August 2014, SPX Bull Put spread

Today, with just two weeks to expiration I entered a 1815/1820 SPX Credit Put Spread:

Sell 4 SPX August 1820 Put @3.30
Buy 4 SPX August 1815 Put @3.00

Credit Received: 0.30 ($120 in 4 contracts per leg)
Max Risk: 4.70 ($1880 in 4 contracts per leg)
Days to Expiration: 14
Break Even Point: 1820.30 (5.45% below current price of 1925 for SPX)

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (July 26, 2014)

A quiet week, free of drama with SPX going from 1976.93 to 1978.34. Just a +0.07% move. With 8 weeks to September expiration I opened a 1815/1820/2065/2070 Iron Condor. Just being mechanical, as usual, 8 weeks to expiration, no man's land, there goes my Iron Condor. Using the 10% probability of being in the money strikes and in this case, they are comfortably outside the boundaries of the uptrend channel. So, all is good.

September 2014 SPX Iron Condor

On Thursday I opened an SPX Iron Condor:

September $SPX Iron Condor. 1815/1820/2065/2070   for .85 credit a few mins. ago
— The Lazy Trader (@lazytrading) July 24, 2014

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (July 19, 2014)

The July 2014 monthly options expiration cycle is now in the books. And yesterday the following two July positions expired yielding max profit:
SPX 1735/1740/2010/2015 Iron Condor
SPX 1805/1810 Put spread

I have to say July was not a great month for me in terms of portfolio growth, but I think it was a victory in other aspects. I started with the wrong foot from the get go with a 1735/1740/1975/1980 Iron Condor whose Call side had to be adjusted. This adjustment caused a temporary loss and made it tough to pull off a spectacular month. However, in spite of that initial loss, I managed to end up in positive territory. I also played my first Double Calendar successfully after studying these type of positions for about a year.

September 2014, RUT Credit Put spread

Today I sold the RUT 980/990 Credit Put spread using September 2014 options for a credit of 0.60 ($120 in 2 contracts for the model portfolio).
63 days to expiration.

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (July 12, 2014)

The S&P500 went from 1984.22 down to 1967.57 this week, for a 0.8% loss. There was a little spike in volatility and I managed to close the Jul/Aug Double Calendar spread for a small profit. Other than that I didn't add new positions during the week.

Closed July 2014 SPY Put Calendar spread

On May 29 (40 days ago) I bought an SPY 191 July/August Put Calendar spread. You can see the trade here. The idea back then was to simply make a bet that volatility (VIX) was too low and it should go up at some point in the next fifty something days. Also the market was entering overbought territory and I felt that was a good, and conservative bet. If the market kept going up, I would add another Calendar spread at higher strike prices to expand my profitability zone.