Saturday, May 30, 2009

June/09 Positions


JUN09 RUT 50-Day Condor (Day-by-Day Review)

This position worked nicely, RUT stayed right in the center of the volatility cone for the entire duration of the trade. It is a nice refresh from last month's position.

Start: 04/30/09
Finish: 05/27/09
Duration: 1 Month
ROI: +10.41%

04/30/09

05/01/09

05/05/09

05/06/09

05/07/09

05/11/09

05/12/09

05/13/09 ("Ok, I now have one certainty about this trade: it give me profits...")

05/14/09

05/19/09

05/20/09 ("The trade is at almost max profit, I've set up an order to ake it out of the table for .10c...") The order didn't get fill

05/21/09 ("Tried to exit the trade Today, got nowhere with fills...")

05/22/09

05/26/09 ("The position is right in the middle...")

05/27/09 Closed

JUN/09 DIA Double Diagonal (Day-by-Day Review)

I started this trade slightly bearish and vega positive, my intention was to capitalize on a down-move as I was expecting it to happen soon after placing the trade. As it turns out, the market did come down but went back up faster than I expected, and the drop in volatility hurt the position to a point where I decided to exit it.

In my mind, the Max profit in the center of the risk profile graph wasn't worth staying for the ride.

Start: 05/07/09
Finish: 05/19/09
Duration: a bit over 1 week
ROI: +1.82%

05/07/09

05/11/09

05/12/09

05/13/09 ("DIA pushed down Today, it is right in the middle of my profit chart, the "bearish incline" I did with the trade seems to be paying off")

05/14/09 (Note Vols dropped 6%, so far so good)

05/19/09 Exited the Trade (Volatility dropped 14% since I started the trade)

MAY XLF SPEC Trade (Review)

Entered this trade based on a bearish candle formation on XLF, as it turns out, XLF moved back up the next day, but ended up crashing lower the next week, allowing me to take profits on the position.

I was originally planning to let it expire, but then realized I had in the money contracts and could end up assigned a bunch of XLF shares (thanks, but no thanks!)

Started: 05/07/09
Finished: 05/15/09
ROI: +21%

MAY OIH 30-Day Condor (Day-by-Day Review)

This trade on OIH hit the skids, I wasn't able to close it with my contingent orders, as OIH gapped up and I ended up giving up more profits than planned.

Started 04/15/09
Finished 05/06/09
Duration: About 20 Days
ROI: -24%


04/16/09

04/23/09

04/24/09

04/27/09

04/28/09 ("OIH reached 50% of target profit Today...")

04/29/09 ("Today OIH contracts got changed due to a dividends distribution. I'm not sure how this affect my position in terms of liquidity on the new contracts")

04/30/09 (Closed PUT spread)

05/01/09

05/04/09 (Hedged with Long CALL)

05/05/09 ("Ouch!! OIH pushed higher Yesterday and hit my last line of defense on the trade...")

05/06/09 ("Closed the OIH Condor as it gapped through my stop big time during Today's opening")

MAY MNX 45-Day Condor (Day-by-Day Review)

I wanted to get some diversification, and entered this trade one week after the RUT 50-Day condor. In the end, the results were very much similar, so I'm not so sure the diversification worked in this scenario.

Started the Trade 03/30/09
Finished the Trade 04/30/09
Duration: About 1 month
ROI: -18.2%


03/31/09

04/01/09

04/02/09

04/03/09

04/04/09 ("This was a rough week to start any trade...")

04/06/09

04/07/09

04/08/09

04/09/09

04/11/09 ("The trade is taking a lot of heat on the up-side...")

04/13/09

04/15/09

04/16/09

04/23/09

04/24/09 ("MNX has been pushing higher just about every day this week ...")

04/27/09

04/28/09

04/29/09 ("This position is taking just about the same ammount of up-side pressure as the RUT condor, yet the P&L seems to be in much better shape.")

04/30/09 (CLOSED, reached max loss)

MAY RUT 50-Day Condor (Day by day Review)

This is long overdue, I was super busy the past few weeks. The plan is to have a day-by-day history of all my trades, this way I can go back and see what worked and what didn't work in past trades.

Trade Duration: About 1 month
ROI: -20%
Notes: This was a rough month for a no-touch strategy. This position had only a few days of profitability or B/E, in the future, it might be wise to get out sooner, or tighten the stop.

Started on 03/25/09

03/26/09

03/27/09

03/29/09

03/30/09

03/31/09 (Not yet profitable)

04/01/09

04/02/09

04/03/09 (No trade detail)

04/04/09

04/06/09 (Position recovered a bit, still not profitable)

04/07/09 (Back at B/E)

04/08/09

04/09/09 (Short Post, no trade detail)

04/11/09 (back in the red)

04/13/09

04/15/09 (Still there, not profitable)

04/16/09

Was out for a few days, using multi-day contingent orders

04/23/09

04/24/09 (Another day to test patience)

04/27/09

04/28/09

04/29/09 (Up trend has been rough)

04/30/09 (Hit loss)