Wednesday, June 24, 2009

06/24 RUT Iron Butterfly

With one day into the trade, there is not much to say, except that we hit the 500 level and I added the AUG 580 Call. profits are starting to build up.

06/24 SPX Iron Butterfly

I did something wrong with my contingent orders, when SPX was moving up, they didn't trigger. When I looked at them, realized they had been canceled. Good thing it is a paper trading position. I executed the orders manually, and now the up-side is safe (probably an over kill).

06/24 RUT 30-Day Condor

RUT gave the position a break Today. The volatility drop also helped to bring profits back up.

06/24 MNX Iron Butterfly

MNX hit the first adjustment level I had to the up-side Today. It was moving by more than 1 st. deviation intra-day, then faded after the interest rate announcement. One way or another, it made a little bit of money and now sits right in the middle of the graph.

06/23 RUT Iron Butterfly

Brand new position, just want to trade as many iron butterflies as I can. This one was opened late in the game. It is a paper trade.

06/23 SPX Iron Butterfly

So far, so good. Dan Harvey doesn't recommend adjusting these Index trades on the first week of the trade. I started these late in the time-frame, so I think adjusting is prudent, provided there isn't too much time left to wait for things to settle if we get larger movements. We'll see how it goes.

06/23 RUT 30-Day Condor

RUT took a hit on P&L, We need it to move back up for a recovery. I have contingent orders to cut the deltas if we reach the 480 level. I want to close the CALL side, I have already closed 1 spread and may close a few more if I get a decent price. It is far out of the money, but we never know..

06/23 MNX Iron Butterfly

The trade got the benefits from a quiet day in the markets. I have the contingent orders in place and let's see what happens next. Note the day-step graph on TOS, assuming it all stays the same, my goal is expected by 07/04

06/23 SPY Double Diagonal *Closed*

We had this trade for over 15 trading sessions, the profit got up to 8% and when it started to drop back down I decided to close it.

I believe that for these double diagonals the timing is important. Notice on the volatility cone the orange horizontal lines, these are the pre-defined adjustment points. You can see how the 1 st. deviation on the volatility cone intersects these adjustment points in a certain time period. In my mind, this is telling me that simply by law of probabilities the trades have a high probability of requiring adjustments if you stay too long. So I didn't want to test the theory and decided to book the profits.