02/19 Daily Summary

I missed a couple of days this week, not something I’m proud of, but simply happened this time. I’m now back on the sweet spot, with all my trade monitors updated and ready to resume my daily journaling process.
I have been thinking about writing a few e-books, this week got me thinking about writing a lessons learned manual.. Something I spent quite a few trading dollars to learn, paying the school of hard knocks.. Would you be interested in purchasing such an e-book? Let me know your feedback.

02/19 NDX Fast Butterfly

Closed the NDX Fast Butterfly this week for a small profit. The NDX refused to post a negative day for the entire week. It kept on rising, but I must say, this rise is like a watching someone move painfully up the stairs, not very healthy up-side move I must say....

02/19 MNX Iron Butterfly

As much as I wanted to touch the trade, I decided not to mess with it during this week, left it all for the market to decide (with contingent orders). The deltas are higher than I usually let them be, but in the same time, volatility compressed through the week and I see that if it gets to my up-side adjustment I’ll be able to hedge without any major impact in the P/L.

02/19 NDX Iron Butterfly

Got through the first week without having to adjust the position, it seems to me that getting off to a good start is usually half of the battle on any of those income strategies, so this is a good one!

02/19 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

The PUT side expired Today, so this week was a losing week for the trade, I captured a few lessons learned after discussing with fellow traders here in California who trade this strategy:
1) Enter the position mid-day instead of early morning;
2) Be suspicious if you’re getting over .40c for 80% probability of profit (I was getting .70c for the position I got in this week)
3) Enter the trade as a full condor, no reason to force with single contract orders. In other words, do not force execution unless you have an extremely good reason why.

02/17 Daily Summary

I missed a day in blogging Yesterday, this long weekend has been rough around our house, all household members (including the dog) got sick over the weekend, and we were still recovering Yesterday, we’re doing much better now, so I’m able to catch up and not let the blog and trade journal slip.
Yesterday I’ve started most of my positions for the MAR cycle. Have been playing catch up with some of my tracking spreadsheet and got hit on the OEX weekly this time quite early in the trade, read more to see the details.

02/17 MNX Fast Butterfly

This is an experiment I’m running, loading a slightly bearish butterfly on a weekly basis with the goal of capturing a pull back and getting out fast. My stop is to the up-side and if we pull back between Tomorrow and Friday the position will bring in the profit goals (8 or more ROI).