2/22 Daily Summary

Lesson learned: While using a debit spread helps you if the market keeps going in the direction of the debit spread (in this case, going higher), it hurts really bad if we reverse quickly. In this trade, the debit spread took a double hit, one by vega and the second one by volatility. A single call would keep more value (about 3%), no major deal, just a lesson learned this month.

The trade took a hit as the market sunk during the day. I am very glad to report I didn't have to touch the position as the contingent orders took care of adjusting and protecting my capital. The Debit spread was sold on my first order and the position is still in play with a small P/L slippage given the huge jump in volatility. Should we continue my game plan is to hedge, cut and roll the vertical put spreads and add another smaller butterfly. Mainly stay in the game, on the positive side, there is time to recover the trade.

2/18 Daily Summary

The position is looking good once again, we've backed off from the upside just a little bit. Looking forward to the weekend of relaxation. Looking forward even more for a quiet Tuesday. Cheers!
Gustavo

2/17 Daily Summary

No major change Today, I am keeping the same game plan from Yesterday, as long as we continue to trade in this tight range we'll be just fine. So far the conditions are not of a storm, just regular market activity.

2/16 Daily Summary

As we traded higher Today I used a vertical debit spread (in lieu of the long Call) to re-align my deltas. I've been back testing the debit spreads in lieu of long calls or puts and the results were good enough I started to incorporate it on my trade. The contingent order kicked in without an issue and filled at mark + 0.25 cents soon after it was triggered, so far so good.

Question to readers: How to get a job as a trader?

As I couldn't sleep last night, listening to our newest addition to the family, Tiago, I kept wondering: How nice would it be to actually trade as a job. I have been trading on my own in a part-time mode for quite a while (started w/Forex late 2005) and simply put it, I love this business. I was wondering about doing a career change and actually make this my job/career.

How would one get a job or start a career as a trader?

Would any of you like to share your thoughts, suggestions, comments, etc? I would appreciate your feedback.

02/15 Daily Summary

Ok, second day in the trade, so far so good, not much has changed except that we were trading lower intra-day Today and pulled back up to the same levels as Yesterday. Today I have updated my trading log and have posted the full plan as well as the monitoring dashboard, I've been doing these for so long that trading without the dashboard and the evening game-plan routine seems weird even if for just a day. Same is true for the blog.

One of the things I'd like to call attention to is the fact we have had a few "quiet" days, as you can see on the daily spikes and the intra-day activity monitoring chart.. I am looking forward to riding at least another 10 days like that so I can get out of MAR. :)

2/14 Daily Summary

Today I started my MAR/11 position, don't have much to report, just that the contingent orders are in place. I'm looking to use Debit Spreads in addition to long calls or puts as part of my adjustments, the biggest benefit is the reduced theta hit the debit spreads provide, the drawback is their execution (remain to see how they trigger via contingent orders) and they're more expensive than the long calls or puts.

I have also started a deep practice process by back testing my trades during the down-time to review and make sure I'm watching the right factors when making the adjustments. Also to give me enough background into the best way to handle the positions when they get under fire.