Agreed, risk is involved with all investments.
anybody with a decent understanding realized a decent pull back was going to happen and did what they needed to in order to negate it.
We bought puts and made a decent amount on the correction, also used it to put a good amount of money to work that was sitting on the sidelines.
I am glad you made money on that but your statement that "anybody with a decent understanding realized a decent pull back was going to happen and did what they needed to in order to negate it." is complete and utter bollocks. Total nonsense. No other word for it.
Nobody 'knows' what the market is going to do and whilst the market has been on an unprecedented run there have been people calling "pullback" for the past 4 months and getting their asses handed to them. Picking up pennies in front of a steam roller is the polite term for it.
So you "had some money on the sidelines" and you "brought puts because everyone knew it was going to move down". I presume you must work for Blackrock or Fidelity with your market timings skills, right?
The only people that had a good idea were those at the Fed who knew ahead of time about the announcements that caused the current move down. Even to those people - it would still be a punt because even they don't know how the market will react.
Trading is a game. I do not mean that metaphorically, I mean it literally.
There is absolutely no way that you or anyone else "knew" that this was the top. Not a fucking chance. Doesn't happen. In fact,
the moment that 'anybody with a decent understanding knows' is the EXACT time that the EXACT opposite will occur. Everyone wants to be a trading hero. Trouble is - whenever you hear someone brag about a great trade, you know there's a thousand bad decisions they didn't tell you about. How many times in the past 7 months we have been going upwards in a straight line did you buy those puts? Just this time? You didn't forget to mention doing it 20 times before and getting run over?
Look - if you made some money - go buy a new car or give it to charity because you really don't understand the game you are playing and those that do will soon take this money back from you.
This will help -
&feature=plcp - it won't make you profitable but it'll certainly put you in the right mindset.