Karen the Supertrader - TastyTrade Hybrid Experiment

ironchef · Feb 16, 2017

Sweet Bobby said:
I thank Karen for getting me engaged in this process. We studied Karen thoroughly and learned a lot. Most from our study group evolved into our own strategies that arguably improved upon her methods. I am pleased to announce that the experiment has gone live with real money and real risk. Best wishes to all of you as I embark on this journey. Roll Tide!

Best of luck to you and your trading.

jonescd · Feb 19, 2017

what is the best options strategy for playing biopharm and earnings. we thought of an iron condor but are there other hedging or other options strategies that would fit that. also typically isnt an iron condor going to give minimal profit on a biopharm or ER play even if a big 15 pct move occurs in the overlying equity

Sweet Bobby · Feb 19, 2017

jonescd said:
what is the best options strategy for playing biopharm and earnings. we thought of an iron condor but are there other hedging or other options strategies that would fit that. also typically isnt an iron condor going to give minimal profit on a biopharm or ER play even if a big 15 pct move occurs in the overlying equity

I would never make such a trade, so I'm really not the one to give you direction.

jonescd · Feb 19, 2017

Sweet Bobby said:
I would never make such a trade, so I'm really not the one to give you direction.

yeah i mentioned iron condor i meant to say strangle excuse me. sick with strepp right now

surfer25 · Mar 17, 2017

Sweet Bobby said:
I thank Karen for getting me engaged in this process. We studied Karen thoroughly and learned a lot. Most from our study group evolved into our own strategies that arguably improved upon her methods. I am pleased to announce that the experiment has gone live with real money and real risk. Best wishes to all of you as I embark on this journey. Roll Tide!

Didn't she get charged by the SEC with massive fraud?

https://www.thestreet.com/story/135...ing-strategy-relied-on-fraud-sec-alleges.html

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2016/comp-pr2016-98.pdf

Hittfeld · Mar 17, 2017

Charged almost a year ago - what`s the actual situation?

i960 · Mar 20, 2017

With the rate the SEC has been going the last decade or so she'll probably be a commissioner within a year.

Sweet Bobby · Mar 20, 2017

I thought I would give an update on the strategy. I started live trading on the tastyworks platform on January 19, 2017. The account was up 0.12% for January 2017. As of February 28, 2017, the account was down 6.53%. I failed to follow my mechanics and allowed a calendar trade to take me down. In fact, I wasn't even tracking my trades with a spreadsheet. Big mistake! I started tracking my trades on the spreadsheet on 03/06/17. As of today, the account is down 3.94% for the year. Keep in mind that I'm maintaining negative delta in the portfolio. I will try to give at least a monthly update on the strategy's performance.

Happy trading!

Bobby

Gotcha · Mar 20, 2017

Sweet Bobby said:
I thought I would give an update on the strategy. I started live trading on the tastyworks platform on January 19, 2017. The account was up 0.12% for January 2017. As of February 28, 2017, the account was down 6.53%. I failed to follow my mechanics and allowed a calendar trade to take me down. In fact, I wasn't even tracking my trades with a spreadsheet. Big mistake! I started tracking my trades on the spreadsheet on 03/06/17. As of today, the account is down 3.94% for the year. Keep in mind that I'm maintaining negative delta in the portfolio. I will try to give at least a monthly update on the strategy's performance.

Happy trading!

Bobby

Wow.. simply incredible to read that what you did so diligently in SIM you didn't carry over into trading live. Don't get me wrong though, I completely respect you sharing this, and my experience is exactly the same. I simply could not take the same trades when trading live that I took trading SIM. I would hesitate on entries, and ended up taking trades much later, which always stopped out given a tight stop since the entry wasn't in an ideal place.

If you look over your trades, would they have been taken the same way as if you were SIM trading them? I know its hard to play the "what if" game, but is this just a case of you starting to trade live during a string of losses that would have naturally happened even in your SIM trading, or would these trades have actually gone better if you managed them the same way as you did your SIM trades? It sounds like you didn't honor a trade that should have been closed sooner, which you would have closed in SIM, but didn't in the real account. So is your account down simply because of this one trade that you let go against you too far?

Sweet Bobby · Mar 20, 2017

Gotcha said:
Wow.. simply incredible to read that what you did so diligently in SIM you didn't carry over into trading live. Don't get me wrong though, I completely respect you sharing this, and my experience is exactly the same. I simply could not take the same trades when trading live that I took trading SIM. I would hesitate on entries, and ended up taking trades much later, which always stopped out given a tight stop since the entry wasn't in an ideal place.

If you look over your trades, would they have been taken the same way as if you were SIM trading them? I know its hard to play the "what if" game, but is this just a case of you starting to trade live during a string of losses that would have naturally happened even in your SIM trading, or would these trades have actually gone better if you managed them the same way as you did your SIM trades? It sounds like you didn't honor a trade that should have been closed sooner, which you would have closed in SIM, but didn't in the real account. So is your account down simply because of this one trade that you let go against you too far?

Yes, one trade is responsible for me being down. I didn't follow the mechanics of closing it at a 20% loss. I attribute this to not having my spreadsheet to guide me.

Here's some of the issues I'm having to overcome. First, tastyworks does not currently have OCO orders. In TOS, I was able to do a closing trade for my profit target and one at my acceptable loss. Also, tastyworks does not allow me to set alerts. Finally, tastyworks does not yet offer a mobile platform and I am sometimes unable to trade at my work desktop.

But, I am now dealing with the above restrictions and the account is back under control and headed in the right direction. You were not the first person to be surprised by my abandoning my discipline and spreadsheet. Since I had proven proof of concept, I truly thought I could wing it! Not so. Lesson learned.