I took a TSLA trade today which could have been a $2k-ish win had I held. But it would have involved risking a huge loss and with my small account I just can't afford a potential -250 swing psychologically.

Also it was during a major news conference from Biden and it's just not smart to hold especially as it came down from 770 to 755 during the news conference. It's a no brainer to cut though I missed the breakout move later on.

The important thing about trading almost a few years in I've found is momentum and confidence. While yes taking a big risk and booking a great win would be nice, my plan is to grind up my account value and not take so many big P/L swings as 2021.

If there's a "gimme" trade I'll size up but with a literal international conflict I don't want to hit options homers with a weekly when 1 sell off can kill my position and make me lose all the premium I paid for my calls.

Options are so volatile I just have to play it safe. The days of 2k TSLA options wins are still ahead of me and I'm sure I'll be able to book bigger wins as my account slowly grows. It's not practical to expect everything to be a 500% winner because that's how your account can die.

Right now I'm just trying to get from red to green career wise so if it takes me a while I'm still making money and I'm happy with that.

I love trading and I'll trade every day of my life if it means the long term financial success I'm looking for. I am much better at managing risks and that means sometimes not gambling even when it looks juicy. Buying a call 5% off the strike when the stock is red and the markets are fearful has huge upside but when you're wrong you're setting your money on fire.

Options are truly double edged swords and as I try to grind my account up with them I have to respect the potential negatives of taking big positions.

Also, hell yeah that I closed the gap from my worst trading day this year. I don't mind a slow chug up. Ideally I go red to green this year but the markets are in such an uncertain flux I'm just going to take good setups, leave the riskier ones that I might not stick to a plan with and keep getting wins and try and continue this green momentum for the year.

I'm doing the hard thing of digging myself out of a psychological hole P/L wise so if I miss out on some wins to protect my medium/long term confidence from another big loss I'll do that.

I use to go all in on trades and try and knock them out of the park. I'm getting better at trading so I don't necessarily have to do that now. I just hope my broker lets me continue to scalp options despite the day trade restrictions. I believe its possible but if it's not I'm going back to a cash account and grinding it up with gappers which in my mind are actually harder to time and trade with so much front loading and pumping/aggressive shorting going on.