01/29 Daily Summary

Ok, now the Iron Butterflies are about to give up. The market simply moved way too much for them to handle. I am expecting a pull back on Monday so that some of the volatility increase eases off. Of course, the down-side must be hedged really quickly if that doesn't happen.

01/29 MNX Iron Butterfly

Early in the morning I added another iron butterfly on the position; It would have been my adjustment Yesterday if I had a chance to watch the market at closing. Turns out it was a bad idea as the market kept rolling down and volatility increased. Similarly to the NDX, the trade is at a stopping point, will pull the plug if we don't recover some of this volatility next week.

01/29 NDX Iron Butterfly

I've done whatever I could to contain price action. Even though my delta was hedged, the vega increase jacked up the short spread prices, and I'm in a deep hole right now. I've hedged the position the best I can, added theta and now it will either take a break next week or I'll pull the plug.

01/29 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

Great trade this week, despite the late week sell off, it managed to bring home 9%! Once again, that's 9% in one week of trading.. Really GOOD, no, it is AWESOME!!

01/28 Daily Summary

As far as I can tell, we have resumed the down-trend Today by breaking last Friday's low. My Iron Butterflies are hanging in there, they need another break, but so far so good, I plan on adjusting it further Tomorrow to increast my theta and keep rolling the tent down. The OEX position is about to bring home the cash!

01/28 MNX Iron Butterfly

Just like the NDX, this position held its deltas under control as the market took a deep dive beyond last Friday's lows.. now it is a matter of staying in the game and responding to the situation by adjusting and increasing theta once again.

01/28 NDX Iron Butterfly

Well, time to test this strategy under FIRE!! I had the contingent orders to keep deltas under control and they did their job. The MNX rolled down quite a bit and the position adjusted itself. Of course, P/L dropped, but it is still at a very decent level despite such a large beating this trade has taken.

01/28 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

Today's extreme price action was not a negative impact on this trade, as a matter of fact, it is now 99% chance of success! Nice for a no-touch trade that lasts one WEEK!

01/27 Daily Summary

Today was a good day despite it being a FED announcement day. The market didn't move too much and I wasn't forced to adjust any position. I have added an iron butterfly to the MNX trade mainly to increase its theta.

01/27 MNX Iron Butterfly

I've decided to start adding more Theta to the trade, about 30 minutes prior to the closing I added another Iron Butterfly (1x 180/170 Put & 182.5/192.5 Call). The market then rallied, but I decided to stay put and do any further adjustments Tomorrow if we confirm this move up.

01/27 NDX Iron Butterfly

As we traded higher Today, the position started to show initial signs of profitability. That is a great sign, if we continue to trade sideways it will start to collect $.

01/27 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

This position is doing very well, no need to do anything at this point

01/26 Daily Summary

I want to thank my friend Gary for talking me into staying with the NDX position after we got some serious damage in the first few days of the trade. The position has recovered greatly after a couple days of market consolidation. I assume we're getting ready for the FED announcement Tomorrow, but I'm happy to see that I'm going in with a position in much better shape.

Today I did a cut and roll on my MNX put spreads, I realized that by keeping the trade hedged I let go of the opportunity to accumulate some profits as the NDX did. Live and learn, next time I plan on not leaving the position in a "waitting mode" for too long.

Position's details and price action chart
01/26 NDX Iron Butterfly
01/26 MNX Iron Butterfly
01/26 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

01/26 NDX Iron Butterfly

This trade posted an amazing recovery. The key in this recovery was the fast adjustment response I did earlier on. As we had the large drop I did the cut and roll and added the extra butterfly. Compared with the MNX iron butterfly where I did not increase theta as part of my adjustment, this worked much better.

Bottom line here is: if you have to keep your money on the market, make sure you have theta to get paid for the risk you're assuming. Leaving the trade hedged without theta for too long is a losing proposition in the long term.

01/26 MNX Iron Butterfly

The market has yet to show its hands, and I've kept the trade without theta for too long. Today I did a cut and roll on my PUT spreads, plan on adding more theta Tomorrow, specially if we keep going down.

01/26 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

Trade is in very good shape, nothing needs to be done.

01/25 Daily Summary

Today the market took a break. My Iron Butterflies enjoyed the day of recovery and rest :) I decided against touching the trades, as I want the market to give further indication of what it wants to do before I start acting on it.

Entered the weekly OEX Iron Condor, had a harder than usual time to get fills, hopefully it doesn't become an issue for this strategy.

Position's details and Price action:
01/25 MNX Iron Butterfly
01/25 NDX Iron Butterfly
01/25 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

01/25 MNX Iron Butterfly

Got a bit of P/L recovery, mostly due to volatility, since we're in a decision point in the market, I decided to roll one more day without adjusting the trade any further. I want the market to show its hands before I do anything drastic on the down-side. Looking at the charts, if we break Friday's low I'll spur into action.

01/25 NDX Iron Butterfly

Today the market took a breath and retraced a little bit from the past 2 days of sell off. This brought up great life to the NDX Iron Butterfly, it recored nicely. I decided not to touch the position, I've been adjusting pretty much every day since entry, so Today I gave it a break.

01/25 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

Today I had harder than usual time getting fills for the OEX weekly Iron Condor. I had to enter one single order at a time, and it seemed I was the only contract out there at certain times in the day. Here is the position, the contingent orders are in place, now it is only a matter of monitoring.

01/23 A Must read

This collection of Postings from Brett Steenbarger is a must read:

http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2010/01/trading-psychology-best-of-traderfeed_23.html

01/22 Daily Summary *SHARKS*

Sharks in the water! Let's watch out! Notice two things on the price action charts, in the past 10 trading sessions, we had about 7 or 8 days with over 1 standard deviation. The 5-Day volatility chart is no longer sideways, it started a descending wave.

