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My 2025 ITPM Trading Results: How the Long-Short Process Played Out
- Oct 8, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: May 27
I do not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence. Nothing in this post is personal or general financial advice. It is a personal record of how I traded the ITPM process in 2025, including the parts that did not work.
This is the honest year three review. Real numbers. Real losing months. Real lessons.
Introduction
Let's be honest. Most retail traders never post their full year.
They post the wins. They post the screenshots. They skip the bit where the year had a flat patch or a personal pause. That is exactly the part that taught me the most in 2025, so I am posting it.
This is year three of running the ITPM long-short framework with options as the expression. The system is the same one I have written about in my PTM 2.0 review and my ITPM reviews. What changed this year was not the system. What changed was how disciplined I was about following it.
My 2025 ITPM Trading Results in Numbers
These are the figures from my own account for 2025. All account figures are in Australian dollars.
Starting NAV. Approximately 258,000 AUD.
Ending NAV. Approximately 580,000 AUD.
Net return for the year. 125 percent.
122 trades total. 49 winners and 73 losers. That is a 40.16 percent win rate.
482,424 AUD in realised wins. 210,546 AUD in realised losses. 271,878 AUD net realised P&L from closed trades, with the remainder of the return coming from gains on open positions at year end.
Average winning trade was up 98 percent on the premium risked. Average losing trade was down 17 percent. That gives an R-value of 3.41 to 1. Average holding period was 11.6 days across an average of 10 open positions.
The portfolio was run roughly 50 percent long and 50 percent short on a notional basis, expressed almost entirely through options on NYSE listed equities.
Important context. Past performance is not indicative of future results. These figures are my own historical results in my own account in one year. They are not a forecast of returns for anyone else. Options trading carries the risk of losing the entire premium paid on every position. I lost money on more than half my trades.
Why a 40 percent win rate worked
This is the part that surprises people the most.
I lost money on 59.84 percent of my trades. The year still produced a 125 percent return. That is not a contradiction. It is what a 3.41 R-value buys you.
The maths is simple. Average win at plus 98 percent on premium. Average loss at minus 17 percent on premium. When the average win is three and a half times larger than the average loss, you do not need a high win rate to make money. You need a positive expected value per trade and the discipline to take enough trades for the maths to play out.
That is not a recommendation to chase a low win rate. It is a description of what the ITPM long-short options framework produces when it is run correctly. Different strategies have different shapes. This one has many small losses paid for by fewer larger wins.
What the year actually looked like
The shape of 2025 was a slow start, a clean middle, a personal pause, and a strong finish.
February was the only first quarter losing month at minus 8,784 AUD. March turned the year green at plus 26,579 AUD. April was the first really strong month at plus 48,836 AUD.
May and June were slow. A new family member arrived and I deliberately reduced trading activity. May closed at minus 4,170 AUD. June closed at zero. That is a feature, not a bug. The ITPM process tells you when to step back. Stepping back kept the year intact.
July restarted with plus 9,945 AUD. August picked up to plus 50,420 AUD. September was the standout month at plus 149,988 AUD, driven primarily by a small number of options trades on US listed names that closed in the same week. October closed at minus 3,706 AUD.
You can see the full breakdown on my trading results page.
The things I had to fix
Coming into 2025, I was profitable but not consistently at scale. So I reviewed every trade I had taken up to that point. Entries, exits, structures, decision making, the lot. It was not flattering. But it surfaced the patterns that were leaking the most.
The structural issues I found in my own trading.
Incorrect option structures. Delta targeting was sloppy. Expiries did not match the catalyst I was trading. Position sizing was inconsistent from one entry to the next.
Timing was random. I had no structured rule for when to enter once a thesis was formed.
Not cutting or repairing trades when the original thesis broke. I held losers too long. I cut winners too early.
Risk was not properly predefined. I knew the option premium I was risking but not what the actual portfolio level exposure was.
Leaving money on the table through hesitation. Frameworks were unclear at the moment of decision, so I was making the decisions slower than the market.
The fix was not new setups. It was applying the ITPM long-short framework end to end on every trade rather than picking parts of it.
Process over psychology
Here is something that became clear this year.
Most retail traders treat trading as a psychology problem. It is mostly a process problem.
When traders say they have a discipline issue, they usually mean their process is unclear, so they have to rely on willpower to execute. Willpower runs out. Process does not.
Once a trade has predefined risk, a predefined catalyst, a predefined exit plan, and a clear management rule, the emotion drops out of it. You are not deciding in real time anymore. You are following a plan you wrote when you were calm.
The way to fix the psychology is to stop needing it. Build a system you can trust. Then follow it.
Sector focus, not sector everything
Another ITPM lesson that mattered in 2025.
