Vol-trading for beginners

[.sigma]

I'll hit up the thread in the morning with the half size combo. I forgot to put one on today. Strange day. Vols up across the board, ended flat (+2K) but my downside long vega only began to earn near the close.

please trade some flies (natural and asym) in this journal too! I remember recently you said you extended duration for your flies (>15DTE)? Might’ve misinterpreted but that’s what I read.

 

[destriero]

please trade some flies (natural and asym) in this journal too! I remember recently you said you extended duration for your flies (>15DTE)? Might’ve misinterpreted but that’s what I read.

I get it, and I will bring examples, but this isn't a PNL/performance journal. I'll post structures that I like, and I will state if I have it on, but it's not a trading journal per se. I'm done with those. It's a headache that I don't need -- posting ASAP and marketable.

 

[destriero]

I am long MSTR in size. Completely outside the scope of this thread, but I don't have anywhere else to post it.

View attachment 252199

Out at 1000. A bunch of fills from 999 to 1000.xx. I have a short term expectancy of 55K on BTC/USD and this is close enough. Wheeeeeeeeeee!

 

[newbie463]

Hey Destriero,

How was the MSTR trade structured? From your posts, it looks like long underlying, but that just seems so vanilla for you. Very successful, but vanilla. lol.

 

[destriero]

Hey Destriero,

How was the MSTR trade structured? From your posts, it looks like long underlying, but that just seems so vanilla for you. Very successful, but vanilla. lol.

Vol is too illiquid. I was long shares from 882. I got spanked in the name in the last two weeks. I was up $110K (one day hold) in a bullish asym-condor going into the close. Missed covering--traded out of 30 lots leaving 220. Stock tanked the following day and I was out $200K marked. I am net profitable in the name for the year, but barely.

 

[newbie463]

For this trade, if vol had been liquid, and you were looking at the fly, how would you "most likely" have structured it? which strikes? puts or calls? Please forgive the basic question, I am trying to expand my horizons.

newbie

 

[destriero]

For this trade, if vol had been liquid, and you were looking at the fly, how would you "most likely" have structured it? which strikes? puts or calls? Please forgive the basic question, I am trying to expand my horizons.

newbie

I have a rough model for the stock, but it's tough on the upside as it's tethered to BTC and the upside is like shorting VIX calls into a crash.

I have been structuring asym-condors in the name; such as short (1)500/700ps x (2)1800/1900cs out to Mar and Apr serial exp.

 

[destriero]

lol here is the half-size synthetic combo I trade for illustration. I chose it bc it's tethered to CL. No other reason other than I can essentially ignore it. Back later to discuss it.

 

[destriero]

Up 1% across the board on the day. Was up 1.5% earlier in the day. Vol is firm.

 

[destriero]

I have two "pro" Macs. One Mac Pro 12-core and an iMac Pro 18-core. Easily $25K in hardware and I bought two M1 Macs this month; the MBA (max spec) and the Mac Mini (base spec). The single core performance on the M1 is amazing. An added benefit is to be able to run native iOS apps on the M1 Mac. It allows me to run TDA's native apps as well as their iOS apps on the Mac.

I monitor my native desktop app and run another TDA account on the iOS. These M1s are faster than their technical workstations. It's a game changer if you can run BSD/macOS. Mining XMR at 800h/s so nowhere near the hash rate of my 18-core, but still cool.