January results are in.

January expiration took place on Friday, and as such, the net result of all my January options trades resulted in an 11.3% gain in my portfolio. This is in line with what I hope to continue in the months and years ahead. I had one losing bear call spread in Monsanto that I rolled up and forward to February for a credit in an effort to buy myself some more time to turn this into a small winner (so far, so good).

The market has begun a new leg down in this bear market. It started innocently enough just after the new year. However, the downside is accelerating and the previous lows set in November appear set to be violated in the weeks to come. The world is slowly starting to realize how severe the financial crisis REALLY is, how much worse it can get, and how the Obama administration's stated goals and initiatives will lead to vastly increased government spending (translated, MORE DEBT) which will further erode the buying power of the US Dollar. Hardly the stuff that makes investors optimistic.

As you can imagine, the existing February bearish positions in my portfolio are performing quite nicely. The offsetting bullish positions are starting to demand I pay a little more attention to them. JP Morgan's stock is getting hammered today (again) which is causing to me to roll down my bull put spread in that stock. The stock is currently trading around 19.35. I'm currently short the 20/22 put spread which I put on when the stock was at 22.00. I am attempting to roll down to the 17.5/20 put spread to improve my odds of success.

Which reminds me. If there are any other options traders out there who accidentally fall upon this blog who have experience managing a portfolio of vertical spreads, I'd love to bounce ideas of you. Drop me a line.