CROX Iron Condor - CRIKEY!

After a great weekend of advanced technical trading, I enter the week with a new found exuberance for the Markets. I am considering a long term calendar on Mr. Softy now that it broke it basing pattern on Friday. Also looking at making another IC trade on the RUT.

29OCT07 - I did take a peak at the run to resistance of CROX. An oldie but goody, I am looking for a little more snappin' action. The Nov's have 95% imp.vol. right now due to upcoming earnings and the Fed announcement on Wend. I am short the $80 calls as the ceiling and the $65 puts as the floor. I must remember to keep enough capital on hand to close these shorts if the cage breaks and this thing comes after me like a Wild Kingdom outtake.

I run some risk, on paper a 1:1 within my acceptable loss amount if it totally falls apart. The bigger risk is if this thing takes off and I don't cover the short call so watch for that closely. Better yet, place a buy stop around $80 and look for increased momentum on the breakout.

13NOV07 - How quickly things can change. HELD OVER EARNINGS!!! AGAIN!!! Wasn't watching the downside very much. Sucka gapped $22 BUCKS! Bought back the call side for $0.05 and the seperately sold the calls for a total loss of $380.
DON'T HOLD OVER EARNINGS!!!

HANS - Also a bit of a scare

Legged into HANS this morning.



Sold the short first on the down swing.
Next time, buy the long first then when it starts losing value on the upswing, sell the short leg to lock in the juicy spread.

Exit stage right: Will kick myself for not buying a straight call - BTC short @ a nickle
Exit stage center: Watch the spot mark and smile for the people.
Exit stage left: Will stay for act II at a touch at $57
Fall off the stage: Earnings on Nov. 5th - Energy drinks starting to get a bad rap and flooded market. RTR = 1:3 with +60% probability

13NOV07 - UGLY! Similar to the recent LVS trade, I didn't sell at the trendline break on 11/7 but bought back the short $160 in the morning (first 10 min.) and then the long for an even greater loss later on the pull back up. Could have held the long put and made out nicely but would have held over earnings. Took a LARGER LOSS THAN I SHOULD HAVE by selling the positions seperately. Max loss was $170 but I took a $180 loss.

LVS - Bit of a scare

Got into LVS yesterday. Short Put 130/125 Nov for $2.00 credit

I hit the entry pretty good, right at the bottom channel support @ 7:55am
Sold on the high imp. vol., solid uptrend and support bounce at $122 confirmed that morning's open, and Sto. crossover below the 30 line. Watching the slightly lower recent high @ $140 closely.

Goes with: will set OCO to exit at $0.05 short - cha-ching.
Goes flat: see above.
Goes against: Have soft alert set at $127 at Fibo line. Buy back short and them close long put soon after.
Really Goes against: Placed hard stop at $121

13NOV07 - The entry was sweet, break of pull back with confirmation. The price created a nice uptrend line to $147.50. Broke the upward trend and I thought, naw, I won't sell yet. I have plently of premimum left and lots of room to move before things go bad. WRONG! I should have cashed out right at the break. Gapped down the next day and thankfully I sold. The next day it sold off heavy the next and confirmed a triple top and dropped hard over earnings. Thankfully I got out with only a $10 dollar loss + $6 commisions. I held past the trendline break.. BAD. Sold before my trigger... BAD. Cut my losses short... GOOD.

22 OCT 07 - Blog Launch & Entry Into Mastercard

After the move down on Friday and some profitable spread expirations, I was looking for either some more downside or a swing up. It made both. I saw the support at $150 and the morning bounce and feel like I missed the $8.10 sell of the NOV $150s, it went up and then back down, so I set my sell price at $8.20 and got filled and then it went down all day and bounced a bit at the end. Didn't loose much due to the delta on the long JAN $140 put.

Scenarios -
Up: expires worthless, sell another or look for another pull back
Sideways: time expires, take profits early
Down: wait 8 days from now and re-evaluate
Way down: Set sell limit past next support level around $140 and check for over sold conditions

13NOV07- I closed the $150 puts I sold on October 31st at $0.35 for a $785 profit. Only problem was I HELD THROUGH EARNINGS and the sucka gapped $20 bucks! and then kept going! This is the problem with holding long term calendar spreads in generally uptrending stocks. They can blow right through your profit range. Same thing happened with MMM. Now I am holding tight and looking at a bit of a rounding top consolidation. It may fill the gap or blast higher. Wait and see. Right now posting a total loss of $560 and the margin range sucks to sell anything worth the risk. Looking back, I should have taken the $400 2 day profit and split.