Sunday, June 18, 2017

Bumping along the top!

Well, the S&P 500 didn't go down, but it has started just bumping along the top:


This is ideal for our neutral trade, except for volatility being so low. But this pattern allows us to swing back to a profit on the futures trade, just selling a put every week for another $300 or $400 (at this volatility level) ...

Result charts are like this:

The neutral trade:

Trade DateSymbolResultProfit/LossComment
02/06/2017SPY Lost-18%
02/13/2017SPY Lost-16%
02/21/2017SPY Won+15.4%
02/27/2017SPY Won+17%
03/06/2017SPY Won+15.3%
03/13/2017SPY Won+12.9%
03/20/2017TLT Lost-1.4%Dumb!
03/27/2017SPY Won+9.6%
04/03/2017SPY Won+6.6%18 days long
04/10/2017SPY Won+11.1%only 14 days!
04/17/2017SPY Won+6.7%
04/25/2017SPY Won+8.9%
05/01/2017SPYLost-5.0%
05/08/2017SPYWon+5.0%
05/15/2017SPYWon+6.1%
05/22/2017SPYWon+2.0%
05/30/2017SPYOpen
06/5/2017SPYOpen
06/12/2017SPYOpen

The short /ES futures trade:

Trade DateWhatQtyCredit ReceivedNet Liq Change Since Start
04/25/2017/ES Put-1$362.50$0
05/03/2017/ES Put-1$487.50+$70.00
05/12/2017/ES Put-1$337.50+$1250.00
05/17/2017/ES Put-1$500.00+$1250.00
05/26/2017/ES Put-1$262.50-$100.00
06/02/2017/ES Put-1$325.00-$312.50
06/09/2017/ES Put-1$450.00+$150.00
06/15/2017/ES Put-1$325.00+$350.00
Another neutral trade is going on tomorrow morning ...

Sunday, June 4, 2017

What goes up must eventually come down ...

Something in the news last week sent the market further up to hit more record highs:

This hurt both sides of our trades; the short futures position got hammered ... as I write this the S&P futures price is 2435.50, which is 51.75 points above where I sold it short ... at $50 per point, that's $2587.50.

But! I sold another put for a credit on Friday: a $325 credit, so I'm down only $312 or so on the futures trade. And I'll sell another put every week, forever, and eventually the market will stop going up and even ... go down!

I had to take a 5% loss in one of the neutral trades to meet a margin call on the futures position; the other neutral trades I have on are hurting but not dead yet. Charts below:


Trade DateSymbolResultProfit/LossComment
02/06/2017SPY Lost-18%
02/13/2017SPY Lost-16%
02/21/2017SPY Won+15.4%
02/27/2017SPY Won+17%
03/06/2017SPY Won+15.3%
03/13/2017SPY Won+12.9%
03/20/2017TLT Lost-1.4%Dumb!
03/27/2017SPY Won+9.6%
04/03/2017SPY Won+6.6%18 days long
04/10/2017SPY Won+11.1%only 14 days!
04/17/2017SPY Won+6.7%
04/25/2017SPY Won+8.9%
05/01/2017SPYLost-5.0%
05/08/2017SPYOpen
05/15/2017SPYOpen
05/22/2017SPYOpen
05/30/2017SPYOpen

Trade DateWhat Qty Credit ReceivedNet Liq Change Since Start
04/25/2017/ES Put-1 $362.50$0
05/03/2017/ES Put-1 $487.50+$70.00
05/12/2017/ES Put-1 $337.50+$1250.00
05/17/2017/ES Put-1 $500.00+$1250.00
05/26/2017/ES Put-1 $262.50-$100.00
06/02/2017/ES Put-1 $325.00-$312.50