3/20 Daily Summary

A couple of quiet days, I'm considering getting into the APR position early Monday. Looking at the charts as we speak, it seems like the down-side draft is not quiet over yet. We'll see.

3/16 Daily Summary

I have not started the APR position yet. To be quite honest I may just sit it out this month, give myself some time to regroup. The market seems to need some of that time out as well, notice the last 2 days have been really aggressive, Yesterday with a big gap down and Today with a crash down in prices. I'm glad I'm out to say the least.. Let's see how this market behaves moving forward.

A big thank you to the readers that posted their support on my last month's trading accident. I've basically gone back to flat in my 1-year performance, which is a big pain... Like I said, I need to spend the time and review play by play this MAR position as well as all my past trades to recognize the issues and lessons learned before jumping in the water again.. I find that back testing and journal review is a good way for me to build up confidence. I've been having very busy week days, so plan on doing it over the weekend. For now, will keep watching the day by day market action as I do have a few cash-secured puts/covered call positions I'm working on for the long-term portion of my portfolio.

Keeping it in Perspective

Just wanted to do a quick and brief post. Let's keep things in perspective in light of such horrible news around Japan, I can't even start to complain about a bad trade in March.

LIFE, this is what really matters, so my heart goes to all families and people who are struggling in Japan right now. If you're reading this blog, please take the time and think about how can you help folks around there. Donate, pray, engage, who knows, just sending some positive thoughts is already a good start.

Peace,
Gustavo

3/11 Daily Summary

Today I didn't see any recovery in the morning and decided to just exit the position. I was sick to my stomach to take this big loss -33%, it is a double-hit for 2 reasons:

1) It was way over my average win, and beyond my plan to control the losses and keep then to 1.5x the average win, this trade took 2 big hits with overnight gaps, the first time around I survived, the second time around no, I took the hit.

2) I had just started increasing in my position size. This is a double hit, as this is one of my biggest positions since I started tracking on the blog, it will certainly set me back by quite a bit.

All and all, I have to regroup, it is disheartening to be set back that much. I will have to do some hard thinking and figure out what to do from here. For now will take a break over the weekend, and do some hard thinking..

Cheers!
Gustavo

3/10 Daily Summary

My plan a couple days ago was to condorize the position this Thursday morning. Well, this was one day too late.. Unfortunately NDX did not agree with my plan and decided to roll down and gap down in the morning. The contingent orders did their job, now I have to wait for the dust to settle and condorize the position, or whatever is left of it.

On the bright side, I expect the spreads to be wider than normal so get a break if we are not moving too fast again Tomorrow.. When this happens I try to make adjustments that touch the trade as little as possible, because the more you trade on wide spreads, the worse off you are (you buy into the over priced contracts).. So, I'll have to wait and see where we are Tomorrow morning and make my exit move.. Will put the trade in a position that I can stand a large move on Monday.

3/9 Daily Summary

No major change Today, except I had to update my trading plan as if we trade lower Tomorrow I will need to add a stronger put to compensate for the delta and Theta, this makes me tweak the adjustment on the second level down (do a strangle instead of selling the long Call) because of margin in one of my accounts. Other than that, one more day moving along well. Today's volatility went higher after the close, this kept Today's profits at bay, let's see what Tomorrow brings.

Cheers!

3/8 Daily Summary

This is the quiet after the storm.. Let's hope so, this way I can land this trade with profits. So far it looks really good, a very positive recovery Today. I'll start peeling spreads out of the position either Tomorrow or Thursday morning, my goal is to keep the gamma exposure under control during these last few days of the trade.

All and all, it has sure been a great ride! No time to fool around, that's for sure!