April Review 5-3-14

April was the best month I have had in terms of total profit ($14K). Adding monthly grains and CL options helped to improve my % of ROM and the efficiency of capital. Now my best week has become the monthly expiration day. I had most trades, 72 in April due to more leg up and add on in grains, plus rollover in ES. The out sized return was partially due to the rollover expiration in wheat. It was a loss of $2000 in March which was rolled over to April with $500 more profit. However they were deeply ITM and had excessive risk. It should not be repeated because the price may not come back to let me recover from it for months or years due to the very trending natural of commodities.

My noticeable improvements:
A. Being calm under pressure. I was more focused on thinking of solutions to defend my positions than clueless like last May and September.
B. Learned more ways to reduce risk and rollover to rescue my under water positions.
C. Looking at bigger pictures and using seasonality to determine trends and trade locations.
D. Felt more confident in trading grain options by knowing more of driving forces of this market.

Mistakes:
A. Moved from my trading rules. I was influenced my another trader on Twitter and sold some very aggressive ES puts earlier in April. These positions in both IB and S5 were quickly deeply under water as the sell off was much steep. I had to rollover these positions with about $4000 under water. Although I have recovered more than a half of it by now. The lesson is that never let my guard down and wave from my rule of at least 60 point away within two week expiration. I removed this twitter feed from my text notification in order to reduce such influence. I was envy his bigger premiums but neglected his often losing trades.
B. Made mistakes in keying orders. I entered two orders in wrong side and buy instead sell. It showed that I didn't follow my order procedure during wild moves of the market. In business terms it's operation error and should be avoided by simply follow procedures in every order.
C. I still have the urge to get my order filled the same day. I tend to move my prices often to chase or gain couple of ticks. This habit should be reduced to only when the volatility is much higher. I need to think in bigger pictures and remind myself there is always another day and another trade. I don't have to risk myself to get in now. Wait for the market to come to me and I am in control.