New plan shows great promise during a quiet drifting slowly down week (for SPX anyway)

The trades I put on this week have expirations that all started with 21 days to go before expiration, unlike the 4-5 days I had been using. So far, so good ....

This past week any reasonably wide neutral strategy would have worked, at least for the S&P 500:

The movement was less than 30 points, top to bottom. Easy!

Not so after the wild and crazy week for this guy:

and for his company TSLA:

This is more than a 30 point drop in the same time, from 300 instead of from 2900 where the SPX started. That's more than 17%. Sheesh!

As for our new strategy: it seems to be working as advertised, though I don't think it will be quite as profitable as the previous strategy. But it should be much further between losing trades; I won't be surprised to win the first 15 or 20 in a row of these trades.

We're just looking to get 1/2 the credit we received when opening these trades, and we're on the way for all of them despite the slight pop in volatility (which increases prices instead of decreasing them the way we want after putting on a trade) the last couple of days.

Volatility cuts both ways, though: the trade we will put on Monday a.m. will pay a little better on opening due to this increased volatility.

This kind of trading reminds me of gardening:

Except that we get to harvest continually after the first 10 days running the system ... on average, the 21 days' premium should be half spent after 10.5 days.

At that point, it's going to seem like the crop is this:

Trades so far:

Expiration	Underlying	Long put	Short put	Short call	Long call	Credit Received	Result
07/16/2018/	SPX	2680	2730	2810	2860	$3.60	Won 100%
07/18/2018/	SPX	2700	2750	2820	2870	$3.95	Won 100%
07/20/2018/	SPX	2700	2750	2835	2885	$2.40	Won 100%
07/20/2018 (a.m.)/	NDX	7260	7310	7410	7460	$5.99	Won 100%
07/25/2018	SPX	2705	2755	2835	2885	$2.40	lost 16% of amount at risk
07/27/2018	SPX	2695	2745	2825	2875	$3.50	Won 100%
07/30/2018	SPX	2720	2770	2850	2900	$2.60	Won 100%
08/01/2018	SPX	2730	2780	2870	2920	$2.15	Won 100%
08/03/2018	CMG	430	450	490	510	$1.01	Won 100%
08/03/2018	AMZN	1692.5	1722.5	1887.5	1917.5	$2.60	Won 100%
08/06/2018	SPX	2720	2770	2860	2910	$2.05	Won 100%
08/08/2018	SPX	2740	2790	2860	2910	$2.05	Won 100%
08/10/2018	RUT	1610	1640	1710	1740	$1.53	Won 100%
08/10/2018	AMZN	1737.50	1767.50	1885	1915	$1.79	Lost about 30%
08/13/2018	SPX	2760	2810	2885	2935	$1.65	Won
08/15/2018	SPX	2760	2810	2860	2910	$3.80	Won
08/17/2018 (a.m.)	NDX	7310	7360	7460	7510	$4.42	Lost 7.07%
08/22/2018	SPX	2720	2770	2860	2910	$3.95	Won 70% of possible
08/24/2018	SPX	2745	2795	2880	2930	$3.30	Won 100%
08/24/2018	RUT	1600	1650	1715	1765	$2.16	Lost 17.7%
08/27/2018	SPX	2760	2810	2890	2940	$2.45	Lost 23%
08/29/2018	SPX	2770	2820	2890	2940	$2.95	Lost 47%
08/31/2018	SPX	2795	2845	2925	2975	$2.55	Won 100%%
09/21/2018	SPX	2750	2780	2980	3910	$2.45	(open)
09/24/2018	SPX	2750	2770	2970	2990	$1.85	(open)
09/26/2018	SPX	2725	2735	2955	2965	$1.15	(open)
09/28/2018	SPX	2700	2720	2955	2975	$2.05	(open)

I'll close the 9/21 expiration trade by the close on Monday, 9/10, even if it hasn't reached its goal of getting 50% of the credit. Tastytrade research supposedly shows that this is optimal ... though they of course are using 45 day expirations rather than 21. It should get close, barring some radical move in the market on Monday ... right now the short strikes are both more than 90 points away from the money.