The journal is ok. This month has been slow with relatively few positions for a few reasons. 1) I have been cautious about today's fed announcement. This might not be a good reason to hold off, but for some reason I found myself having a hard time pulling the trigger with that in the back of my mind. 2) That journal takes a back seat to my real account in terms of time spent, and I don't list all my trades on the journal as the strategy isn't the same. Until now though, I have actually made the trades from the journal in a real account. They haven't just been paper trades. 3) For the past couple weeks I have been moving to a new house. That is occupying a lot of my time. In any case, after next week I'm hoping the journal account will show a return of >30% since inception. Not incredible, but not bad I guess.
RallyMode, I have to disagree with you. Selling a 10 point spread for $2 is inferior to selling twice as many 5 point spreads for $1. You are giving up the value of the butterfly. If a MM is willing to pay $1 for a 5 point spread and the butterfly is worth at least .05 he will be just as willing to pay $2.05 for the 10 point spread. Why offer to sell the 10 point spread for $2.00 when you know he will pay $2.05 for it? Of course this assumes the MM is willing to pay $1 for the 5 point spread to begin with. Am I correct in assuming you mean rate of return when you say r/r? If so please know that the "Rate of return on a spread" is a a poor indicator of how options and option spreads are valued. Thanks, Knucklehead
I had 2 shorts call 1340/1350 in May and sold for $0.90. I decided to buy them back for $1.8 before FOMC. Now the result is out and the market dropped. However, some of my 1345/1355 MAY short calls are still there so the profit on those should offset some lost on 1340/1350. It was interesting to see the b/a very wide. I had to give up 35 cents from mid to get filled. Before I bought the vertical back, I tried to roll by buying flies 1340/1350/1360. The mid was $0.9 and I gave up $0.5 ($1.4 debit) and still did not get filled. It was very difficult to trade before FOMC.
booooorrrrrinnnnnggggg....... Coach, when you say your trading size in the ES, can I ask how many contracts?
Bad luck Nick - that's the way the cookie crumbles. Just get another cookie from Maverick. You'll have to answer a question though. I recently found out he is in fact the cookie monster: