JAN08 Trade Log

SPY ratio IC trade with bearish bias, executed the trade 12/1/08
12/10 closed the call side out as my bias turned bullish short term.
closed call side out for a .16 loss (2)
12/17 closed out 1/2 of the put side for .09 = .13 (1) gain
trade balance is -.19 with 1 contract left on the put side 74/73 for .21
Trade will most likely be a wash...
take away: Because I was wrong initially I panic closed my call side and in hindsight I would of been better off keeping it on. Again another reason to be more mechanical in this market by setting a mental stop on the trade if it goes against you to this amount take this action if it works take profits at this amount. Adjusting this pre-set plan as the trade moves along must be done with a detailed rationale. Underlying methodology should be not loose more than 1.5x your cash flow or 1.5x your avg. gain on a trade, the idea being that you don't want your loosers to engulf your winners.

12/12
QQQQ and EEM IC trades are biased bullish for year end rally and or trading range: Q's trade was placed on 12/12 and the EEM was placed on 12/15 both are approx up 10%.
12/18
EEM mark25.47 ratio IC:
shaved off some pos deltas by closing out 1 of 3 EEM 21/19 put vertical for a +.19 profit, position is now a little more even on a p/l graph (lowered my downside risk as my opptimism is running thin for a year end blast!)
12/29 mark 24.11
closed postion for a total gain of $100 on $400 of risk or 24% Return.

QQQQ mark 29.91 ratio IC:
shaved off (1 of 1) 28/27 put vertical for a +.10 profit
still biased bearish but just reduced some downside risk in the trade.
Volatility has been vacuumed out over the past few days and has profited my pos theta I>C trades! off about 10points in the VXN or approx 20% to the 45 level, the vix is trading at the same price but has seen a larger % move down during the same period.
12/30 mark 29.35
closed out completely for a $82 profit or 23% return on risk ($350)

Light trading for Jan08 proved profitable as my negative vega, income postions blossomed with the vix/vols falling to the low 40's from the high 50's when placing the trades. Also the range has been tight letting my trades collect theta decay and vega premium drop.

DEC 08 trade log

DIA,
had an iron on with a butterfly blend at the downside.
11/25 closed out the short call sides netting $63 = %20 ROR / with 8 commission ($12)= +$51
Still holding the stretched out butterfly:
+1 78 put / -1 80 put / -1 81 put / +1 83 put
for .20 debit.

XLF / XLE
ratio iron condor concept to be long one and short the other. I was still heardly bearish on XLF as it broke under 10 and thought the sell off in engergy was over done! This lead to a short put vert in the XLE mark 42.5 and a short call vert in the XLF.
trade done with 2 point spreads for a total credit of .95
11/25 update
XLF posted a 3 day rally with strong upmove, even today with the markets trading negative XLF is showing some resilience. I thought I would get out b/f losses would over take the XLE potential to still make me money overall. XLF side closed for a -$.23 loss today the XLE side is still open trading at a .33 gain.
Will continue to hold the XLE vert till it trades at .10
12/8/08 mark 46.34 XLE
xle continues up move and fills my limit .10 btc order allowing for a .48 credit gain. Overall ratio trade closed for a .25 gain or 12.5% gain. commission account for 1/2 profits at .12

qqqq
traded a ratio ic biased bearish was able to yank it b/f dec started at 50% of max credit making 64$ on 260 risk

NOV 08 trade log

IWM trade consisting of verticals in NOV and DEC relied on a bottom putting most of my risk to the downside. Meaning I skewed the trade to have less risk if IWM jumped up and more risk if it failed to the downside. Just yesterday I was mildly profitable on this trade and actually have been for the past week or so, but of course greed kept me in against my rules of not holding a postion into expiration week. For this reason the extreme fluctuations of the gama cause deltas to swing wildly. I was to close to a downside threat and today nailed me only 2 days from expiration. I had to close out with a $74 loss ($45 commissions) being that if IWM dropped anymore my losses could quickly go to 200-300!
Takaway is to plan more decisevly and not trade into expiration week. IF i closed this trade Fri. last week I would have made a small $gain.