01/19 Daily Summary

I would define these past few days (even a couple of weeks maybe) as super-choppy channel trading.. Notice that the 5-day volatility spike chart is FLAT, however, the daily chart is full of large days to the up-side and down-side.. Seems that the market doesn't know where to go, simply knows that it wants to go in a hurry.. :)

I started a couple of positions Today, and shut down the NDX Directional Butterfly.

Position's details and price chart:
01/19 NDX Iron Butterfly *New*
01/19 OEX Weekly Iron Condor *New*
01/19 RUT Iron Condor
01/19 MNX Iron Butterfly
01/19 NDX Directional Butterfly *Stopped Out*

01/19 NDX Iron Butterfly

This is a new position that I'm trading based on an updated set of trading rules put out by Dan Harvey. I've to watch and re-watch the web-exes, but decided to go for it, a fellow trader and Sheridan Student and friend Gary is helping me out, I'm following his lead on the trade to learn the ropes as we go along.. So Gary my friend, let's go for it!

01/19 OEX Weekly Iron Condor

Ok, here is a position that I would not have placed if I was trading it with a full capital allocation. Notice that we did NOT have enough call contracts Today to make a balanced condor with 80% prob. of success. Since this is a trial mode on the OEX and I want to make sure the stop order will work, I entered the position for this week's OEX Iron Condor. I would not trade this week otherwise.

01/19 RUT Iron Condor

Back to the middle of the condor. Nothing needs to be done. I have set up an automatic stop+limit order and plan on trading this month with a stop+limit instead of hedging the position to get out if it hits max loss. Of course, I intend to take it out with the profit target! :)

01/19 MNX Iron Butterfly

Didn't touch the trade Today, now we're approaching a point to the up-side where I am going to cut some deltas. So far so good, if we hesitate around here it will gather up profits quickly.

01/19 NDX Directional Butterfly

Another day where the market simply refused to keep going down. Bounced back hard and got me out of the NDX Directional butterfly. I had a contingent order to sell the position if it was down by the stop loss and it got filled automatically. Out of the trade -12%. It would be -19% loss if it wasn't for the automatic stop.