04/09 Daily Summary

My early morning assessment was partially correct, in any event, I took the precautions and that saved me some bucks as we moved up. I expected it to move higher, but not that high (over 1 st. Deviation)
http://gustavotrades.blogspot.com/2010/04/0409-morning-assessment-sideways-up.html
I am honestly starting to really enjoy looking and adjusting my trades early morning vs. Trying to do it at closing hour. Moving forward will start to track my morning assessments, to see how often I can nail it down properly. Today was an example where I got the direction right, but my assessment on the move’s strength was off. Then again, the final push happened in the final trading hour, until then we were not moving past 1 st. Deviation.

04/09 NDX Iron Butterfly

Here is what I have left on the trade:
1x APR 2025 call
1x APR 2000/2025 call credit spread
2x APR 1900/1825 put credit spread

I closed one of the 2000/2025 call vertical spreads, it got me to a relatively flat profile that I felt ok with. I honestly didn’t anticipate we would keep moving higher past the 1990 zone. Will see how it looks like on Monday.

04/09 NDX Fast Iron Butterfly (from 03/22)

I closed out of the trade Today after my morning assessment, it seemed like the best thing to do and avoid leaving room to let gains dissipate if we keept moving higher. Locked +1.55% gain, not much, but at least a gain.

04/09 NDX Fast Iron Butterfly (from 03/15)

Here is the inventory of what I have left on this position:

-2 APR 1900/1800 put credit spread
-1 APR 2025/2050 Call credit spread

After I evaluated we were likely to keep moving higher, I decided to cut and roll the condor, simplifying the position and cutting back on the negative deltas I had it exposed to. Going into the weekend with limited risk to the up-side.

04/09 Morning Assessment: Sideways (Up tone)

As I checked the market this morning, it seemed to me we’re “rotating at the top”, without a lot of certainty of strength either direction. Except that we were leaning positive, so we may move up on lack of bearish interest. With that I rolled one of my short 2000 call on the monthly Iron Butterfly, condorized the last weekly butterfly and closed the other one.

04/08 Daily Summary

This morning I decided against touching any trade up, I saw the selling pressure was drying up, to be quite honest I didn’t expect it to go as high as it went, but I guess it has become more the norm than the exception. Here is what I saw earlier in the morning:
http://gustavotrades.blogspot.com/2010/04/0407-morning-assessment-down-pressure.html
I made a mistake on my iron butterfly, I had a simulated trade on the TOS analyzer but forgot to remove it, so when I looked at the position by closing time, I thought it looked good and didn’t need any touch up, turns out the touch up was advisable. I reduced my positions, but still have to close them down and have a focused view, as the afternoons are busy for me with all the work-related stuff and the lunch time activities/distractions.

04/08 NDX Iron Butterfly

I didn’t do anything to the position Today. Now that I look it over, I realized I had a simulated trade to do a butterfly roll to move 1 of my 2000 short calls to 2025/2050, then at the end of the day I didn’t notice this simulation in there, and thought the profile looked good, so didn’t touch the trade. That butterfly was a good idea, even better if I had actually executed it.. That is the kind of stuff that happens when you got too many trades on the table. Strike two for me on this trade... :-/