The only positions I have left on my portfolio are the WOLVERINES of non-directional strategies: Iron Butterflies! :) These little trades seem very fragile, but do not let that short coverage area fool you, they take a punch or two, or four and stand to fight and make money. See the MNX profile, I entered the same day as the RUT Iron Condor, I'm out of the condor with -13% and I'm still in the Iron Butterfly and down only -5%.... You do the math :)

Position's details and price chart:
01/22 MNX Iron Butterfly
01/22 NDX Iron Butterfly
01/22 RUT Iron Condor

01/22 MNX Iron Butterfly

the extra puts I have bought did a good job keeping the trade under control. Then again, we had over 2 st. deviations drop on the MNX and NDX, so this caused the position to lose some more money than it would under normal conditions (read, volatility POP). By end of day I rolled half of my short puts as they’re delta hogs and plan on keep on rolling the other rest if we keep on going down next week. So far the position is hedged, but it needs more theta.

01/22 NDX Iron Butterfly

Closing the trade slightly bearish Yesterday paid up this morning. As NDX crashed down it didn’t hurt my P/L, in fact, it brought it back up by a few percentage points. I used that money to Cut and Roll the put side, also added an extra butterfly to help pay for the cut and roll costs.

Now, take a look at this profile after the cut an roll. Notice that we moved way out of bounds and I'm still in the game, making Theta! I really like this 2.0 version of Dan Harvey's strategy. Yes, I'm down about 10%, but then again, I had a whipsaw effect Yesterday that knocked down about 5% of my trade, if it wasn't for that issue the trade would be down just about 5 to 6%.

01/22 RUT Iron Condor

I closed the position Today, because I was under a “market watch” this afternoon after we hit -0.5 on the 5-day volatility chart Yesterday. Today I shut down the position before it hit max loss. Saved a few percentage points as the market kept on going down.. Bottom line, not a good month again for the RUT Iron Condor.

01/21 Daily Summary

Today was a weird day for me, there was the whipsaw action on the NDX, and then my remote access to the computer wouldn't work, neither did my web access to the broker. Needless to say, I was not in the best place emotionally early in the morning. That being said, by noon I had regained control and was looking at things from an objective frame of mind, decided to give wiggle room on the NDX for learning purposes and now just realized I might have to pull the plug on the RUT iron condor Tomorrow, notice the warning on the 5-day vipes.

Position's Details and Price action chart:
01/21 NDX Iron Butterfly
01/21 MNX Iron Butterfly
01/21 RUT Iron Condor
01/21 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

01/21 NDX Iron Butterfly

There are times when you’re the hunter, and times when you’re the prey.. What can I say, NDX hunted down my stop Today.. I had a contingent order to dump the PUT at 1885, NDX traded up to 1885.01 and then proceeded down, and down, and down…

This whipsaw action ripped the trade P/L by too much, it is at the stop level. I've decided to write the PUT whipsaw off as an educational tuition and want to keep on managing the trade. Of course, if we keep losing money I'll pull the plug. My MAX stop is at 20%

01/21 MNX Iron Butterfly

By far the best position in my portfolio, this trade is hanging nicely despite the wide movements in the past two days. The trade fixed itself Today by picking up another long Put, we’re at the break-even level and I’m planning to keep managing the position.

01/21 RUT Iron Condor

The trade took a hit Today, nothing to worry about, I have a contingent order to bail if it gets to the stop level and another one to cash in. I’m also observing the 5-day chart, if we get a warning to exit, I’ll pull the plug.

01/21 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

OEX hit the stop Today. Somehow I feel very good about it, let me explain why: it was simple and easy. The stop got triggered and filled, I didn’t have to worry about the trade whatsoever. Of course, I have the call spread there, and will watch it Tomorrow, but odds are we’re not blowing up the up-side in one day, that would require a xx standard deviation move to the upside. Not to mention that if I count last week’s win, the loss Today sets me back only a half trade, if we stay quiet next week I’ll be back in the green on this strategy.

01/20 Daily Summary

Another day of extreme ZIG ZAG action.. After a large up-day, here comes a larger down-day.. Deal with it! :)

Today was a busy morning as some contingent orders got filled when the market was at its low point. I violated one of my rules of not watching the market, and was observing price action on the NDX around 7AM, turns out it was to my benefit as my contingent order failed to get filled. I was too skimpy on the offer, was trying Mark + 0.05, I adjusted it to mark + 0.10 to ensure a faster fill.

Position's details and Price chart:
01/20 NDX Iron Butterfly
01/20 MNX Iron Butterfly
01/20 RUT Iron Condor
01/20 OEX Iron Condor
01/20 NDX Iron Butterfly - Game plan - Downside - Put together early in the morning

01/20 NDX Iron Butterfly

Similar to the MNX, was forced into buying the extra PUT Today as we were trading below 1860. The main difference is that this sharp movement happened the next morning after placing the position, so we're down a bit of money.

01/20 MNX Iron Butterfly

Today's market action forced me into buying a long PUT, the contingent order was triggered as we were trading at Today's low. The market came back after that, so now I have one extra put to manage.

01/20 RUT Iron Condor

Back to where we started, profits are starting to grow on the position despite the active market environment, we've bounced around the same price area.

01/20 OEX Iron Condor

Right in the middle and only a few days to go.

01/20 NDX Iron Butterfly - Game plan - Downside

It is day one on the trade and we hit the down-side goal post. I've given it some thoughts as to what will be the game plan should we continue to trade lower. Bellow is the idea: Cut and Roll the PUT spread, and open a small butterfly to bring in more theta and compensate for the cut and roll costs.