# Account Journal: sources and method

## July 2025 starting capital

This case study starts in **July 2025 with $200,000**, the starting capital specified by Jeff. That amount is the baseline for the account-value and cumulative-return views. It is not reconstructed from deposits and is not represented as a broker-statement-verified July valuation. Earlier account history and funding mechanics are outside this case study.

July is the specified month; an exact starting day has not been asserted. The chart uses July 1 only as a coordinate for the July baseline, with month precision explicitly recorded in the data.

## Account value and cumulative return

The September 30, 2026 broker statement records **$1,099,680.45 in Total Equity Holdings**. Compared with the $200,000 starting capital, the increase is **$899,680.45**, or **449.84%**, across about 14 months. The closing value is **5.50 times** the starting capital. The statement value supersedes the earlier provisional export snapshot.

For every observation, dollar gain = account value − $200,000. Simple cumulative return = (account value ÷ $200,000 − 1) × 100. These figures are **not annualized**, time-weighted or money-weighted returns. Their starting value is owner-specified; a broker-statement endpoint does not turn the July baseline into a verified statement value.

| Observation | Account value | Simple cumulative return | Evidence |
| --- | ---: | ---: | --- |
| Jul 2025 · starting capital | $200,000.00 | +0.00% | Jeff-specified starting capital |
| Jul 2025 · month-end | $199,164.98 | -0.42% | Broker statement |
| Aug 2025 · month-end | $221,873.07 | +10.94% | Broker statement |
| Sep 2025 · month-end | $234,156.93 | +17.08% | Broker statement |
| Oct 2025 · month-end | $304,845.62 | +52.42% | Broker statement |
| Nov 2025 · month-end | $289,369.09 | +44.68% | Broker statement |
| Dec 2025 · month-end | $313,503.23 | +56.75% | Broker statement |
| Jan 2026 · month-end | $411,974.75 | +105.99% | Broker statement |
| Feb 2026 · month-end | $371,201.71 | +85.60% | Broker statement |
| Mar 2026 · month-end | $331,679.56 | +65.84% | Broker statement |
| Apr 2026 · month-end | $479,872.64 | +139.94% | Broker statement |
| May 2026 · month-end | $642,843.02 | +221.42% | Broker statement |
| Jun 2026 · month-end | $770,364.72 | +285.18% | Broker statement |
| Jul 2026 · month-end | $594,851.65 | +197.43% | Broker statement |
| Aug 2026 · month-end | $885,422.73 | +342.71% | Broker statement |
| Sep 2026 · month-end | $1,099,680.45 | +449.84% | Broker statement |

The chart has 16 observations: the $200,000 starting point and 15 monthly statement closings from July 2025 through September 2026. July’s statement closing equity is $199,164.98, distinct from the starting capital. The December 2025 close is shown once; it is also January’s opening balance. No monthly values are missing. Statement coverage follows the printed calendar-month period, even where a file is dated the preceding business day.

Lines connect monthly observations, not daily valuations. July 2026’s 22.78% month-end decline is the largest observed peak-to-trough drawdown in this monthly series; it does not establish the worst daily drawdown. Statement review found no external deposits or withdrawals from August 2025 through September 2026.

## September balance sheet

At September 30 the statement holds $1,209,670.05 in shares and ETFs, −$141,721.60 in short-option liabilities, and $31,732.00 cash. Together these equal $1,099,680.45 net equity. NVDA and MU shares alone equal 83.39% of net equity. There are 225 short puts across 22 contract series, representing $5,767,500 of gross strike-price share-purchase obligations if all are assigned. This is not maximum loss or required margin. Positive closing cash does not remove the risk from the open positions or the account’s historical margin usage.

## Transaction scope and examples

The public ledger contains **1,273 activities from July 2025 onward**, excluding contribution and withdrawal rows. It includes **1,179 BUY/SELL execution rows**: **1,092 option fills** and **87 stock/ETF fills**. Monthly totals, underlying counts and option-action statistics are recalculated from precisely this public ledger. An execution row can be a partial fill, not a whole order or strategy.

There are 646 sell-to-open put rows and 24 buy-to-open put rows. Median days to expiration at opening are 42 calendar days. Premium receipts and net execution cashflows are cash movements, not account profit. Closing costs, assignments, open liabilities, share values and financing affect the result.

The examples show the largest observed positive and negative completed option-leg cycles and a complete NBIS put-assignment-to-share-sale campaign. They are selected educational cases, not typical outcomes. The two option examples sum observed opening and closing cash amounts for an exact contract from zero position back to zero. The assignment example includes the subsequent stock purchases and sale. These results include recorded trade fees and exclude unrelated positions, account financing and taxes. They are not used to claim an account win rate.

## Profit by ticker and position status

The Profit breakdown view reconstructs FIFO (first-in, first-out) results from the July 2025 onward execution ledger and values remaining positions at the September statement marks. All 26 remaining holdings match the statement exactly: four share/ETF positions and 22 short-put series. The results are economic attribution estimates, not the broker's tax-lot or tax-return report.

| Profit source | Result |
| --- | ---: |
| Closed options, excluding assigned puts | +$737,441.76 |
| Premiums on assigned puts | +$30,765.89 |
| Shares already sold | −$47,242.87 |
| Shares still held (unrealized) | +$150,339.87 |
| Options still open (unrealized) | +$30,531.87 |
| Total trading result | +$901,836.53 |
| Dividends | +$500.00 |
| Net interest | −$2,641.06 |
| Account fees and adjustments | −$12.73 |
| Reconstructed account gain | +$899,682.74 |
| Unallocated statement difference | −$2.29 |
| Account growth from the July $200,000 start | +$899,680.45 |

All calculations use full source precision; rounded component displays can differ by one cent from rounded totals. The $2.288 unallocated difference is retained explicitly and is not assigned to a ticker or assumed to be rounding.

