Tuesday, June 9, 2009

06/09 Beta-Weighted Portfolio - JUN

As we approach expiration, time decay is really kicking in! Also, notice how the curve gets steeper and steeper, that's the gamma risk also showing up. It seems that no matter how hard you try, gamma will be difficult to control from this point on.

06/09 SPY Double Diagonal

Today I allocated the remaining capital planned for Double Diagonals. I decided to add to the SPY position to keep my portfolio simple enough. My goal is to run the SPY Double Diagonal month after month and keep track of its results.

06/09 DIA Iron Butterfly

This trade was an awesome excercise of the "trade like you mean it" rules! I kept the position under tabs even though I over-traded it early on the trade.

One way or another, I'm now learning about unraveling the spread. See the last chart on this post and you'll see the sequence I need to execute my exit orders in order to keep the delta fairly flat in the process.

NOTE: This trade is costing a bundle in commissions in relationship to its size. My next Iron Butterfly will be at least twice as big.

06/09 MDY 30-Day condor

The lack of upper CALL strikes on MDY has been a problem on this trade since a while back. Back when MDY fired up, I wanted to hedge the position but couldn't because there was no contract available to fine-tune the delta.

Today, the same thing is still happening. MDY hit my up-side alert and I had to cut a bit more delta than I wanted. The up-side is at risk and I may bail out of the position if we continue pass 111. Otherwise, it will bring in profits by Monday of expiration week.

So far, it is flat again, but Theta is not where it should be this late in the game.

06/09 RUT 30-Day Condor

Nice! My goal is to exit this trade Tomorrow. By the look of things, I will be able to take the 15% ROI from the original trade. The adrenaline shot paid off big time!

06/09 Pre-opening game plan

As by the looks of things, we're not moving much at the opening this morning. Right around now, /ES is at 942 and /TF around 528. The volume is building up at higher price levels, but the overninght range is fairly small, so we'll see how it behaves at the opening.

Bellow is my game plan for each position:

RUT 30-Day condor: /TF hovering 528, it will be nice to see an opening there. I have an alert again at 520, my goal will be to hedge the trade if we go there again, giving it was a bounce point Yesterday, I may give it some roon, say 518.

MDY 30-Day condor: Hovering around 108, delta should be fairly flat at those levels. I have alerts 1 st. deviation up and down, once again, my goal is to keep the plane flying level, without letting it go under by too much

DIA Iron Butterfly: Hovering 88 level, alerts around 1 point up and down, once again, we'll see how the market opens. If we hit these levels intra-day, I want to cut deltas by a bit over than half.

SPY Double Diagonal: Hovering 94.58, no need to worry about the position, just leaving alerts a bit beyond 1 st. deviation to the up-side. The down-side is beneficial to the trade.