Weekly Options Experiment

O

optisum

Good morning,
I will use this thread to post my weekly options trades. There will be new trades every Friday, options will be held until expiration. Trades will be directional, direction will be decided based on mix of my systems, implied volatility and other 100% systematic factors. Strikes will be decided based on my volatility model.
It works well in back-test, but there are many holes that I cannot simulate and the only way is forward test. I will trade paper money on tradeMONSTER, virtual account starts today at $100k. I will trade about 13 symbols (some symbols might be dropped or added later). Every trade will be about $500 risk and the experiment will last about 6 months.
 
Buy 2 Goog Jan13 750/765 Call Vertical @2.30
Buy 1 Aapl Jan 13 505/520 Put Vertical @4.95
Buy 7 Bidu Jan13 105/110 Put Vertical @0.71
Buy 36 F Jan13 14/14.5 Call Vertical @0.14
Buy 24 FB Jan13 32/32.5 Call Vertical @0.21
Buy 4 Ibm Jan13 195/200
 
Quote from optisum:


Buy 4 Ibm Jan13 195/200
More...
This is Call Vertical @1.2

More trades:
26 Rimm Jan13 14/15 Call Vertical @0.19
16 S Jan13 6 Call @0.03

Probably that's it for this week. Will also check on Monday and Tuesday for possible trades in BAC and C.
 
I've sold 2 bull put spreads:
16 BAC Jan13 11/11.5 Put Vertical @0.2
5 C Jan13 40.5/42 Put Vertical @0.54

I don't really like selling bull put spreads as my potential profit is smaller than risk. Nevertheless, options I've sold were overpriced more than the ones I bought, so still positive edge.
One thing I don't like about tradeMonster is that I'm profitable on open positions, but my virtual account is below amount I've started. It seems like I paid a lot in commissions, but I can't find any quick way to find exactly how much it was.
 
Quote from optisum:

Ok, my first trade:

BOT 50 spx Jan13 1520/1535 Call vertical @0.1
Cost $500.
More...

You do need to know commish cost. To do this trade my cost would have been $500 plus $125 comsh. you mentioned that you would hold till expiration ...the probablility of %100 loss on this trade is very high. If you wanted to close this trade say for a nickle then you still have the $125 commission......so at very best there are high odds for losing $500 ( $250 for the trade and $250 in comission)

You absolutely have to take into consideration costs of trade to make any paper trading strategy anywhere near realistic.
 
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