Tuesday, April 22, 2014

2014/04/16 RUT May monthly Iron Condor - closed

Update on the monthly RUT Iron Condor of 11Apr14 -  29 days left - closed 16Apr14

BOT +2 IRON CONDOR RUT 100 MAY 14 1210/1230/1040/1020 CALL/PUT @2.60 CBOE

On Thursday the RUT monthly IC was closed after only 7 days. This was a typical Benklifa type trade, as the RUT moved first down to 1100 fib-cluster (see chart), then reversed up to the entry point after 7 days. Time decay worked fine during this period, together with the decreasing vol during the up-move. On Thursday the max profit point of the blue P/L curve was reached, a good moment to take profits and to reduce exposure to risk. We don't know where the market might be going, but looking at the chart, there is good chance that it will not revisit the 1130 point (center of the IC) for some time. That's why taking profits and then waiting for a better new entry appeared to be the preferred exit strategy. After commissions, the trade made $126 in 7 days, which is a 3.8% return-on-capital (risk was $3330). 



Friday, April 11, 2014

2014/04/11 new RUT Iron Condor - monthly income trade

New income trade Wednesday Apr 11, 2014


Sold 2cts monthly May14 RUT Iron Condor mIC - 34 days left.

Monthly IC: 20 points wide wings , 170 points wide, Call delta 8, Put delta 16, vol=0.2311
Credit $670, Risk $3330, R/R Potential = 20%

SOLD -2 IRON CONDOR RUT 100 MAY 14 1210/1230/1040/1020 CALL/PUT @3.35 CBOE

Markets are down today, vol is (still) up nicely, ticks are moving up and I am expecting some short covering. We are still in the range 1080 - 1210 for the RUT, so I expect some sideways ups-n-downs in this range before the markets might take a more decisive move up or down. One more swing within this range and this RUT mIC might move in a profitable range ... let's see ;)  

For updates on this trade follow:  http://inoutsignal.blogspot.de/p/inoutoptions2.html



Thursday, April 10, 2014

2014/04/10 new SPX Iron Condor - monthly Benklifa type income trade

Dear InOutSignal Blog Reader, 

Please note that I have added a new tab about Income-Option-Trades to the InOutSignal Blog. You will find information there about Iron Condor and Calendar Spread trades, together with a performance chart. I will also post more details on some of these trades here in the blog. Here's the first one: 

New income trade Wednesday Apr 9, 2014
Sold new Benklifa type monthly May14 SPX Iron Condor with 36 days left.

Benklifa type IC: 25 points wide wings (need to be at 0-25-50-100 strikes), 200 points wide, Call delta 15, Put delta 12

SOLD -2 IRON CONDOR SPX 100 MAY 14 1925/1950/1750/1725 CALL/PUT @4.30 CBOE

Although markets are up yesterday and vol down, I got filled for 4.30 selling the above mIC, which is a better fill than some ICs that I had sold earlier (at higher vol). Best thing that can happen to this type of IC is that the price moves away for a few days and then returns to the middle of the Condor. That's the point to take partial profits .... even if it is only a small portion of the total credit received. The idea is to be in the market as short as possible and to take advantage of the theta decay during this round-trip move. The SPX is just in the middle of 1900 - 1840 range, so chanced are good for such a round-trip move, we will see. More soon  in the updates or at http://inoutsignal.blogspot.de/p/inoutoptions2.html