04/29 Daily Summary

Staying on top of our roller coaster. Seems quite a big range for us to be going back and forth in a matter of days, but hey, I’m still hanging in there. This month the NDX is working like the bull in the china shop for sure.

04/29 NDX Iron Butterfly – MAY/10

Wow, once again we move from the bottom of the tent, to the top.. I’m glad I didn’t sell that long call when we were lower a few days ago. It was simply lucky as we traded within 1 point of my contingent order. I have not touched the trade again Today. Still keeping an eye on my 10% goal, I want to get there by Monday of the week before expiration, as long as I’m on target to get there, I’m ok.

04/29 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

Just to wrap this one up, looks like dinner and a movie will have to wait for next week  I had an order to do a butterfly roll if we hit 550 and we did. So now it is underwater. I might be able to save it if looks like OEX will get pinned down Tomorrow, but will only know Tomorrow.

04/28 Daily Summary

I saw this video on Youtube Yesterday, and this morning made the connection to trading... Take a look at it, when it comes to riding the market “roller coaster” which trader are you? The guy on the left or the guy on the right? I figure the job of any developing trader is to migrate from being the “freaked out guy” to being the “level headed” one just watching and enjoying the ride while others kick and scream to no avail.. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyFl-IyDUhE

04/28 NDX Iron Butterfly – MAY/10

Took a very welcome break Today! Didn’t have to make any adjustments on the trade and the conditions have improved. Keeping a keen eye on Yesterday’s bottom, we closed just above the 21 SMA on the daily charts, if we push to make new lows I’ll start making adjustments again.

04/28 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

Saw an opportunity to place a small trade on OEX this morning, couldn’t resist taking advantage of the expanded volatility. Won’t be posting a lot of updates here, consider it a dinner and movie trade.

04/27 Daily Summary

Volatility just exploded Today, sharp move all across the table, Tomorrow will be a key day. Interestingly enough my Iron Butterfly was not totally damaged Today, the vols didn’t hurt as much as I expected.

04/27 NDX Iron Butterfly – MAY/10

Interestingly enough, Today’s violent move didn’t hurt my position that much. I’m down about 7%, and still stand a chance to reach 10%. I am seriously considering adding a calendar to add theta and further reduce vega exposure if I see a pullback opportunity Tomorrow. Need to see where we are. In the mean time the plan is updated to continue managing the position.

04/26 Daily Summary

Volatility is keeping my money away on the trade. Decided against adding a bearish calendar to cut vega. Bottom line is to continue on wait and see mode, time will eventually deflate these contracts.

04/26 NDX Iron Butterfly – MAY/10

Volatility is keeping my money away on the trade. Today I thought about adding a calendar or something to cut my vega even more case we drop Tomorrow. After going back and forth for a while I decided against touching the trade. Bottom line, there is still time for it to make 10% and if I start adding to it now, may run into more trouble. If we push higher then I’ll add another butterfly and cut&roll, otherwise I’ll have to hang around and wait for vols to drop back. Good thing is that so far all I have is front-month contracts, therefore vols must go to zero sooner or later.

04/23 Daily Summary

Didn’t even watch the market Today, just a few glances here and there, seems like we moved up again in the final hours of trading. I have my contingent orders for the butterfly if we keep on going Monday.

04/23 NDX Iron Butterfly – MAY/10

NDX moved higher Today, the vols didn’t drop by much and until they do I feel the trade will take some heat. Have my game plan updated, may need to cut and roll or add extra butterfly sooner than originally planned. Would be in worse shape if it didn’t have the extra long MAY call that I added Yesterday.

04/22 Daily Summary

What a wild day!! NDX was trading at 2001 some point intra-day, and rallied all the way to 2047! This is not captured on the daily chart, but it happened nevertheless. One thing I’m now doing since I started to focus on one trade a month is to really document my next steps, what are my expectations of P/L and my game plan. See the detailed chart on the NDX trade.

04/22 NDX Iron Butterfly – MAY/10

What a wild day!! NDX was trading at 2001 some point intra-day, and rallied all the way to 2047! Needless to say, market makers made their spreads really wide to compensate for such a sharp movement. The P/L got affected by that, and since it hit my contingent order in the last few minutes of trading, I ended up buying some of that as well. The position is down 5% due to these two factors. I’ve posted my game plan as of Today, notice that based on my estimations I would be down about 1% if this was a normal move to 2047.. It pays to keep things in perspective, bottom line I’m still looking to make 10% on the trade.

04/21 Daily Summary

Started the MAY journey with the NDX Iron butterfly.

04/21 NDX Iron Butterfly – MAY/10

Started the May trade this morning, as the market was trading higher but seemed to be looking to pull back. Turns out it did pull back a little. I have contingent orders to soften the deltas by adding the long MAY call if needed at 2047, otherwise will ride it without the extra call.

