Before I start, I'd just like to point out that, yes, I don't have a lot of money invested in the market. Just 5k. But with the way the market has been of late, I'm not sure many people would be willing to invest more than that and personally, that's all I have to invest. It might not be glamorous or high stakes but it's a good place to start.

As for this week, there is still some after hours trading to be done but barring any major shifts, it was a good five days for me. The portfolio improved by 302 dollars. The annoying part, however, was that the stocks that I recently sold also did well so I probably should have held onto them. The biggest mistake was AIG. The stock went up 16 dollars this week. If I had held onto my shares, I would have made $400 dollars on that stock alone. If I had bought one option contract (at the time, I was looking at $34 Jan 10 option), it would have made me $1400. Instead I took my tiny profits and reinvested in Papa John's which made me about 9 dollars, which doesn't even cover the cost to buy a stock on Sharebuilder. Still, I can't feel THAT bad because every analyst out there is completely confused as to why AIG, a company that is still in a lot of trouble, is skyrocketing.

Besides the Woulda Coulda Shoulda, I played it safe and sold a few of my options for a small profit, making just under 150 bucks on those investments. I reinvested in an option on Electro-Optical Science, a company that is awaiting FDA approval for a device that will be able to catch melanomas faster than ever. I bought 25 shares of the stock on August 13th and have made 27% gains so after the stock dropped down a bit, I decided to go in with an option. Reports say that if they get the FDA approval, the stock could double so I think it's a good roll of the dice (even if it does sound very Boiler Room-ish).

As for the rest of the portfolio, I'm thinking about cashing out of Bank of America. I've made just over 50 bucks (17% return) but I'm afraid that the stock has peaked for the time being. It's above Morningstar.com's fair value estimate so it might be time to sell. My Manitowoc Co. option dipped and if it gets back to 2.50, I might just take the small profit and run. In both cases, I'd rather risk losing another AIG than holding onto another Wendy's; that option has lost almost 60% of its value and is up in September so time is not on my side. While the profits for AIG could have been huge, that seems to be more of the exception than the rule. I'll take my singles and doubles rather than going for the home run. In the black, my Citibank option has doubled, Kroger started down but bounced back to show a small profit, and my recent Gannett and Omnitron purchases brought back 17% gains.

Besides Wendy's, my big loser was Ford. The option was up to 1.50 but is now back down to 75 cents. I tested my luck on a cheap stock US Geothermal and that is down 25%. The US Steel (X) roller coaster is on the down sideright now; I should have opted for Caterpillar instead but that stock purchase is a long term deal so it's probably still too early to judge it since X has a higher ceiling.

So as I said, my current lifetime earnings are 302 dollars. It seems like absolutely nothing but it's a nice comeback seeing as my initial stock purchases has me down 400 dollars when I re-started investing a month ago.