Pretty quiet week where the market moved up a little bit in just 4 trading days from 2020.76 to 2051.82 for a 1.52% gain. The S&P500 is now almost flat for the year, in fact it was up for the year at one point in yesterday's trading session. It all gets interesting from here as the market moves up and volatility gets killed making the options selling business more challenging. Time will tell if this is a replay of the 2013 & 2014 story, but so far, the long term uptrend channel is still in play.
Yesterday I started playing the March expiration cycle. I entered a March unbalanced Iron Condor on the SPX index. I spent exactly one month without entering trades (Talk about being a lazy trader). I didn't set that level of inactivity as my goal. I was simply playing by my rules. So far I have only traded one position in January, one in February and one in March. Hopefully I get more opportunities in the March expiration cycle to be a little more active and obtain more credits.
Market conditions
(Click on image to enlarge)
Stochastics: 79 (neutral)
McClellan: +55 (neutral)
Stocks above their 20 Day Moving Average: 48% (neutral)
You know my verdict already: no man's land. Not an ideal time for selling Credit Call spreads nor Credit Put spreads. I'll now stay put for a while until a price extreme is reached. Not much else to say.
February positions
SPX 1875/1880/2190/2195 Iron Condor
$320 credit. 26 days to expiration and 87% probability of success. Looking good. Stress free with this one. It all points to a +3% portfolio growth in February.
March positions
SPX 1845/1850/2170/2175 unbalanced Iron Condor
$220 credit and 54 days to expiration. The trade entered yesterday. Nothing new to bring to the table.
Action plan for the week
The existing positions are very healthy and far from possible threats. They won't need to be defended (adjusted) this week.
As for potential new candidates, with my Iron Condor already deployed in March, suddenly I'm in no rush to force new trades. There is, after all, money working for me! No pressure.
I will only enter new trades if the markets reach a short term price extreme. I see SPX 2100 easily happening (just 2.5% away) and at that point I will start considering the sale of Out of the money Call spreads. On the way down, SPX 1990 or so will get me interested and that level should mark a short term oversold extreme. If those moves don't take place I will simply sit on my hands.
I know, not a very exciting plan but I don't want to arbitrarily add risk without seeing a clear edge.
Forex
...and the Euro is dying. This week it fell 3 more cents: from the 1.15's to the 1.12's.
(Click on image to enlarge)
My little Forex portfolio is now up +15.08% year to date. All thanks to one single trend, while playing with conservative settings.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Outstanding result and this EURUSD trend doesn't seem to have stopped. According to the current candles formation the LT Trend Sniper will stay in this short position for the entire upcoming week.
For more information about this strategy, visit the LT Trend Sniper's page
Economic Calendar
Sunday: European CPI
Tuesday: German Info Business Client Index
Wednesday: Core Durable Goods, CB Consumer Confidence, New Home Sales
Thursday: US Pending Home Sales
Friday: European CPI, US GDP, Chicago PMI, Michigan Consumer Sentiment.
Take it easy, but take it anyways folks!
Good luck this week!
Check out 2015 Track record
Yesterday I started playing the March expiration cycle. I entered a March unbalanced Iron Condor on the SPX index. I spent exactly one month without entering trades (Talk about being a lazy trader). I didn't set that level of inactivity as my goal. I was simply playing by my rules. So far I have only traded one position in January, one in February and one in March. Hopefully I get more opportunities in the March expiration cycle to be a little more active and obtain more credits.
Market conditions
(Click on image to enlarge)
Stochastics: 79 (neutral)
McClellan: +55 (neutral)
Stocks above their 20 Day Moving Average: 48% (neutral)
You know my verdict already: no man's land. Not an ideal time for selling Credit Call spreads nor Credit Put spreads. I'll now stay put for a while until a price extreme is reached. Not much else to say.
February positions
SPX 1875/1880/2190/2195 Iron Condor
$320 credit. 26 days to expiration and 87% probability of success. Looking good. Stress free with this one. It all points to a +3% portfolio growth in February.
March positions
SPX 1845/1850/2170/2175 unbalanced Iron Condor
$220 credit and 54 days to expiration. The trade entered yesterday. Nothing new to bring to the table.
Action plan for the week
The existing positions are very healthy and far from possible threats. They won't need to be defended (adjusted) this week.
As for potential new candidates, with my Iron Condor already deployed in March, suddenly I'm in no rush to force new trades. There is, after all, money working for me! No pressure.
I will only enter new trades if the markets reach a short term price extreme. I see SPX 2100 easily happening (just 2.5% away) and at that point I will start considering the sale of Out of the money Call spreads. On the way down, SPX 1990 or so will get me interested and that level should mark a short term oversold extreme. If those moves don't take place I will simply sit on my hands.
I know, not a very exciting plan but I don't want to arbitrarily add risk without seeing a clear edge.
Forex
...and the Euro is dying. This week it fell 3 more cents: from the 1.15's to the 1.12's.
(Click on image to enlarge)
My little Forex portfolio is now up +15.08% year to date. All thanks to one single trend, while playing with conservative settings.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Outstanding result and this EURUSD trend doesn't seem to have stopped. According to the current candles formation the LT Trend Sniper will stay in this short position for the entire upcoming week.
For more information about this strategy, visit the LT Trend Sniper's page
Economic Calendar
Sunday: European CPI
Tuesday: German Info Business Client Index
Wednesday: Core Durable Goods, CB Consumer Confidence, New Home Sales
Thursday: US Pending Home Sales
Friday: European CPI, US GDP, Chicago PMI, Michigan Consumer Sentiment.
Take it easy, but take it anyways folks!
Good luck this week!
Check out 2015 Track record
Go to the bottom of this page in order to see the Legal Stuff
I agreed with you on the target for overbought and oversold and will not sell any credit spreads until we are close to those numbers. My indicators show 2110 as overbought and 1983 as oversold.
ReplyDeleteI did not make any new trades last week. We are in no man's land.
Current positions:
Feb RUT 1000/990 cps
Feb SPX 1800/1795 cps
March 31st RUT 1000/990
March SPX 1720/1710 cps
You can follow me on Twitter @lienjonathan where I tweet my high probability credit spread trades in real-time for free. You can like my Facebook page and see all my open and closed trades and track record below.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Create-Monthly-Income-Fund/857243867661638
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xpG88wxQeoAKyIik3OKhbxbS3qInINGaa4Boxzp5HEY/edit?usp=sharing
Hello LT, I like your IC a lot, was expecting to get filled this week but my strikes were a bit far. Your EURUSD trade could not be greater, where will you take profit?
ReplyDeleteCurrent Positions
FER SPX 1850/1840 put spread @0.80
March RUY 1300/1310 980/970 Iron Condor @ 0.90
@bellinimarkets
I''l post my trackerecord at www.bellinimarkets.com
Have a good week!!
, Madrid
I like your positions @bellinimarkets. I don't have any March credit call spreads at this time. All my February and March positions are credit put spreads. If the market continues to go up next week, I might be able to close the February positions early for profits.
DeleteYou guys are trying so hard to outperform the teacher. [Sigh] Life is so hard.
DeleteLT