01/06 Weekly update

This week's update will not have any of the charts, we just moved to South Florida and have no Internet connection as of yet. The IBM calendar seems to have moved very little, I have a feeling a lot of the volatility was taken out of the position Friday. I'm still learning how the calendars work, most of the P/L is driven by volatility on the back and front month option contracts, so it is still a learning process for me, that being said, my guess is that if one had entered a calendar during the last minutes of trading on Friday, he/she would be likely to see profits on Monday, I'll study to see how this works out.

For now, the first week of the year was not very active, the market seems to have moved very little, let's see if we find some stability for a change.

Cheers!
Gustavo

12/30 Weekly Summary

Last update of the year! First of all, let me wish a happy 2012 to all of you! Let all of us be happy, healthy and wealthy in 2012!! Now, as to the current position, the IBM calendar recovered during the week and I'll keep the trade on as per plan. This has been a slow week on the trading side, but very busy with preparations for our move. We are moving next week, so my next posting will be out of Florida!
Cheers!
Gustavo

12/23 Weekly Summary

This past week was very good for the NDX Iron butterfly, I was able to get out of the position at my profit goal by end of day on Monday the 19th. Considering I started the trade on the 14th, that's super fast!

On the flip-side, the IBM tripple calendar took a hit when IBM hit 180 on the 21st, the position is underwater and close to its stop loss, I'm monitoring and if need be will shut it down.

As for this week, no new trade to enter. We are moving from California to South Florida next week, so as you can imagine, there are quite a few things for us to do. For now just keeping a close eye on the IBM calendar.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

12/16 Weekly Summary

Got my two positions for the JAN/12 expiration cycle this week. After evaluating our trading goals for 2012 we have landed on keeping it simple and staying the course with only a few strategies. So I'm going to focus on the IBM triple calendar and the NDX Iron Butterfly (with less adjustments).

Cheers!

Gustavo

12/8 Weekly Summary

Posting my weekly update a day earlier as I will be out of pocket for the weekend. Today I closed all my last remaining cash-secured put positions, they were all profitable at or around my profit goal. Last week I took out the NDX iron butterfly. For the JAN-2012 cycle I plan on rolling the cash-secured puts, a NDX Iron Butterfly (entering with 1/2 of the position size) and an IBM triple calendar.

Cheers!
Gustavo

12/02 Weekly Summary

This week was good for all my positions, first with the NDX iron butterfly, I took it out this week when the market rallied back and it got to my profit goal (around 10%). Now, for the cash-secured puts, they are looking good and I may start trimming them down this week week as some of them are approaching very close to the profit targets (about 90% of the credit, or 1% of the margin value).

I mentioned in a few postings that I have been looking for much more of a no-touch trading strategies, and to be honest the most challenging part of trading is what happens when your position starts to be under water.. Controlling the urge to not look at the market every 10 to 15 minutes is not easy, at least not easy to me. So I have some controlling to do last week and was very glad I was able to keep my cool and only adjust at the time of day and price levels I had originally planned. I think just by being aware of that it helped me to stay on control and manage the anxiety.

Other than that, we are getting ready for the Holidays!
Cheers!
Gustavo

11/25 Weekly Summary

The short week for Thanksgiving holidays was harsh on my positions, we had a lot of down-side pressure and most of the trades took a hit on P/L. I added another Iron Butterfly to the NDX trade, this is the adjustment I have decided to do in order to keep this trade as close to no-touch as possible. On the bright side, the volume was very light and due to this being a Holiday week a lot of the heavy traders were not in this action, so let's see what next week bring.