A thought:

I've been observing and summarizing cases of options failures for a long time, but I've hardly ever come across a summary that hits the nail on the head.

There are three main reasons why most people who trade options are doomed to fail:

1. They know nothing about macroeconomics, nothing about macroeconomics, nothing about macroeconomics! I've seen too many people who aren't even sensitive to basic macroeconomic knowledge, frantically trading zero-day options and getting wiped out, losing repeatedly for years. When they finally try to summarize the reasons, they never think to include this point, instead just concluding that options are the devil.

It's not scary to take the wrong path; what's truly terrifying is never being able to correctly identify a real cause you're completely unaware of. Misattribution,

is a guaranteed path to ruin!!!

2. They know nothing about their own hormone levels. Unstable hormones lead to blind arrogance and risk neglect that they can't even perceive or control. This is equivalent to their self-evaluation system failing. If they can't even correctly judge the quality of their own thinking, how can they judge whether an opportunity is good? Self-cognitive bias,

is a guaranteed path to ruin!!!

3. They are desperate to get rich overnight. The greater the real-life financial pressure and the more urgently they need money, the less capable they are of thinking rationally. This is equivalent to being trapped by others' 'appearances,' and the market itself is a game designed to exploit the 'appearances of the masses' to lure them in. Therefore, those desperate for money have a cognitive bias about the rules of the game,

is a guaranteed path to ruin!!!

At this point for the overall market and individual stocks, the macro environment carries such high risk and uncertainty—note⚠️: uncertainty, not necessarily bearish, but the violent volatility caused by capital seeking safety from uncertainty. Options are most afraid of this kind of position. Plus, the inherent nature of some individual stocks makes them poor options targets, like ASTS, CRML.

Even if an individual stock has the potential for a major technical breakout and surge in the short term,

it's still not a good position for heavy options positions. Scratch-off lottery tickets are a different story.

Gambling on these kinds of targets at this position is just betting.

A good stock and a good options position are two completely different things:

Timing (天时) — Macro bottom;

Location (地利) — Individual stock technical bottom, fundamental reversal;

Harmony (人和) — Already have stable profitability from the underlying stock, control position size (including position in the account, position in real-life asset allocation, money that won’t affect life even if completely lost).

Mentioned before, repeating again:

Look at the overall market first, then the sector, only then look at individual stocks.

No large individual stock options positions without a macro bottom, don't enter;

No individual stock options without long-term follow-up, solid fundamentals, familiarity, and stability, don't enter;

The leveraged frenzy at the end of a bull market is a common way for many people to die.

But the cruel truth is, the market's food chain is set up to be exactly like this…

What needs to be sobering is that people shouldn't only summarize and reflect when they lose money.

Even if, hypothetically, there's a massive surge next week, one should still reflect and correctly attribute it:

Even if you make a fortune, it's still a blind, irrational decision.

Good attribution and thinking will guide you onto the right path.

Of course, I don't think people who go bankrupt from options are pitiable.

They didn't have nothing. From the moment they placed their entire bet,

up until the moment before bankruptcy,

they experienced an unprecedented peak of 'hope' that others never had.

Compared to the bland lives of most people,

the thrill of squandering is also a precious gain in life.

And people often place themselves in the pitiable role of a victim,

which is essentially greedily squandering that peak experience

while refusing to pay the price for an experience ordinary people can't have.

That's why it can't be cured…