Saturday, April 11, 2009

04/11 EWZ Double Diagonal

EWZ decided to go wild as soon as I placed the trade. Notice we had a lot of up-days, now beyond 1.5 st. deviation on the volatility cone. The one thing I noticed is the difference between the Double-Diagonal and the 45-Day condor, notice the condor is down almost 10% with price still inside 1 st. deviation, the double-diagonal is losing 12% with price beyond 1.5 st. deviation on the cone..

Note: We are super close to the adjustment level 65% chance of hitting it Monday. One could have adjusted at end of day on Thursday, I wasn't monitoring the position, and even if I was, chances are I would not have touched. I'm tired of messing around and deviating from my plan. the purpose of this blog is to keep me honest, I put the plan in place and follow it, results and experience will tell me what to adjust on the plan, that simple.

Volatility has dropped by quite a bit, but the trade was originally structured to not have much vega risk, so it isn't hurting, in fact it might have helped the position early on.

Probabilities with 25 trading sessions to go:
59.8% implied probability of success
80% historical probability of success

Dashboard, historical probability and profile:



04/11 MNX 45-Day Condor

The trade is taking a lot of heat on the up-side. So far we have had several up days, and only one down day. The P&L is hurting, the volatility is helping. We'll see how it develops. Price is oscilating out of the 1 st. deviation on the volatility cone.

Note: This could be a point for adjusting the trade. I'm trading with no-adjustments in mind, but want to note this here for future reference. Will keep track of a possible adjustment on the paper-trade account

Probabilities with 25 trading sessions to go:
77% implied probability of success
91% historic probability of success

Dashboard, Historical Probability and Profile charts:

04/11 XLE Double Diagonal - Closed

I opted for exiting the trade before the expiration week, the fact XLE moved back up and got closer to the up-side break-even didn't help. I ran a decision tree on the trade and evaluated the 3 possible scenarios: staying flat, moving up and moving down.. Basically only a move down could help, and therefore the probabilities were against keeping the position. Here is the

dashboard and decision tree I used:

04/11 RUT 52-Day Condor

Last Thursday surge didn't help any position in the portfolio. This trade didn't hurt as much, maybe because it has been on for a bit longer than the others. So far, probabilities are still looking good.

Probabilities with 25 trading sessions to expiration:
78% Implied probability of success
94% historical probability of success

Dashboard, probabilities and Risk profile charts bellow: