Ok, first things first, the November debacle was because I moved my hedge up a strike, so when the positions went against me, so volatility went up on my bulls, but the hedge spread went ITM. It kept my account pretty flat mid-week. The right answer was to close there for a loss because the hedge went ITM and the positions were moving against me. Because I was pretty close to even, I thought I could wait and see. Well, SPX recovered, positions didn't. Very expensive lesson learned.
Since then though, I was getting in on the super cheap volatility going into December and got long all kinds of Calls. No need to explain how that did.
Welcome back to the world of "Why did I do that ???" :->)
I did some diagonals on XOM yesterday, trying to capture some fat one day until expiration premium. I did just that and I'll be buying the shares tonight :-( At least I have the long leg for next week to roll down and lower cost basis.
I booked the gains in my long IWM puts that was hedging the annuity that we spoke about. Nice gains but had to move on to the SPY because the IWM B/A spreads were Holland Tunnel wide and prohibited rolling. Too much of a haircut. With this AM's drop, I'm trying to convert some of the long SPY puts into a no cost 10 pt wide vertical. Almost there...
I've been hedging some long gold stock positions with long puts on the stock GOLD. Caught an 18 point drop on GOLD (rolled the puts down multiple times) and that offset the losses on the others. It's kind of frustrating but I shouldn't complain given what is happening to most everyone else.
BOOM, just filled. I own some SPY 245/235 bearish put spreads for a debit of 44 cents. LOL. That's the actual cost! OK, now we need a reversal so I can add some more long puts :->)
Cheers
Thanks for the update. If I had to guess, I'd say today was the end of bearishness (I'll wait till this comes to fruition before I explain all my reasoning there)
Nice timing BNT! Hopefully by this time next week you are busy working on a maximum profit plan for all these call options you picked up today.
I am! All are March dated specifically so I'm not leaving volatility on the table. I'll let these stretch their legs and run.
As for today's positions here's the average fills on them and where they stand right now (all are march expiry):
AAPL $160c - bought for 3.34, now 3.98 (U/L is $156.37).
CSX $50c - $2.21, now $2.75 ($50.92--went ITM)
FDX $220p - $6, now 4.25 ($235.31)
JPM $110c - $3.06, now 3.95 ($110.05 - ATM)
SQ $40c - $2.74, now 3.30 ($39)
XOM short shares from 74.59 - it's now at 75.77
XOM $77.50c, for 1.32, now 1.73. I own these 2-to-1 as compared with the short shares, so overall, I'm pretty close to flat.
I expected FDX and XOM to lose, but I'm hanging on to them just in case I'm wrong. The volatility on a continued down move should mitigate the damage to the calls, while getting the short positions pretty good. Additionally, I'm holding some WYNN Feb $160s from an earlier position that will do the same thing in the short term while I figure out if this is the real thing or not.
Today was not my biggest day, but it is without doubt my best trading day. I was in my "Zen zone". I was so disciplined, and followed my plan perfectly to a 'T'--scaled in at the right times, didn't over expose myself. Closed some outstanding bears when they should have been--just perfect. Closed out my best trade ever today and I have high hopes of one of these new positions exceeding even that. I spent a lot of time last night charting this one out, and was pretty confident in 2525 holding in SPX--but I was ready for a glancing blow at this level and had my radar on high alert below 2535. Hit the bottom within seconds on an AAPL buy and got a great price on XOM calls too. When we put the volume move in away from the day lows I had the confirmation I was looking for and got into the last positions while we were coming down of the first higher high.
The market was way to scared and fundamentals way too good for this slide to continue. The market punished the bears who walked into the traps, and tried to stop out the bulls. I held firm and let this one win.
What am I going to do with all these bear pelts?