You do not have to trade every sector. You do not have to understand every name. You have to know where the capital is flowing and have the discipline to position in the sectors you actually understand.
I do not trade biotech because I do not have a fundamental edge there. I do not trade pure crypto names because the macro overlay is different from what the ITPM framework is built for. I focus on the sectors I have done the work on. That is enough.
The framework is top down. Start with the macro. Identify the sectors getting rewarded or punished. Build exposure long where capital is going and short where capital is leaving. Sector focus is what makes a 10 position book manageable. Trying to know everything is what makes a portfolio incoherent.
Building my own tools
One thing I changed this year was moving my portfolio monitoring out of spreadsheets and into a custom dashboard I built for myself. I call it OptionsMon. It tracks exposure by sector and by bias, flags expiry clusters, monitors delta adjusted risk across the whole book, and flags correlated or overcrowded positions.
It is a tool I built for my own use. I am not selling it. It is mentioned here because the move from Excel to a real dashboard was one of the biggest single workflow improvements of the year. If you run a multi position options book you will eventually outgrow spreadsheets.
Why this only works with the right education
If you have read this far, you already understand the thing most retail traders miss.
It is not about having a great year once. It is not about one big trade. It is about having a structured system and the discipline to execute it consistently through good months and slow months.
That is what PTM 2.0 is built around. It is the foundation that produced the year I just described. The framework. The risk management. The trade idea generation. The long-short portfolio construction. All of it is taught inside the Professional Trading Masterclass.
Whether the same education would work the same way for you depends on your circumstances, the time you can give it, and your own risk tolerance. I cannot tell you that. What I can tell you is what it did for me.
Want to see what actually changed how I trade. Read my ITPM reviews.
If you are serious about levelling up, I have an exclusive ITPM discount. Use my code ptmcutts30pct for PTM 2.0.
Affiliate disclosure. I earn a commission if you purchase an ITPM course through my discount link, at no additional cost to you. That does not change my view of the courses, which is based on having completed them myself.
Key Takeaways
A 125 percent net return is what the process produced in one year. It is not a forecast of any year going forward.
A 40 percent win rate at a 3.41 R-value is the right shape for a long-short options book. You do not need to be right most of the time.
Stepping back when life or markets demand it does not break a system. Forcing trades into the wrong conditions does.
Most psychology issues are actually process issues. Build the system. Trust the system. Follow the system.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Options trading carries the risk of losing the full premium on every position.
Final Thoughts
2025 was the year the process clicked.
Not because of luck. Not because of one big trade. Because of a commitment to running the framework end to end on every position rather than picking parts of it.
Going into 2026 the market looks harder. The index is at all time highs, breadth is narrower, and the easy direction trades are scarcer. The same process still applies. The inputs change. The discipline does not.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are your actual 2025 ITPM trading results?
A 125 percent net return on a starting NAV of approximately 258,000 AUD, ending the year at approximately 580,000 AUD. Realised P&L on closed trades was 271,878 AUD. The full 125 percent figure includes gains on open positions at year end.
What is the R-value and why does it matter?
R-value is the ratio of your average winning trade to your average losing trade. Mine was 3.41 to 1 in 2025. A high R-value lets a sub fifty percent win rate still be profitable, because the winners are large enough to pay for the more frequent losers.
Did you trade stocks or options?
Almost everything in 2025 was expressed through options on NYSE listed equities. Long calls for upside views, long puts for downside views, sometimes spreads. Options give defined premium risk per entry, which suits a long short framework with many open positions.
How did the personal pause affect the year?
May and June were deliberately reduced trading activity because of a new family member. May closed at a small loss. June closed at zero. The system was designed to allow that without breaking. Cumulative return was protected by stepping away, not by forcing trades.
How do I learn the same process you used?
The framework is the Professional Trading Masterclass (PTM 2.0) from ITPM. I review it in detail on the PTM 2.0 review page. The discount code ptmcutts30pct is on the ITPM discount page. I earn a commission if you purchase through my link.
Disclaimer
I am a retail trader based in Australia. I do not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence. Nothing on this website is personal or general financial advice or a recommendation in relation to any financial product. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Options trading carries substantial risk including the risk of losing the entire premium on every position. Please consult a qualified licensed financial adviser before making any investment or trading decision. Read the full disclaimer for more information.
The information contained in this article is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or other professional advice. The content reflects the personal opinions of the author based on publicly available information at the time of writing and should not be relied upon as the basis for any investment decisions.
Readers are strongly encouraged to conduct their own research and due diligence, and to consult with a qualified financial advisor or licensed professional before making any investment or trading decisions. The author and publisher make no representations or warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the information provided and accept no liability for any loss or damage arising directly or indirectly from the use of or reliance on the information herein.
