Hello Hive,
I think I will try and keep a better log of my trades here on hive. I do keep a simple notepad (actually its wordpad) of my trades, but I don't write down much notes or commentary or pictures.
I started learning about options toward the end of 2020. My first trade was in december, 2020.. it was a weekly options (7dte) and then I decided that I liked 0dte (dte=days till expiration, so the trade starts and ends in the same market day). By trading 0dte instead of longer dte trades, there is no overnight risk where you can get caught in a big move. plus, the trade gets over with quickly in just that 1 day, so the risk is minimized.
Let's start with Friday's trade..
I saw that price had fallen earlier in the morning, but seemed to be now staying between its high and low, and staying in that tight range. I usually always enter my iron condor (IC) at the same time each 0dte day, which is usually monday, wednesday, and friday, unless holidays screw with the schedule.
I was pleased to see that price was indeed behaving and staying in the middle of my safe zone (between the green dashed lines). In fact, it was almost a perfect IC condition, and my open p/l was hardly even negative at all. Maybe I should've traded more contracts?? nah, I only risk about 2-3% per trade.
This pic shows when my strikes (the short prices for the puts and calls that I sold) were at delta 1s. That means the broker has done their math and determined that price has a 1% chance of touching that price. Since I use a stop loss, I add about 10% to this, so my trade had about an 11% chance of touching those prices, or conversely, a 89% chance of success! :)
The trade expired worthless, which means I get to keep all the credit I got when I sold the IC. I usually let my trades expire if they look to be safely within my zone.
expired.. 55 (total won from trade) - 4.20 (trade fees) = 50.80
step by step.. little wins add up.. :)
To show what I mean, here are my trades so far in 2022..
- 1/3/2022 ex 55-2.20=52.8
- 1/7 ex 75-4.29=70.71
- 1/10 stp -140-8.49=-148
- 1/12 ex 30.92
- 1/14 ex 55-4.20=50.80
total: 4 wins/5 trades 80% win $81.72 won