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BookingAlpha Option Trading Advisory

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (February 28, 2015)

We opened the week at 2109.83 and closed it at 2104.50. That's a small 0.25% loss and the SPX index is now up 2.21% year to date. With the candles of the last three days, the "close to overbought" condition was relieved and we are now at a more neutral stage, not ideal for my style of Credit spreads selling. The short term overbought extreme was never fully reached, so I didn't get a chance to add new positions during the week. That's fine because it means that my existing ones are looking pretty good now.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (February 21, 2015)

Well folks, the February 2015 monthly options expiration cycle is now in the books. It was a pretty quiet one for me with only one trade. The 1875/1880/2190/2195 SPX Iron Condor finally expired yielding max profit and the portfolio growth after commissions was +3.01%. Year to date the portfolio is now up +4.16%. It has been a passive year for me so far, averaging only one trade per month which is well below my usual average of three. But simply put, the market hasn't gone to extremes, which has prevented me from entering more individual credit spreads. Hopefully, with some extreme action in the near future I get better opportunities to add more positions. The key to me though is to not get frustrated or anything if I don't see clear opportunities. Trading cannot be forced. That's something I have learned the hard way over time when I have entered positions at less than ideal times just for the sake of taking in more credit and then I have regretted it. I have learned to be patient, as hard as it is sometimes, and overall I think that has been positive for my trading.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

April 2015 SPX Unbalanced Iron Condor

Today I started to ride the first position of the April 2015 monthly options expiration cycle. This was my tweet live during the morning session.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Profitable Forex strategies - a follow up

I have discussed several Forex trading strategies on this blog in the past. Most of the time just exposing trash, scams and over curve-fitted junk, especially during the early life stages of this site. After a while, I realized the amount of garbage was insanely beyond my reach and it didn't make much sense to keep exposing charlatans and endlessly picking fights. I decided to, instead, focus on valuable content showcasing for instance, robust Forex trading strategies with long profitable track records and great likelihood of being profitable in the future under unknown market conditions.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

What is the end goal?

I normally don't discuss details of my personal life on this site and prefer to strictly focus on trading and investing matters. However, out of respect and consideration for my readers, some of which write to me concerned about my life and well-being whenever I miss one weekend article, I feel this post is due as there is going to be a life changing event that will slightly impact this site in the near future.

It's soon going to be 6 years since I began my journey in this country. That was a huge milestone in my life. A lifelong dream come true that ended 26 previous years of frustration in a communist system.

While still in Cuba, my "end goal" was to simply get the hell out. It was not to have a lot of money, it was not to become a trader. It was all about being a free man. Cuba's national hero, José Martí, once said that "Liberty is the right of every man to be honest". And it was at times very hard to make a living in Cuba being entirely honest.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (February 14, 2015)

The S&P500 opened the week at 2053.47 and closed at 2096.99 for a solid +2.12%. We're now back to the kind of really challenging environment for option sellers of low volatility and Credit Call positions hammering traders' accounts out there. As we have learned in the last two years, this is the type of environment where you have to be specially conservative and selective with your plays. We'll see how we manage to survive over here.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (February 8, 2015)

From 1996.67 up to 2055.47 for a 2.94% gain in the week and now the markets are up year to date. Because we didn't reach short term extremes I made no trades and I simply kept riding my February and March Iron Condors.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Should an Index options seller pay attention to fundamentals?

I received a couple of emails in the week asking what I thought about Greece and the new leadership, the debt talks, the European Union.....and whether I take that information into account in my trading. The answer to the first question is: My opinion, or anyone's opinion is irrelevant. The answer to the second question is: No I do not take, in general, any piece of news into account in my trading.

Playing the news game is very dangerous as you will start to be influenced by other people's biases and that will inevitably influence your trading, possibly leading you to violate your system rules. Trying to gauge the impact of fundamentals in the markets will rarely provide you with any edge at all. In this day and age information is disseminated instantly, you don't know better than the next person. Plus, sometimes the markets fall on good news and rally on apparently bad news.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (February 1, 2015)

Man, I'm sleepy. No, seriously, I truly am. Let's see how I manage to write this one.

Back in 2010 when I started this blog, I would have just kept sleeping as the site was barely visited by 2 or 3 readers per day. Things are a bit different today and I know many readers are waiting for the weekend portfolio analysis, which keeps me motivated. So, here it goes.