trading mum

Being a CPA and mother of two girls, aged 3½ and 2½, I knew that packing in my job and trading options at home for a living was the life for me. 

I couldn’t have imagined, prior to completing David Novac’s Advanced Option Trading workshop, how much these new strategies would help me. They have given me a great deal more scope and flexibility and as a result I have managed to trade profitably throughout a very difficult 3 months. 

The best way for me to convey this is to give you a brief run down of my trading experience, complete with my own personal tribulations and diversions.  I arrived home after the Advanced workshop, reviewed my previous trades and found glaring mistakes. I assured myself I wouldn’t make these again as I would now have ‘all the time in the world’ to analyse my data. Armed with new enthusiasm, better company analysis, and my course notes, I hit the market.  The first month went well, made a few mistakes (by selling too quickly) but overall I earned a small profit. 

The next month, more mistakes - unbelievably bad, stupid, moronic mistakes - but despite them, by month end, I had still made my 10% profit target. 

Then December came along - oh how I longed to be back in the safety of my bedroom with the covers over my head. The month started well with a few smart buys and all was looking great. 

Then along came the plague. My 3½ yr old decided to become rather ill and needed constant supervision for 2 days, then was admitted to hospital and was sentenced along with me to another 2 days there. 

Do you have any idea to what can happen to a person who trades options and cannot see any market results (except for the TV) for a week? Well my husband does and he doesn’t think its pretty! I sat in front of my computer fearing the worst, but to my surprise with just a few adjustments learnt at David’s advanced course, everything was quickly back on track and looking good.  I monitored my spreads, was poised to ring the broker to end the year on a very fine note, when my 2½ yr old decided to have her tonsils out. It was her doctor really who was to blame … anyway, another stay in the children’s hospital ward! 

During the two weeks of recuperation with a very cross, miserable 2½ yr old constantly attached to me, there was no real time for analysis and the market turned against me. Before I knew it, my large profit was dwindling and there was nothing I could do about it except ride out the storm and hope for the best. I completely lost the plot and did the Christmas shopping! 

I broke-even for the month and was quite pleased with that because despite everything, I felt reassured that by using the new advanced strategies I had reduced my risk.  I have learnt so much in the past 3 months trading but probably the most important realisation is that I can trade and juggle my other commitments. I will get much better at both because by reducing my risk I am able to make the mistakes that teach the greatest lessons in the market. 

I finish my story here as I must deal with the head lice infestation the kids have brought home from school (I wish that was a joke). 

Wishing you all a great year on the markets. 

Margurite Wood, Trading Mum, 6 January 2002 

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