Friday, May 29, 2009

05/29 Beta Weighted Portfolio

Finished the week leaning a bit more deltas than I care to. That's ok, the weekend is here and I'll relax, if the market continues to push higher next week I'll be hedging the MDY and RUT 30-Day condors, as well as the DIA Iron Butterfly.

Here is the portfolio with MDY and RUT 30-Day condors hedged.



05/29 Greek Salad :)

I decided to start testing my hands at the greek. This is a paper trade where my goal is to make 10 to 15% ROI, I'll be increasing capital as I go along, adding positions to fix the greeks whenever I see fit. Let's see how this salad work.

05/29 DIA Iron Butterfly

DIA gave me a break! I now expect to be at TTN on Monday and my goal will be to keep navigating and getting this to the finish line safely.

05/29 SPY Calendar

Time decay finally kicked in, I expect to take the trade off the table next Monday. Will have an order running to get out.

05/29 MDY 30-Day Condor

MDY got close to hedging level. There isn't a long contract that will cut my deltas in 1/2, the only alternative would cut it too much, since this position is very small, I will have to use a debit spread to cut the delta, hope I won't even need it, we'll see.

05/29 RUT 30-Day Condor

I realized my hedge was too far out of the money, it lost almost all its value with RUT being close to 502.5 again I may need to come in and buy a new hedge, this time closer and stronger.



05/29 RUT 50-Day Condor

This position is fairly new, there is a lot of time to go, and not much else to say.

05/28 Beta Weighted Portfolio

I really like to look at my total portfolio in this perspective, it allows to see how well I'm doing in regards to managing by the greeks. I'm thinking about adding several positions in the same Index in a paper-trader account. I'll also start tracking a larger Iron Butterfly on paper trade.

It will be a busier blog starting next week, so I'm considering re-structuring the blog, to make it easier to track results and day-by-day changes on my positions.



05/28 DIA Iron Butterfly

We're now in the green! One thing I learned Yesterday while watching Dan Harvey's sessions regarding iron butterflies on ETFs is that they tend to have a high Gamma.. Looking at my position, one can see that 1 point move either way puts me in a high delta scenario because of the position's Gamma (see profile)..

This makes it harder to manage the position and keep it delta neutral, maybe the reason why I over-traded it in the beginning of the trade. Not justifying myself here, simply learning a new lesson..

05/28 SPY Calendar

We're almost at our target! If SPY stays quiet for a few days, I expect to be out of the trade with my target profit of 15%. In fact, I already have a GTC order running to get me out.

05/28 MDY 30-Day Condor

MDY moved back up, but the position is still profitable, time decay is working to help things along.

05/28 RUT 30-Day Condor

The position is not yet profitable, but it is on its way. I'm expecting it to be just fine next week. Due to my execution mistake when getting in, I'll have to stay in the trade for at least 2 more weeks.

05/28 RUT 50-Day Condor

Got into this new position Yesterday, the plan is to take 10%, max loss set at -15%. Will monitor on a daily basis.