Hey thanks man. It's cool. I thought your last post was pretty fuckin funny. (get it) I looked into similar offset selling but my bp is shot. I'm going to take a Q1 writedown on this one, lol. Oh well lesson learned. You what really burned me? My nature is so easy going. Nothing gets to me and i'm very stress free. I thought that would be a good quality for trading. not freaking out, overreacting with every market move that's against you. instead i just watch my account lose mass amounts and i don't sound the alarms when it does. The trait i thought would help me is hurting me.
Most successful traders have blown up their account before they became disciplined . Lessons are hard but learn from them. Before you get into a trade, have a reason and have a pre determined stop, that you stick to. Do not ever double up a loss position. Do not give up. YOU HAVE TO BECOME disciplined . Try something that is not so leveraged.
first of all, you sell premium in a trending mrkt, or a summer mrkt which might just lay there or drop(sell in may and go away)this is not a trending mrkt,its super volatile and has moved 300 -400 points in 1,2,3 days time,if you are a premium seller or a vix trader,they couldn't be more diverse, you have to recognize the mrkt on a bigger timescale,if u double down and then triple,mentallyyou have wiped out your ability to recognize what type of mrkt we are in,you are so overleveraged compared to the amount u r comfortable losing.u r now trading blind,hence the title of your journal.u may b right after monday we may puke into exp or monday after,forget about how much u could make,that is gambling not trading and vegas was built on that pschyk scenario,so there are ??? what wrong with your trading style, u tell, we'll listen, see if u have figured it out
How about not taking so much risk next time? If you're about to blow out now and nearly blew out in January, you're taking way too much risk. As for luck... you said you were unlucky to be in the market in 2000 and now. Come on!! Consider yourself lucky you didn't start your iron condor strategy in August 2001. Everyone gets their share of good luck and bad luck. The good traders don't blow out when they encounter bad luck.
I would refrain from giving advice on a product i knew nothing about. A touch of 132 on the spy by next tuesday and Dennis will be down 1 handle on the put spread while his VIX calls may be up a dime. You cant fight convergence this late in the cycle[or ever] by selling cheap gamma. Option position repairs are a myth.
This is a sticky problem, reminds me of the guy who was on youtube down like 25K when socgen almost crashed us. Do you get out and eat it, or hedge. If Dennis was able to hedge (I don't know as I don't trade vix options), he still has a locked loss and at some point is going to face the same risk.
I admit that the vix is not your fathers vix and I long ago soured on using it (I freely admit that that is probably because I don't get it anymore but I am apparently in good company on that score), as far as Dennis goes my advice was to exit the trade and take what he can get. Nevermind, I had forgotten that the vix options exp on the Wed, not even close to being worth the risk trying to salvage anything. Good call out rallymode. Your post implies that you are well versed in the instrument, I would be interested to know what you would do if in the OPs shoes?
those VIX calls might just work out VIX (CBOE MARKET VOLATILITY) 23.48 +1.50 Apr 11, 2008 @ 16:12 ET 08 Apr 27.50 (VIX DY-E) 0.20 +0.05 0.15 0.20 11945 32853