11/03 Daily Summary

Today was wild action during the FMOC, I didn't watch it and sure am glad the position didn't go trough any contingent order. By end of the day, during my lunch hour I looked at it and decided to jump in and move my short calls up a level, the Deltas were approaching 65 which is my warning light for doing the jump. Because we don't have too many days left to go, I figured it is better to jump on the adjustments right away so I can still get the time decay. I also expect vols to drop now the announcement is over and therefore didn't want to stick around with positive vega exposure and little theta on the position.

11/2 Daily Summary

This is a tricky one, hitting this adjustment just prior to the FMOC meeting is not the best scenario, as the market can go up and down pretty hard Tomorrow, so I must prepare for all scenarios, including a whipsaw action hitting my up-side adjustment and then crashing back down.. I've created a special type of order to handle the whipsaw action, posted a screen shot of it on the facebook page (see link to the right). See the extra decision node I added to the game plan chart, where it shows what I'll do if we hit 2165 and then crash back down.

Only exposure I have is if we keep going up and volatility drops drastically, this will make me go deeper in losses. The mitigating factor is the FMOC where vols may be higher during the day and during the price action, so my plan at this time is to hedge if we go to 2165 and do a manual cut and roll anywhere above this level, Probably will wait till Tomorrow for the cut and roll.

11/1 Daily Summary

Today was a good day, the market is starting to discount the values on my short contracts and I finally feel that price decay is kicking in. We got close to my adjustment point, and I'm glad we didn't touch it. Wednesday is finally the FMOC meeting, with this behind I feel the trade will start to function as expected (i.e. time decay will kick in and not be taken over by inflated values/higher vols).

Last but not least, in case you didn't notice the black bar on the right side, I've created a Facebook page to relate back with this blog. My goal with facebook is to create more of an on-line conversation rather than a formal record of the day to day trading journal.. Anyhow, if you like you can add it to your facebook and I hope to hear your comments, discussions, etc.

Facebook page

I've just created a Facebook page to build a community of people around the options trading strategies and ideas I'm using on my trading business. My goal with this page is to publish information in a more informal way, even if they're not related to the strategies I'm using, perhaps talk about charts, patterns, etc..

I also like the idea of learning from others, listening what you have to say, etc..

I hope that you can join the page, and looking forward to hearing your feedback, input, comments, etc.. Just like starting any new position in the market, we shall see where it goes..

I've added a box to the right, you can click on "Like" and it will add it to your Facebook stream so we can stay connected.

Take care!
Cheers!
Gustavo

10/29 Daily Summary

It seems that volatility is the issue for this past week, price action is not that active but due to the wide intra-day swings and the proximity of the FMOC (Tuesday), market makers are pushing the volatility higher on my short contracts, this is making the position look worse than it should. I will be looking at it in more details over the weekend to see exactly what this looks like for the contracts I have in place.
Cheers!
Gustavo

10/28 Daily Summary

Market kept working its way up once again Today, seems like the bearish candle formation are piling up.. No matter what it does, I'll follow it and work my way into profits this month.

10/27 Daily Summary

No major change Today either, market keeps crawling up after bouncing back down in the morning, I guess the trade is holding my profits out by a few points by pushing it higher without a drop in volatility. This could be related to the FMOC announcement next week: market makers keeping the vols higher to drop them like a stone after the announcement... It is like a market-wide earnings report.. I'm navigating through it, let's see how it goes.