04/19 Daily Summary

If you just look from close to close, there has been little difference, however, if you look at Today’s intra-day action, you’ll notice we were trading quite lower mid-day and rejected those levels pretty fast. The 5-day profile chart has yet to violate the up-swing. Today’s low in my opinion is an important level to watch moving forward.

04/16 Daily Summary

Two back to back 2+ standard deviation days, is volatility coming back? Don’t have any position right now, likely to enter on Monday.

04/14 Daily Summary

Closed both my remaining positions at their stop levels Today. I am actually glad I did get out of them around 2015, it would have been worse otherwise. Will enjoy a few days without anything on, and come back with only one trade next week.

04/14 NDX Iron Butterfly

Here is what I have left on the trade:
2x APR 1900/1825 put credit spread
Reached my stop loss on the trade as we got to 2015, not a good month, specially hard because I feel this could have been avoided or traded differently. Need to go back and review the trade to see where the lessons are. -12.33% result for this month.

04/14 NDX Fast Iron Butterfly (from 03/15)

Here is the inventory of what I have left on this position:
-2 APR 1900/1800 put credit spread
Shut down the position Today early in the morning as it hit my stop level ~2015, turns out I’m glad I did as NDX kept pushing higher to the sky and beyond.. With 2 days to go, will leave the Put spread alone. -12.15%

04/14 Morning Assessment: Sideways (Down)

It looks like we’ll be finding some resistance around these current AM levels 2016 on /NQ seems to be the high for the Overnight and AM sessions. It seems we’re “rotating at the top”, likely to pull back and fill the gap.
I had my last two positions hit the stop level this morning, so no longer have any trade on the board.

04/13 Daily Summary

I did not expect the market to push higher Today, based on what I was seeing early morning I decided I could let the positions go one more day. Not quite the best decision I’ve ever made, now will have to deal with the gap up at the opening that seems to be developing for Tomorrow.

http://gustavotrades.blogspot.com/2010/04/title-0413-morning-assessment-sideways.html

04/13 NDX Iron Butterfly

Here is what I have left on the trade:
1x APR 2025 call
1x APR 2000/2025 call credit spread
2x APR 1900/1825 put credit spread

We’re breaching the 2000 area, not much else left to do but to exit the position. Frustrating as it is, the fact of the matter is that this position had a very short time-frame in profits, the Thursday before the weekend was just about the last day to lock in profits, you snooze you loose seems to be the lesson learned here.

04/13 NDX Fast Iron Butterfly (from 03/15)

Here is the inventory of what I have left on this position:
-2 APR 1900/1800 put credit spread
-1 APR 2025/2050 Call credit spread

I am over-extending my stay on this trade. I honestly didn’t expect us to move higher this morning, was thinking about exiting it by end of day or early Tomorrow. Now will have to do it Tomorrow AM for sure, gave my best effort to buy some time.

Title: 04/13 Morning Assessment: Sideways (Down)

The only yellow flag against a down trending day Today is the 5 EMA on the daily chart, trading around 1985 on NDX, this can provide some support. As I write this, we broke through the overnight lows are trading around 1985. FinViz is not bright red, another indication of sideways, not to mention the recent “resilient” bulls that keep bidding any time we trade slightly lower.

04/12 Daily Summary

Once again, my early morning assessment was partially correct, we did trade sideways, and pulled back down by end of day, didn’t quite close as a down day as I expected. In any event, that’s the benefit of non-directional trading: don’t have to nail it 100% on the head, got to make my theta for the day, countdown to expiration.
http://gustavotrades.blogspot.com/2010/04/0412-morning-assessment-sideways-down.html

04/12 NDX Iron Butterfly

Here is what I have left on the trade:
1x APR 2025 call
1x APR 2000/2025 call credit spread
2x APR 1900/1825 put credit spread
I had contingent orders to close out the call spread if I was wrong on my morning assessment, turns out no action was required! Glad to capture the extra day of time-decay, will evaluate position again Tomorrow.

04/12 NDX Fast Iron Butterfly (from 03/15)

Here is the inventory of what I have left on this position:
-2 APR 1900/1800 put credit spread
-1 APR 2025/2050 Call credit spread
I had contingent orders to flatten the trade out if I was dead wrong on my morning assessment. Didn’t do anything on the trade, I don’t want to keep on holding this “hot potato” through expiration week, so will consider pulling the plug Tomorrow.

04/12 Morning Assessment: Sideways (Down)

Ok, I might be biased, so take this with a grain of salt as they say. Quite honestly, Today’s price action looks weak to me, it is around 7:20 AM, I’ll wait a few more minutes to see how it develops. But here is my reasoning (so far): We went as high as 2000 overnight, and completely faded that move, we then traded bellow an ascending trend line I have on my charts, tried to go higher but faded again. FinViz is dark, not a lot of green on it, and VerticalSolutions is not too bullish either.. What would prove me wrong? A break above the 1998 area on /NQ; What would confirm my assumptions? A break below 1987 (target 1980) on /NQ.