FEB/12 Entry Study Sheets

These are the two Pre-Entry study sheets I developed, I used these to check both NDX and IBM prior to entering my positions for FEB/12 contracts. What I'm looking for is any sort of indication that things might be out of wack. I've noticed that using this sort of perspective while backtesting gave me good insights as to when I'd be entering a position in normal vs. stormy market conditions, this allowed me to thing about entering all at once or scaling into the position as a strategy.

Like I said, this is just an indication, at least a way to "check the temperature" before going into the trade. Won't predict the future or anything, just give us an indication of how is the market before jumping in.

Cheers!

Gustavo

1/13 Weekly Summary

This week I entered the FEB positions, both the NDX Iron butterfly and the IBM Tripple calendars. I was traveling Monday and was only able to put the trades on Wednesday. Notice I entered the NDX iron butterfly with 2 thirds of my total capital, leaving space for adjusting. I also entered only 1/2 of the IBM calendars, this was mostly due to time constraints to be honest I got busy and didn't follow through to complete the position. The JAN IBM tripple calendar is still on, I will exit it next week, my plan is to take it off by expiration Friday.

I also used a different spreadsheet to evaluate how much to allocate on the trades, I will post a separate blog entry for you to review the study I'm looking at before entering my trades in 2012.

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