RUT Closed

Bought out of my position on RUT at 1.70 for +1295.

Trades 7_24

Snatched victory from the jaws of defeat this morning.  AAPL reported earnings overnight and went to 438, well outside my range at 420.  I closed in the early opening volatility for +1440 (3.65 value down to 3.17 @ 30 contracts) Net +1320

 

I then entered a position on RUT at a credit of 3.55 (got to stay off single equities when selling volatility darn it).

 

 

I’m back!

I took a 2 week hiatus to focus on my day job.  Getting back into the grind.  Going to focus on longer term positions.

 

I’ve been talking to a few prop firms and I’m basically never going to get to trade the intraday strategy I’ve been doing on here without a lot more capital.

 

So here is an IC on AAPL:

Trades 7/9

Trades tickets today.  Getting tired of scalping short butterflies intraday.  Going to stop for now.  I tried to confirm it on Obsidian today, but I still need to learn the interface.

 

Took a short butterfly on OEX today to hold overnight.  Currently in the red.  Pretty confident it will open in the green tomorrow based on the volatility.

 

Trades 7/8

Put up substantial PnL today, net +$4338.

Tickets/trade history below:

Trades 7/5

Just a weird day of trading.

I started off trying to reopen my Iron Condor on AAPL that I had yesterday.  It had expired at 0.94 at the close on 7/3 and opened at 0.35.  I was short yesterday at around 1.5 and I could’ve ridden it to 0 today, but instead I opted to go from 1.5 down to 1 and get out yesterday.

There was a problem with the limit orders on my phone, resulting in an early profit taking of 0.35 to 0.10 instead of 0.  Then when I tried to reopen the trade, it opened the position with a value of 0 when I had a limit in for 0.35.  So there goes $80 in commissions.  I tried to reopen it when I got home but I used next weeks series instead.  Got out with a small profit.

At the suggestion of someone else I started looking in to futures options.  I sold on the S&P E-mini.  It literally worked the order all day at 3.5 in spite of the value dropping below or above that a LOT.  It filled at 4pm exactly and I just got out before the futures closed for +250.  Not very liquid I guess.

Anyways, here is today’s trade tickets.  My net was +280 after three semi-erroneous trades.

For $26k YOU can get a master’s degree in prop trading!

There is a trend in the industry right now, where prop shops are more interested in selling educational services than making money from profit splits with successful traders.

Usually this takes the form of 5k-10k fee for a class or mentorship.  This money used to be a risk deposit that the trader could withdraw at any time and now it has turned into a non-refundable training fee for the prop shop.  Straight to the bottom line.

Now apparently you can get a full fledged, 12 month degree.  Check out the video below.  Watch people talk and gesticulate, write things, and point at charts!

I think trading is awesome and I would love to do it professionally.  Why I would pay anyone 26k for a degree that includes coursework in technical analysis -I just, I’m speechless.  That’s a year of 26k of courses + living expenses gone.  Imagine if you would have worked and used those funds for an account…

As short as 10 years ago, a program like this would have been considered on the job training for a new hire who was being paid, not paying to be there.  Times change I guess.

View the full curriculum here:

http://www.tmglobalcapital.com/msc-proprietary-trading/

 

Trades 7/3

I had a number of OEX vega scalps in the morning today for +350, +300, +250, and +100. Volatility kind of died down so I popped a short iron condor on AAPL, with the intention of holding it over night.

 

It went from 1.45 to my TP order of 1.00 during the day for +450.

Trade tickets:

Trades 7/2

Another good day for short butterflies.  A lot of the volatility had dried up, thus the low profit/contract.  Probably made things safer too.  Just scalping vega….

 

Closed GOOG in the morning for +100

Tried a position on LNKD but I did not like the action and got out for +25

OEX was more forgiving, two trades for +350 and +200.

 

Update

I’ve been very busy with my day job.  I should have a little more time going forward to dedicate to trading.

I got killed last week, due in no small part to my inability to check my positions.

I took +75 from my position in GOOG and took max losses on everything from 6/24:

NFLX -62

LNKD -138

AMZN -75

 

On the plus side, yesterday I traded short butterflys twice on GOOG and grabbed a third going into the close.

 +840

Have this going into the open: