Posted on August 26th, 2009 by
Mojo
Yesterday afternoon I took advantage of the run down in pricing (and the run up in volatility) to close my NDX double calendar. This was the trade I mentioned on last week’s trading team meeting.
Originally, I was looking for a return of 10 to 15% in three weeks. When I was getting close to 10% in just a few days I thought it was best to go ahead and close it down. Unfortunately, fills were tough yesterday and my high side got closed first (while the market continued down) and I had to lower my credit and resubmit the low side several times to get out.
Either way, I’m happy with the return and glad to be out. I suspect that we will see some acceleration to the downside and that’s when I will put on my RUT IC.
Mojo
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Posted on August 17th, 2009 by
Mojo
Its 6:28am on Monday morning. Futures are down big right now showing -178 so that will give us a big gap down. Monday’s tend to be 50 / 50 for gap fills. Since this gap down is in the direction of the short term technicals I think we could get some follow thru in that direction.
Even though we are only 31 days from Sept expiration I’m going to go ahead and open up a (paper) RUT iron condor (IC). I will work to get the downside filled first and look for a pullback to fill the upside. With 31 days out I’m looking for a total credit of about 1.35 on Sept 490×480 (BLPS) / 630×640 (BRCS). With a little jump in vols this shouldn’t be too hard to get.
My plan is to look for a drop in vols + a little time decay and close the trade no less than the week before Sept expiry. Expected ROI is 4 to 6% with max loss at 12%.
Watch for adjustments.
Mojo
NOTE: In my opinion Iron Condors (ICs) are one of the most deadly and difficult to manage trades. Only trade this if you are willing to lose all of your paper dollars.
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Posted on August 12th, 2009 by
Mojo
We are having our normal trade team meeting tonight (Wed Aug 12th) at 7:30PM ET. We will be going over our past trades (good and bad), current trades (like NDX), and what trades we are looking at for the next several weeks.
Please be sure to bring any questions you have and we will do our best to get you some answers. If aren’t able to attend the meeting will be recorded as usual.
If you would like to attend just send me an email or reply to this message.
All the best,
Mojo
PS – Remember FOMC meeting at 2:15 this afternoon!
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Posted on August 11th, 2009 by
Mojo
There is an FOMC announcement on Wednesday so expect this afternoon and tomorrow to be pretty lazy and unpredicatable. Post FOMC I wouldn’t be surprised to see some pretty violent movement. My guess would be to thrash around in a ‘N’ pattern and then break to the upside unless the news is truly horrible.
I’m still in a double calendar on NDX and looking well positioned. I’m coming close to my profit target. With the FOMC announcement and a likely collapse in volatility I will be closing down this trade today or tomorrow.
Calendars, diagonals, and double diagonals still look good for the near term future.
Mojo
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