There's a problem child in my virtual portfolio, and it goes by the name of Google.

I put in a virtual call for 520 on GOOG back in the beginning of August, when things looked like they were heading up. I figured Christmas was coming and online retailers tend to spend lots of $$ on AdWords that time of year.

That should make GOOG go up, right?

Well, today retail number came in and it's not pretty. One of the other retail virtual puts I have in (DECK) also took a dramatic reversal.

But with Google, I still hold out some hope. If this were real money, it would probably just sell out my puts and take my losses. But since I'm not really losing anything, I want to see how this plays out. It's still not fun to watch it go down when I have puts, but if nothing else this will remind me to have a higher level of scrutiny on my real trades.

Speaking of which, I sold off the winning side of my TIF straddle yesterday and it looks to have been a reasonable decision. The winning side was on the calls and TIF went down a little bit more today. That helps to make the put side a little more valuable and I just need to keep an eye out for a good point to unload the put options and make a little profit from the whole exercise.

The DELL straddle is still in place and the winning side (the puts) are still in good shape, and the calls even have some value even though the stock price is below where I figured my breakeven point was. The stock did tick up slightly today, but the trend is still looking down. Going to keep a sharp eye out for any sign of reversal though.

I seem to have a thing for airline stocks too. I'm opening a virtual call with LUV (Southwest) just to see if it really will keep going up over winter. To be completely frank, I avoid flying with them whenever possible, but the company is run better than it's competitors.

My virtual trade portfolio is starting to get a little large. I should probably hold off on opening new positions so I can keep better track of everything that's going on. My greed gland is really pumping though and I'm really enjoying the practice.

I figure the more I practice and make mistakes on the virtual side, the more likely I am to pull out winning trades and strategies with the real thing.