In my opinion, one of the most helpful things to do to improve your option trading is reviewing your trades. You need to pretend that you are the late, great Roger Ebert of option trading and give your trades a thumbs up or down. This is a fantastic way to gauge how you are developing as a trader and incorporate it into your trading plan. A lot of option traders are disheartened when they examine their profit and loss statements, but this can be deceiving. Why? Many good trades lose money and a lot of bad trades make money. Your goal as an option trader is to follow your trading plan and take the best trades that make sense to you and put the odds are your side for a successful trade. Easier said then done you might say but reviewing your trades is a very important step to take in order to become consistently profitable and putting the odds on your side.
Capture Your Trades
The first thing an option trader should consider doing is to capture his trades with some type of screen capture software. Every trader should have this in his or her trading plan. There are a plethora of options out there and many are free. An option trader should have a record of the chart, option chain, implied volatility and any other tangible that may be pertinent to the trade. If the trade is in effect for several days, screens shots can be taken periodically to help a trader understand what is happening on the charts and to the options. Once the trade is exited, screen shots should be taken again to compare the start and end of the trade.
Review
Now that the option trader has the concrete evidence in his hands or on his computer, it?s time to look at the damage or lack there of. When reviewing your trades, it is advantageous to do this part after the close of the market so full attention can be on the reviewing process. Label the chart and option chain with what strategy was used. Where did the trading plan call for entry, stop and target? Then where was the trade actually entered and exited? Were there any discrepancies? If there were, a trader needs to find out why and correct them in the future.
Correct and Make Adjustments
If the trade suffered a loss in particular, and the trading plan was followed, was it just part of the odds or is there something that can be done to improve the odds for next time? It really doesn?t matter what the violation or mistake was, it just needs to be recognized and taken into account for next time. Sometimes the loss is not the fault of the trader but many more times it probably was. Changes and adjustments both mentally and physically need to be made and corrected to improve trading performance. Once a trader has recognized and corrected his errors and adjusted the trading plan, trading can become a whole lot easier.
Last Thoughts
Reviewing your trades like Roger Ebert used to review movies for so many years can be an essential ingredient to becoming the option trader you want to be. The key to becoming successful and growing as an options trader is to learn to acknowledge your winners, but cherish and learn from your losses because that is what will make you profitable in the end. You will absolutely learn more from your losses than from your winners? thumbs up!