Well, what a day. If you’ve been following along, you’ll see I’ve been keeping things in the black. Tomorrow is expiration day for May options on the SPX, so as usual, the Wednesday and Thursday of expiration week are lively and focused. Today was no exception.

Here’s what I just posted to my trading discussion list.

Subj: I Wimped Out

Alright, when I saw that 1272 break and go all the way down to 1267, I decided to pull the trigger. One of my cardinal rules is that once I decide to roll, I roll, no matter what. I could see the picture improving in the background as I was "livin’ it up," but no matter.

All in all, here’s how it went:

1270/1280 put: debit of $6.4, so the 20 contracts cost $12,800.

I then looked to roll out to a June put, but then realized I was out of balance to the downside for June, so my only alternative given maintenance constraints was to go the topside, which I really hate to do because it violates my rules; but I had no choice–I tend to keep my account pretty loaded without much on the sidelines. So:

1300/1310 call: credit of $2.80. So 30 contracts got $8,400.

Now I’m 15 contracts heavy to the topside with additional maintenance because of the credit, so NOW I can go get 15 more contracts to the downside. So:

1245/1255 put: credit of $2.20 (cool: It was showing $1.1 and I asked for $2) and I got 20 contracts instead of 15, so I got $4,400.

Therefore….[drum roll]…net change for the day: $0.

I really hate that 1300/1310 call and my plan now is to roll out of it as soon as I get some decent time decay. But, at any rate, except for my May 1245/1255 put (only 10 contracts), I can relax for a while.

I was up about $9,000 for the month before this, so that’s gone, plus another $4,000. But it’s not gone, gone; just moved into June’s booked profits. Unless I have to roll June positions, the only thing that happened today was that it’s taking another month to keep what I made.

We’ll have the formal Report Card up next week.