I've started simplifying the position by replacing the long FEB contract with buying one vertical spread and one of the short call contracts. This leaves me with a similar profile in therms of short term greeks, reduces the vega exposure and gives me a shot at exiting at a better price if we move back down or sharply up.
Next step is to work an order to remove the PUT side.
We pushed slightly higher Today, I had contingent orders to roll the vertical spreads if we hit 188.50, didn't get hit, will leave the same orders in place for Tomorrow. There is still time left in the trade, if we move higher I'll add another butterfly at the top.
I only had the Iron Condor for the DEC09 contracts, the market got into a trading range and the position worked itself to be a "set it and forget it" type of trade. Sweet!!
This was my only DEC09 trade, I opted for the iron condor simply because I was moving cross country and could not afford to look at the market every night, the Condor gave me the peace of mind that I could set it and forget it (for the most part), without a lot of adjustments in the process. As it turns out, the market was good to me.
Not much of a history, I understand, so here is a volatility cone profile for this position. Notice: the cone was created after the fact, so I can't add a live day-by-day P/L chart.
These are the positions I traded for the NOV09 contracts. This was the first losing month for my MNX Iron Butterfly position, not very happy, but still a profitable strategy thus far. I ended up blowing up my max loss on the RUT Iron Butterfly, as a result I decided to re-evaluate the way I've been trading the RUT Iron Butterfly, I simply haven't got a handle on the strategy.
10/20 MNX Iron Butterfly - "Added one more contract to the Iron Butterfly Today. I now have 1/2 of the position on. My deadline for being fully loaded is this Thursday."
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ps: Thanks to my Lawyer friend and avid reader Chad for the disclaimer!