Hello Steemian Traders,
For today, I got my 50% of max out of COST, and put on DIA, VIX and GLD. I have one IWM position that needs some kind of management and the rest is just waiting for time.
As always, any of this is fair game for questions and comments. This isn't advice, just what I decided to do and yes we could all loose our shirts or more.
Quarter & Week Ending 29-SEPT-2017
Since this is also my first real position post I suppose there doesn't need to be any fanfare. However, I will say that other than single contract trades, I'll only post Small, Medium, or Large indicating sizes. Also, I suspect that my Medium position size is small by several folks calculations. Given I have < $100,000 to trade, I don't want to put more than 5% of my investment at risk for any one trade. I know folks with over $100,000 won't risk more than 1% to 2% on a trade.
If I could find more higher volatility trades to put on, I'd probably cut my position size as well.
Current Positions
| Symbol | Exp | DTE | Name | Strikes | Size | Theta | Cost | NetLiq | P/L Open | P/L Day | O/R/C |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COST | Oct20 | 21 | Short Put Vert | 150/158 | M | ? | +1.60 | -0.80 | 0.00 | +0.16 | C |
| DIA | Nov17 | 49 | Short Put Vert | 214/219 | M | 0.40 | +0.66 | -0.62 | +0.04 | +0.04 | O |
| GLD | Nov17 | 49 | Short Put Vert | 117/120 | S | 0.58 | +0.66 | -0.72 | -0.06 | -0.06 | O |
| IWM | Nov17 | 49 | Short Put Vert | 136/141 | M | 0.65 | +0.74 | -0.46 | +0.28 | -0.04 | |
| Nov17 | 49 | Short Call Vert | 147/150 | M | 0.30 | +0.73 | -1.65 | -0.92 | +0.02 | ||
| QQQ | Oct20 | 21 | Short Put Vert | 137/142 | M | 1.45 | +0.82 | -0.43 | +0.39 | +0.26 | |
| Nov17 | 49 | Short Put Vert | 132/139 | M | 1.00 | +1.10 | -0.68 | +0.42 | +0.38 | ||
| SPY | Nov17 | 49 | Short Put Vert | 235/244 | M | 0.73 | +1.00 | -0.67 | +0.33 | +0.12 | |
| VIX | Nov15 | 46 | Long Call | 9.5 | S | -8.55 | -3.50 | +3.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | O |
Closed Positions
COST closed using the 50% of Max Profit for $80 per contract.
NOTE1: No management necessary! When I put Short Verticals on, I immediately put on a GTC closing order for 50% of Max Profit.
NOTE2: The reason we write $80 per contract but the table shows Cost to NetLiq to be +0.80, is that all Options contracts are written on a 100 shares of the underlying stock or security. There for the 100x factor.
Rolled Positions
None. However, I'm open to suggestions on the IWM Short Call Vertical. It seems like the only positions that have hurt me this year are bearish ones.
Opened Positions
To redeploy the capital from COST it seemed better to go into an index, and DIA was the only one that didn't have a position in my portfolio as well has being a touch down on the day.
GLD and VIX being small positions are risks. VIX is more like insurance. If you look at the option chain there aren't many positions lower than 9.5, the market (S&P 500) has around 9 as the statistical noise floor. GLD is really just a speculative trade at this point. I feel like the market has gotten too complacent and wanted another trade to hedge the bullish bets.
Again, let me know what you've been up to and also, what you think about managing my IWM Short Call Vertical.