Short /ES futures trade continues to pay off

The news this week once again seemed to be a drag on the stock market:

Huawei CFO who was arrested in Canada

And of course, "men of the year":

Overall this was great for anyone short /ES:

I closed out the futures butterfly trades I had on: wheat, soybeans and corn.

For some reason corn (/ZC) kept from showing a profit on an (adjusted) butterfly trade until about 1 week until expiration, and even then I think I took a small loss getting out of it. The other two "softs" behaved normally and actually I made an $800+ profit on the wheat trade.

Coming up is "expiration week" where the NDX a.m. settlement 1-day trade is available. So I'm planning to put the pedal down on this one, since it's the one trade I have not only research but a ton of personal experience with ... 

More next week!

A much better week in the trading trenches, due to short /ES futures well timed ...

The fake trade truce of last weekend briefly spiked the market, but when the /ES futures reached 2806 I shorted them, and from there (this is the last two weeks' chart):

I'm also short the 2580 /ES put expiring Friday the 14th (for which I got $1200 credit!). I am very willing to roll this one down further if this level is breached.

Meanwhile, the 4-day NDX trade is on probation ... I put in another small one (25-wide wings, $2270 or so at risk). Unlike last week, I put in an order to get out with 40% of the credit, and that got filled early Tuesday a.m. That's very fortunate, as the NDX graphic looks almost identical to the one above.

But I was short the 6750 puts ... I received $270 in credit and cashed out $108 of this ... which would have turned into a loss of the whole amount at risk, since the Friday close was at 6613!

I think I'll just try a 4-day QQQ trade with 5-wide wings until I can get some backtesting done on NDX for this one.

Also, in a couple of small accounts I'm trading, I am trying the 'Tastytrade method': start at 45 DTE and take only 1/2 the credit ... (I'm also putting in the Fabulous NDX trade in all accounts > $5000  coming up for a.m settlement on the 21st.) Those tiny trades (just CMG and TSLA) are still 40 days away from expiration and in no danger of breaching anything ...

I'm surprised this took so long: Trump-inspired volatility. But I'm happy to be able to trade on it!

More next week ....

The joy of being short ... at the right time! (Your $200,000 account: up $18K!)

The down move came a week late, but what a move:

I held on to my two short futures contracts and sold 4 2670 puts against it for just the couple of days ending Friday. I have two remaining that expire next Friday the 23rd.

I've been enamored of the idea of selling puts against a short position, sometimes to my detriment. But despite the prospect of a typical Santa Claus Rally,

I think there's enough weirdness around with Brexit

... and of course the ongoing shenanigans in Washington:

That it seems a lot more likely to me that we'll get a more nearly flat market ... which will be perfect for what I'm planning:

(1) Continuing to sell 2 (at least!) puts against my 2 short /ES futures contracts ... occasionally I may sell an extra couple, as I did last week for a couple of days ...

(2) NDX: 4-day Iron Condor, Monday to Friday, short strikes at the .08 delta (i.e. waay out wide) and at least 50 or 60 point wide wings.

(3) A mix of commodity futures, including the Golden Butterfly since I finally remembered the adjustment of selling another one! This worked well (I made $500 in a couple of weeks) the last time I tried this.

Your $200,000 account was up about $18000 last week ... Wahoo!

Another mixed week ... NDX trade now 5 for 6, /ES suffers again

It's now looking like the 91.7% results were on target; 5 for 6 is 83.3%  ... Actually I was girding myself for a loss this past week:

... as my short call was at 6370. But the trade is marked not on the opening but after all 100 of the NDX 100 stocks open, and marked under the symbol NDS. That squeaked in:

and all 4 legs expired worthless, as a good Iron Condor is supposed to. I sold the spread for $1.77, which is a 21.5% return ....

On the short /ES trade: bleah! Here's the 5-day chart:

I did pay back to myself the extra $750 I had put in to meet a margin call last week. But then I got too excited during Wednesday's market dip and sold another 1 contract. The bounce straight up from there leaves me with $18009.09 of the $28134 or so I started with. Splut!

I started by just leaving the 3rd contract without selling a put against it, so I'd get the complete benefit of any further market meltdown. Not so ... I finally sold that 3rd put on Friday with 2 others, thinking I could get $1000 credit per week to make it back (assuming the market would just stop going up!)

But no: I'm in margin call again so will have to close that third /ES short contract and put pair ... but maybe not until close on Monday so I get all weekend plus Monday's theta ...

We'll see .... More next week!

Mixed results: short /ES clobbered, NDX now 3 for 4

For weeks the /ES had been bouncing down from 2585 or less ... until I started to rely on this! Silly me:

I met a margin call on Thursday with an extra $750.00 to go with the $28137 I started with. And the market continued up on Friday, so I'm left with $24130.32 ... I should know better than this by now ... I'm going to cut my position size down early Monday and put the rest into the NDX trade.

... which won again this time, returning $1.40 (16.2%) ... in fact I think I dodged a bullet on this one as I sold not the 16 delta but one was the 20 delta ... meaning it wasn't 1 standard deviation, quite.
But the trading in /NQ was weak enough that this one won again: now 3/4 or 75%.

More next week ....