I've been thinking back to last year, and how I went ahead and bought more stocks to sell options when the current ones were down a lot. I made money up front, but subsequently got caught in a downturn and everything plummeted. Most of it won't recover. Losses are in excess of 10,000. Possibly as much as 50% of the seed money.
I've been wrestling with the regret of not having pulled back. Not having listened to my fear and doubt and just stopped.
But then I think that I would have had a different sort of regret. The regret of missed opportunities. Of wondering about what could have been.
No, I think a crash and loss of the type I'm experiencing now -- or will experience when I'm very likely going to be assigned on my Covered Calls in January -- was inevitable. And it is the only sort of thing that would have made me stop trading. Otherwise, why would I? I was making money. Lots of it! At least in comparison to what banks and mutual funds and REITs were offering.
Stock trading is a very negative game. You're hooked till you lose. And then you could keep going to get back your winnings, but then you'd be like a problem gambler.
