every time I do not honor my 'gut' it never fails to haunt me. It's uncanny. I should just publish a newsletter called "gut feel" and maybe others will do better in following my "signals." don't know why I bought ITM calls when I have been patiently holding ITM puts. Of course figured I'd create a bear call spread when SPY neared >141 to close some or all of 4/4/12 gap. Now IF I had sold calls Thursday before my 141+ target, soon enough, jobs report would have added 400,000 jobs !!!
I´m getting discouraged. I´m below in my account where I wanna be. Been going over the index market, but it is just not making the moves in the time frame I´ve been trading. Can get a profit, but at .18 cents with .10 costs. Not worth the hassle. There are not even .30 cent moves. Everything is too small, between .18 cents and .24 cents in the time frame I need to make a profit. Tried selling with the CALENDAR this past week, going to close it out next trading day. I believe after talking with TOS help they covered the short end of the Calendar at a loss of $72.50, but their explanations are as screwed up as my own watching. Trying to make sense of it. At one point they told me I had a $6700 loss. Will close the long call, next trading day and see where I´m at? Start back at ZERO. In looking at things and trying to price moves out, you need practically a whole month to make .30 cents to .50 cents. With options a wasting asset, that is not practical. Nor worth the effort. Selling THETA seems to be the only way. I´m going to review my CALENDAR type trade again and see if there is anyway to make money with it? Straight buying is not cutting it. Was playing with overlapping straddles again and even some sort of overlapping swing trading. The moves percentage wise are just not there to make it profitable.
a)Well RiffRaff with his weekly intra-day straddle on expiration Friday was interesting reading. Going to look at it, but I´m not allowed to trade intra-day. Account too small and getting smaller. b) The reverse condor day before earnings was interesting also. Will look at that too. c) need to look at my weekly CALENDAR / HORIZONTAL also and review.
I seem to have hit a stumbling block on my CALENDAR trade. Something basic, mabye I´m just too tired of all this? You put on a CALENDAR, sell the first month and buy the second month. Go to expiration. To show a profit, does the spread when you close have to OPEN WIDER, or NARROW? I´ve been reading but cannot find anything and been playing with the numbers, but I´m too mentally exhausted maybe? Can´t seerm to picture it in my mind. My wild guess would be that it has to WIDEN?
Gee Whiz! Just looked at the EMINI futures. Looks like a big drop on market open? Whenever? Me holding CALLS sheesh!
Falcon, Take a look at the attached QQQ chart. Even if Monday April 9, 2012 opens lower, I don't see anything lower than 67.0 for the Q's. If that happens and your QQQ calls are substantially lower ( -20% or greater ) then what you paid for them, buy the same amount again and sell all +10% to +20% above your average entry price. The QQQ should hit at least 68.4 one more time next week. Jeff
I am in a new system trade today: SPY April 138 calls (SPY120421C00138000) Buy Limit: 1.54 (filled) Sell Limit: 2.10 (+36%) Stop:...... 1.17 (-24%) Reward / Risk: 1.51 to 1 (+ .56 win / -.37 loss) "I am going to have to go out and run some errands because I really hate watching a bullish position with this much negativity!"
GOOG double diagonal +640 C / -635 C / +625 P / -630 P 10 lots The long options are all APR exp. Shorts are weeklies. And APR straddle struck at 630. 2 lots Lets see how this one works. If I see healthy profits, I might close it on afternoon of Earnings too... let's see...