10/06 MNX Iron Butterfly

I have started to peel off spreads fom the trade, I couldn't keep up with the market early AM, so I decided to cut my gamma exposure by removing spreads out of the trade.

10/02 Daily Summary

The market slowed down Today, my MNX position posted a great recovery and I ended up messing up my RUT position, all things considered I'm now flat for the month, should RUT recovers I will be ok.

I won't be around Monday, so I'll have to leave contingent orders and trust they work fine, I will only be able to check the markets Tuesday morning.

Position's Details:
10/02 RUT Iron Butterfly
10/02 MNX Iron Butterfly

10/02 RUT Iron Butterfly

I have to admit, I got really frustrated with myself Today with the way I behaved on the RUT position. When you focus on avoiding losses, you end up losing more! I had the contingent order to hedge the deltas at 680, and it got me a long NOV Put way over priced, as the market was trading below 680 by the time the order triggered..

Bottom line is that contingent orders must be away from price! Otherwise you end up with a situation like this one, where you hit a contingent order after a gap or an initial small move that doesn't really mean anything and ends up reverting.. This one error on the PUT cost me almost 2% of ROI on the trade.

That being said, there is still life in this trade, and if anything, this proves this is a very forgiven strategy, considered that's the second time I give up a couple percentage points due to mistakes.

10/02 MNX Iron Butterfly

The position recovered great after a quiet day Today. I rolled the last delta hog at the end of the day to cut deltas and to make sure it doesn't become a big problem if we keep going down next week.
All and all, I think I got a good handle on the MNX trade, will increase my size next month.

10/01 Daily Summary

The market crashed down very hard Today, RUT moved -2.5 standard deviations on my historical volatility charts and MNX moved -3 st. deviations. Both my positions got hit. There is still time and money left in both trades to keep up with the market, as long as we don’t start a major down-trend now, they should be able to get out of it profitable.

I’m not sure I’ll be around Tomorrow during the closing hour, so if we continue moving down early in the day I might have to do the vertical rolls before end of day.

Position's Details:
10/01 RUT Iron Butterfly
10/01 MNX Iron Butterfly

10/01 RUT Iron Butterfly

RUT contingent orders kicked in and protected the trade as the market crashed down. By the end of the day I decided to add a small butterfly to take advantage of the volatility pop, increase the position’s theta and cut some of the deltas. Should it continues to move down Tomorrow my plan is to hedge and do a vertical roll to get rid of some of the delta hogs.

I looked at the VIPES chart and don't quite like what I see, notice that we had 3 days with over 1 st. deviation in the past 2 weeks! That's a sign the market may be getting too hot to handle once again...

10/01 MNX Iron Butterfly

As MNX crashed down, one of my contingent orders didn’t fire up properly, luckily I was there and caught with if right before any major damage was done. I think I had mark +0.02, while it should have been mark +0.03 in order to get a fill.

By the end of the day I started to roll the delta hogs in order to balance my deltas and keep the position’s theta up. Let’s see what Tomorrow brings.