The Monkey Calendar

TOS platform now has upgraded the monitor page so that I can separate the verticals from the calendars.

Very interesting. Today the verticals are running over $200 in profit, and the calendars is basically breakeven.

Bottom line, the verticals are doing their job of protecting the calendars.

Anyway, RUT has now turn on itself as I supposed it would. AAPL seems rather reluctant on its downward move. It may yet pose a problem.
 
Have been ill for a few days, so here is an update if anyone is interested.

1. Closed out of the IBM position. It was just flat. If it is not making a profit within a certain period of time, get out because it just ends up a loser.

2. Closed the GS vertical at 20 cents. As mentioned before I left this on after closing the calendar to reduce the loss. Basically the entire position closed close to breakeven.

3. Rolled the AAPL vertical up to 185/190. The rule is to get out of the vertical or roll up if it hangs around the short as it has done for several days. Normally I just get out, but I do see a possibility of a topping pattern, but this could go either way. Just a gamble that it does not break thru the 185 in the next few weels.

Musings:

I may take profit on the RUT calendars if it looks like it will continue up. When I rolled the vertical on the RUT..........gasp............ I placed a Dec vertical instead of Sep by accident.

But that mistake looks rather interesting -->> I may have stumbled onto something here. I notice, for example, that if the market continues up, the Dec does not hurt me as much as a Sep.

And this is all about risk management. Manage my risk and I can be very profitable. My low water mark was a few weeks ago, I have shown a highwater profit of $2k on Thurs.

Ten percent portfloio increase in a few weeks. Of course that means nothing until I start booking my profit, closing positions.

Gotta manage that risk.

Finally I will be looking to open new positions for the next few weeks. Again, perhaps close the Sep RUT and open Nov. I already have the vertical in place. :<)
 
Here is what it looks like in the TOS platform. Notice it separates the calendars from the verticals. The third section is mutual fund (cash). I just found out that after 90 days I can use fifty percent of it as margin.

You might want to download and open in paint. Otherwise it is hard to read.
 

Attachments

Today's major move downward shows how the monkey calendar works. See the attached tos screen, and note that the vertical section compared to the calendars. Almost half of the losses experienced by the calendars are covered by the verticals, so it cuts the losses in half.
 

Attachments

A few observations for those who have been following this thread.

You will note that my account over the past week has dropped over $1k (5 percent of the account).

Well, here are the things I learned:

1. Too many correlated positions --RUT, RIMM, GOOG, and BIDU. Sigh.

2. My long term calendars (Dec/Jan) were uncovered. I figured that since they were so long term, I could be casual about the verticals.

I was very mistaken.


3. The BIDU really killed me. This was my first long term calendar, and I placed it too high. When the market dropped severely, it really got out of range so I had to close it.
 
If you are in this market, with this strategy, you are an idiot.

I am an idiot.

I have temporarily closed my account. I went below my pre-determined account stop out point ($18,700), and will have to find more money to bring up the account to an acceptable level.
 
Hang in there man, you'll get it. This is an insane market, enough so that I pulled most of my positions off the market back in July after the 7/15 sell off. The important thing is that we are able to show up tomorrow.
 
Cdowis - you're a dogged, determined guy with the integrity to not BS yourself or anyone else. So I like your chances long term.

Your approach is very different from mine so it's hard for me to give you advice. Maybe it's a matter of tightening up your selection criteria. It that means you're out of the market half the time or even more - so be it. In any case, good luck.
 
I agree with dmo and fwiw after several years of CC strats and calendars the most important thing I have learned is with both you really need to do this with lower IV stocks. The Bidu's goog's etc will kill calendar trades more often than not and even though your risk is supposed to only be your debt you can still get stuck (early assignment then stock craters). Hedging with verticals is not much of a hedge, as you can lose on both in this type of volatility.:(
 
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