Short-option results match opening premium with the cost of buying back the same contract, or zero closing cost at expiration. Long-option results match purchase costs with sale proceeds or expiration value. The closed-option total includes $767,827.881 from short puts bought back and −$30,386.120 from closed long puts. Rolls are treated as a close and a separate new opening. Partial closes allocate the earliest opening lots first.

Assigned-put premiums are displayed separately from other closed-option results. For this economic presentation, assigned shares retain the strike purchase cost plus recorded fees. This keeps the option premium visible without counting it again as lower share cost. Tax reporting ordinarily incorporates assigned-put premiums into share basis; see [IRS Publication 550](https://www.irs.gov/publications/p550). Do not substitute this economic attribution for a broker tax report.

Shares already sold use sale proceeds minus their FIFO purchase cost. Shares still held use statement market value minus remaining purchase cost. Open short-option results use remaining net opening premium less the statement liability. All recorded trading fees are already included; do not subtract them a second time. Dividends are displayed separately and account interest/fees are not allocated to tickers. Gross put premiums collected ($1,889,329) are cash receipts, not profit.

The execution ledger through September 29 matches the settled holdings shown in the September 30 statement. Seven September 30 executions listed as pending settlement on October 1 are outside those holdings and are excluded from this attribution; adding their cash without their changed positions would mix cutoffs. The account-value chart continues to use the statement's closing Total Equity Holdings.

## Monthly portfolio: holdings, premiums and obligations

The Monthly portfolio view contains 15 actual month-end holdings snapshots from July 2025 through September 2026. The separate $200,000 starting-capital point has no assumed holdings snapshot. Shares held are the statement market values of equities and ETFs, excluding options. Cash plus share values plus net option market values equals each month's statement NAV.

Put premiums are gross sell-to-open cash receipts during each month, calculated as quantity × execution price × 100. These include new positions and rolls; they are not profit and do not deduct buybacks or fees. Their supplementary execution source ends September 29, 2026. All 15 months, including months with no share holdings or no actual assignments, remain in the chart.

Open put obligations equal strike × 100 × the number of short-put contracts remaining at statement close. Long puts are not netted against this gross purchase obligation. Each multiple divides by the same month's NAV. This is not maximum loss, assignment probability, required margin, or delta-adjusted exposure, and it excludes shares already held. September 2026's $5,767,500 obligation is 5.24× its $1,099,680.45 NAV. The highest observed month-end multiple is 8.62× in September 2025 ($2,017,500 / $234,156.93).

Combined exposure adds share and ETF market value to open short-put assignment notional, ticker by ticker. Each bar divides that total by the same month's NAV when displayed as a multiple. Solid color identifies shares and diagonal stripes identify puts, using the same color for each ticker. September 2026 combines $1,209,670.05 in shares and $5,767,500 of open put obligations: $6,977,170.05 / $1,099,680.45 NAV = 6.34×. The highest observed combined month-end multiple is January 2026: $3,686,825 / $411,974.75 = 8.95×.

The combined chart overlays actual monthly statement NAV at the same month positions. Dollar mode uses one shared dollar scale for NAV and exposure; multiple mode uses exposure/NAV on the left and a separately labeled dollar NAV scale on the right. Both axes start at zero and retain fixed full-period domains when selecting a month or ticker. Line/bar crossings on the two-axis view do not mean equal dollar values.

This is a gross comparison of current share market values and contingent strike-price purchases, not portfolio value, borrowing, a margin requirement, maximum loss or delta-adjusted risk. Cash and option market values enter through NAV, not through the exposure numerator. Long puts do not offset the gross obligation. Historical assignment purchases are not added again: any resulting shares still held are already present in the holdings snapshot.

Actual assignments are separate completed share-purchase events. Across the execution period, six assignment entries correspond to 30 contracts, 3,000 shares and $822,500 in strike purchases before fees. These purchases occurred in November 2025, December 2025 and July 2026. They are not added to the open-put obligation bars. Statement holdings follow the broker's settled-position presentation and exclude trades listed separately as pending settlement; the contract table lists the observed short puts, strikes and expirations.

## Source treatment

Monthly tastytrade/Apex statements are the primary source. The public equity series uses **Total Equity Holdings on page 1** of every July 2025–September 2026 statement. Opening balances agree with the preceding closing balances. Holdings reconcile to each statement’s summary. September holdings are on printed pages 2–4. Raw statements are not published because they contain personal information.

The granular execution ledger remains a supplementary source: the supplied CSVs, limited to July 2025 through September 29, 2026. Its executions match the September statement’s settled positions; September 30 trades listed as pending settlement remain outside this attribution. The three worked examples were cross-checked against statement entries. Execution dates and original CSV precision are retained. The two MU examples agree at displayed precision. Summing the rounded NBIS statement entries gives −$23,062.20 versus −$23,062.18 in the CSV; this two-cent display difference does not affect account returns, which use statement equity.

Execution cash amounts already include their row-level trade fees; fees are not subtracted twice. Original export amounts are preserved. The separate economicCashflow field corrects statement-confirmed debit-interest and seven December paper-confirmation fee signs (−$14 total). The statements confirm **$2,647.37 debit interest and $6.31 credit interest** across July 2025–September 2026. The corrected field is not a fully reconciled settlement cash ledger.

The source audit is unchanged and retained privately outside the website. Public data omit account numbers, broker activity identifiers, external references and raw statement files. Public row numbers are only local source references.

Educational case study of one account. Historical results do not predict future outcomes. Options and margin can involve substantial loss. [General options risk information](https://www.finra.org/investors/investing/investment-products/options).