't happen, so instead I ended up leaving the trade to expire worthless, which means it still made $55 - or 100% of max profit. At various points I did consider closing this trade off early just to take the risk off the table, but ultimately I did feel the position was safe enough to leave alone for full profits. The portfolio also has a put ratio spread in MSFT, which I will be approaching the same way. You can read the rationale behind the opening AAPL trade and the profit management process via the button below.
$51 profit in BBY
On March 10 I sold a cash-secured put in BBY at the $70 strike. The option expires on Apr 21 and I received $102 in premium for the trade.
Last Friday, or just three weeks later, I paid $51 to close the trade, resulting in $51 in realised profits (or 50% of max profit). With the recent rally going on, it's tempting to leave trades on to squeeze out more profit from every trade. For me, I've learned the hard way that being greedy leads to winners transforming to losers very quickly - so I'd rather leave some money on the table and move on to a fresh trade instead.
That's it for this week - the VIX closed below 19 on Friday, which isn't the best environment to be selling options in.
Thankfully earnings season is kicking in soon, which hopefully will provide some much-needed volatility and opportunity for new positions.
This article is for educational purposes only. This is my own portfolio which is being managed according to my goals and risk tolerance. Your situation is likely different and you should do your own due diligence before investing in stocks or options.