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"I use the 15-point mark as a warning mark to re-assess the positions and determine whether I should adjust or not depending on my analysis of the SPX and time to expiration." -- Do you have another alert point (maybe 25 points from the short strikes) where you buy some SPY hedges?

Phil, I know your adjustment points are 15 away from the short strikes. Do you adjust during the trading day when the adjustment points have been breached (danger here is the index could reverse and you wasted you adjustment) or do you adjust only if the closing price has breached your...

Phil, You consistently use short strike + 15 points as the adjustment point. Is the 15 points from experience? Have you looked at 20 points?

"In fact I went long ES futures at around 10:10 with the SPX at 1203.50" -- Nicely done! By the way, last night was an example of ES having greater swings than SPX.... not good.... I need to figure out how to adjust for that without being shaken out of ES overnight positions.

Phil, Looks like we might have to adjust the 1165/1175 put spread tomorrow (assuming you still have your position).

This is being covered here: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54380

Goldtrade, you have a lovely wife :-)

psytrade, Did you mistype 15 instead of 1.5? I've found that 1 ATR(10) is around 2.5% for most of the stocks I trade. I use 2.5 ATR for the money management stop but make it tighter if the market conditions require it.

Sam, Your example is very helpful. Using hypothetical round numbers, say the account size is $100,000 and fully allocated to trading ES, bet size is $1,000 and initial stop is 20 points (which is $1000 max loss). So, the position size is 1 contract. OK, fine. Now let's say I use a system...

If my equity position exits at its initial stop, I lose 1% of my account. If my futures position exits at its initial stop, I also lose 1% of my account. No problems with this part, position sizing is working, risk management is working... The concern in using my equities position sizing...

MTE, The part that is not clear is the margining with futures contracts.... doesn't it affect position sizing?

I'm trying to get a better understanding of risk management and position sizing when trading futures contracts for position traders, not daytraders. In equities my position sizing rules are: 1) I risk/bet 1% of my account per trade 2) I calculate my initial stop loss based on volatility...

I'm trying to get a better understanding of risk management and position sizing when trading futures contracts -- for YM and ES -- for position traders, not daytraders. In equities my position sizing rules are: 1) I risk/bet 1% of my account per trade 2) I calculate my initial stop loss...

Do either of them do backtesting?

I believe OptionStar downloads options chains for stocks/indexes from multiple exchanges -- free, 20-minute delay. OptionStar also downloads futures contracts data (end-of-day, free) but does it download futures option chains too? Does Hoadley's software actually download option chains? The...

ktm, "As to your other question, yes I do everything in ES/SP - the bodies and hedges and everything else." OK, I get it, you use SP/ES (where SP is the "big" pit traded futures contract and ES is the mini ECN-traded futures contract). I misinterpreted that you used SPX/ES (where SPX is...

OptionsWizard, Yes, thanks for clarifying margin vs. tax treatment: ----------MARGIN------TAX TREATMENT ES--------SPAN--------Section 1256 (60/40 rule) SPX-------Reg-T-------Section 1256 (60/40 rule) SPY-------Reg-T-------Securities schedue So the remaining question I'm trying to...

ktm, "I only trade commodity regulated, SPAN based section 1256 products. SPX and the like are reg-t and considered securities. Section 1256 gets 60/40 tax treatment regardless of the holding period." --But don't you put the "main" condor using SPX, which is reg-T? Unless SPX is 1256....

ktm, This is very clever, particularly the part about collecting the condor premium PLUS potentially collecting a full/partial piece of the $10 from the debit spread. Let me make sure I've understood you correctly. In an ideal case (I have not run the P/L and this is at a strategic...

Mike -- read Tharp (5), LeBeau (>10), Chande (4), Stridsman (>10), Elder (2). Numbers in parens are the approximate numbers of book/reports/publications that each person has authored related to this subject. But, no need to read all this. Backtesting will prove this....