07/27 Daily Summary

Today most indexes were range-bound and consolidating at the top. Could this be signaling that the "elephant is getting tired"? I sure hope so. Ok, ok, "hopium" is not an indicator I follow, so I'm being optmistic and realistic at the same time: All my positions have their contingent orders and action plan to adjust if we keep moving up. The SPY double diagonal is the one hurt the most so far, so the next step if we keep going up is to shut it down.

MNX Iron Butterfly is holding on the best, the market gave it a workout, and P&L actually recovered a bit over the weekend. I intended to move at least one of the 150 Call spreads up on Friday, but because I wasn't able to trade I could only do it Today (missing the weekend of theta).

I also added the IBM Calendar Today, started with the 115 CALL and may add the 120 CALL Tomorrow, but wanted to give it one more day to see if we pull back.

Position's details:
07/27 IBM Calendar *New*
07/27 RUT 30-Day Iron Condor
07/27 MNX Iron Butterfly
07/27 SPY Double Diagonal

07/27 IBM Calendar *New*

Today I started loading the IBM Calendar. This is the last position for my AUG portfolio, and I hope that the timming of my allocation may help me. IBM looks to be having a hard time to break the 118 area, if we do break it and hit 119, then I plan on adding the 120 calendar. I will also add to this position in a few days.

Call me crazy, but I decided to start bearish, by entering the 115 Call calendar. If I'm proving wrong, this is only 1/4th of the position's size, so it won't be a huge hit, if I'm right, I'll keep on building it up.

07/27 RUT 30-Day Iron Condor

RUT hit 550 Today and I added a long SEP Call to hedge the deltas. At this level we are slightly theta negative, so the hope is for RUT to back off. This is true for all my positions. Because the last up-side push was soon after I entered the trade, the P&L is hurting quite a bit.


Position's History: 07/23 RUT 30-Day Iron Condor
7/22 RUT 30-Day Iron Condor
7/21 RUT 30-Day Condor *New*

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07/27 MNX Iron Butterfly

MNX finally showing signs of slowing down. We did go down a little bit Today, the daily chart looks "topish" to me, but we never know. Right now, my plan is to continue rolling the short 150 Calls by using a debit spread. If we keep going up, even if we stay at these levels, the 150s are way deep in the money, they're what Dan Harvey calls "delta hogs". I'm removing them slowly to avoid exposing the position to a big gamma risk, this may hurt if we go down fast from here.



Position's History
07/23 MNX Iron Butterfly
07/22 MNX Iron Butterfly
7/21 MNX Iron Butterfly
07/20 MNX Iron Butterfly
07/17 MNX Iron Butterfly
07/16 MNX Iron Butterfly *New*

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07/27 SPY Double Diagonal

SPY showed some signs of indecision/consolidation at the top Today. I'm hopping we're close to a pull back. If we do pull back I plan on adding spreads to the trade in order to bring theta back to the table. I thought about doing it last weekend but couldn't really analyze the trade on Friday.


As of now, we're close to the max loss and I have an order to halt the position if we go to 100. One way or another, looking at the volatility cone, this has been a relentless up-move and this trade is still there. No way an Iron Condor could have made it through.




Position's History:
7/23 SPY Double Diagonal
07/22 SPY Double Diagonal
07/21 SPY Double Diagonal
07/20 SPY Double Diagonal
07/17 SPY Double Diagonal
07/16 SPY Double Diagonal Decision Making
07/16 SPY Double Diagonal
07/15 SPY Double Diagonal
07/14 SPY Double Diagonal
07/13 SPY Double Diagonal *New*


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