The market gets shaky & I have a record day

This is my first entry, but it's a bit like walking into a play at the end of the first act - the positions in play were established a while ago. But let's begin........

Today was, in dollar terms, the most successful day so far in my trading career. It's not that the market did anything particularly remarkable. The Dow fell about 80 points, which for a bear like me is a fine day, but it's nothing extraordinary. But today (and, to a lesser extent, yesterday) represented very healthy gains. Which makes sense, considering that yesterday was the best day of my trading career, and the Dow was up yesterday.

I currently have PUTS in these stocks:

COF
CTSH
MGG
NSC
PHS
SHFL

And SHORT positions on these:

AAPL
CBE
COF
CTSH
CZR
GEF
HANS
HET
IIVI
MGG
MVL
PHS
SHFL
VMC

For the moment, I've got a CALL on NSC and a LONG position on ATI and NSC, but it's not because I think these are great long-term buys. I simply think that, very short term, they are oversold.

I posted charts on a few of these stocks earlier, which you can see here.

I closed out a bunch of positions today at great profits, but I left a lot of money on the table. For instance, I sold my puts on NSC for a terrific profit, but the position moved up another $20,000. There are a few other examples like that. I don't want to sound overly greedy, but I'm angry with myself for closing out positions simply to take profits, instead of for good, technical reasons.

I'll also mention that I sold my long position in RTK yesterday, and in spite of the market's fall today, RTK went up smartly. Once again, I sold it for no good technical reason, but simply to eliminate my one long position - hardly a good reason for a trade.

If the market stays soft, I'm optimistic about the long term prospects for every one of these positions. The real question is going to be if I'm going to find enough time to do regular posts!