Shifting from selling calls on underlyings you own, to swing trading the market is 1 thing. But as you said early on in the journal, you try not to time the market. I don't know what technicials if any you are using, but that seems like a huge strategy shift away from the original premise. What I mean is in your last post you scrapped the position within 2 hours of initiation, and it seems you have fundamentally changed your strategy permanently rather than adapting to the market. Your comments?
Thank you for the comment. To address your question suggesting I have ditched my strategy rather then adept to the market. I feel like I have ditched ny strategy TO adept to the market. I still look to sell calls when it seems appropriate. however I haven't seen much opportunity. For instance I am close to selling a call on UNP but the premium isn't quite where I need it to be. I am extremely..nervous I guess would be the word.. at this market currently. I am watching very carefully and have spent the last week going from fully invested to 50% invested. Let me explain the utx signal I got a little bit. Utx did a strong breakout a bit ago and shot up to the 87-88 level (sorry for being so undescriptive in my verbage, posting this away from charts just off memory) and then it quickly corrected back down to the 83 level. Today when the market started to breakout utx was lagging the breakout, and the breakout was led by materials and energy, so for utx to be lagging didn't make sense. So due to the recent drastic breakout and pullback and that it was lagging today I got the signal to get in, instantly it went from lagging a systemic breakout to having serious technical damage and I ditched it for a 50 cent loss. And you are right that is very uncharacteristic of me but utx is starting to now form a head and shoulders with a very dramatic head and overall I am close to saying thanks to this rally and going cash til there is a more substantial pullback. I am still looking for selling call opportunities on all my trades, but the premiums in my underlyings appear to be even worse then the VIX at 15 would suggest. Too much complacency and I will not succumb to the complacency myself.
Really unhappy with myself letting this market get the best of me. Currently have no holdings Account @ 30,415
quick update: on 5/1 I withdrew 5k from account, last Wednesday I made the following purchases which is my first purchase in over a month: UNP @ 110.41 NUE @ 36.06 UTX @ 73.96 DD @ 48.57 Account is now at 25,651 which reflects the withdraw of 5k Keeping an eye on calls to sell
Just wanted to do a quick update: Personal life took a turn for the worst back in April and I lost my job. I've had to withdraw ~9k to stay afloat. I am now gainfully employed yet again and look to build account up fast as I am making twice as much as I was at old job. I also intend to be active again in this journal. Current account @ $23,123 (reflecting the 9k withdraw, would be at high water mark without that) Current holdings: DD @ $48.57 GE @ $21.20 INTC @ 26.79 UTX @ $73.96 I also managed to rack up about 4k in credit card whiel unemployed, knocking that out will be first order of business then i will be depositing heavily into these accounts.
I buy 4-7 stocks at a time and somehow one of them always does an early forecast. I generally avoid earnings calls but kind of hard to do when companies announce mid quarter. I hate you INTC
Starting to wind out of current positions as I bought at the low and I've had a great run up (all except for INTC) Just sold calls: Sept22 DD@ 50 Sept22 UTX@ 80 Sept22 INTC@ 25 (if this gets called away it will be basically breakeven between dividends I've collected and other calls I've sold) Nothing happening on GE yet, commissions will eat any kind of call I try and sell