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Thanks @Vikings1 for showing everyone here in the forums that it's possible to make consistent gains with a solid system, sound money management, and confidence. I've been hitting a rough patch in my trading lately (mostly mental) and this journal is inspiring.
I'm almost in disbelief how easy you make it look, but then again anyone who's ridiculously good at their specialty makes it look easy. Thanks for taking the time to share.
Not always easy, today has been a tuff one with Crude, but thank God not the weekly options, they rocked today.
So far today I am 17-16 in crude and still in this current trade (in @ .29, 1/2 off at .42, trailing now with a stop for the last half sitting at .33...that said I have a total of 196 ticks locked for today. (PS: I would love to see it pop from here).
Today was a very active day. Considering it was a Monday the weekly options had some very nice moves in them today (AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, PCLN). I will get into them shortly.
Oil on the other was a “bear” today. Started off great, I went 6-2 on my first 8 trades and was up 216 ticks. I was getting cocky and thinking this is child’s play, but then things got interesting. On my next 18 trades I went 6-12 and was sitting dead flat for the day (+0 ticks), that includes one stretch in that run where I went 1-5 with two (2) -60 tick trades. 2nd thoughts started to creep into my mind, “maybe I should take a break and let the market pick a direction”. I could clearly see the squeeze that oil was in and it’s reluctance to give up S1 or even $ 78. But I also knew that if it broke it might be a nice break, so I kept swinging the bat. On the next trip to the plate (the 27th) here came that hanging curveball and bamm, homerun!! That trade ended up being my best for the day + 122 ticks and by days’ end I finished 5-2 (17-16 for the day) and + 190 ticks.
Just goes to show you that if you are going to play this game you better be swinging the bat or you might miss that homerun pitch. Of course you better being doing all of this with a sound trading system, solid trading rules, and great money management.
Summary; I started and went up +212 ticks then fell to -60 ticks then rose to + 210 ticks and coasted in at + 190 ticks for the day. (ticks again are based on 4 contracts, ½ off at +13 and trailing the rest until stop out.)
Now to the weeklies. My wife played GOOG, AMZN, & PCLN today and did very well on them. I managed AAPL and I was 2-1 on it today for a very nice day on it.
Buy # 1: Bought the $ 570 Puts @ $ 3.10, sold ½ @ $ 5.00 (S2 level) sold remaining @ $ $ 5.30
Buy # 2: Bought the $ 580 Calls @ $ 3.30, sold them all @ $ 3.20, (small loss) reversal coming
Buy # 3: Bought the $ 565 Puts @ 3.40, sold them all @ $ 3.70 (small win)
Have a great night and hopefully oil will cooperate tomorrow.
PS: Going to dip my toe in the water for TF tomorrow as my wife is doing a great job managing our weeklies.
PSS: Does anyone know how to load an ATR Trailing Stop into Ninja Autotrader program? I know it is possible as I have seen others who have something similar, but Ninja coding is NOT my specialty.
The EURO was dead today and thus the log jam on oil today. We only had 29 range bars in the EURO during normal market times, (that is extremely low) and it does explain alot about the chop we saw in oil today. Obviously this EU Summit can/will bring some large spikes later this week, IMO.
Ranges for tomorrow are as follows:
AAPL $ .77, AMZN $ .37, BIDU $ .28, GOOG $ .92, NFLX $ .23, PCLN $ 1.40, SPY $ .16, IWM $ .12, QQQ $ .08, /CL $ .13(conservative), $ .07(fast, what I will be using), /ES $ 1.00, /TF $ .70, and finally Euro/Usd $ .0009.
You have the money and the cajoneys to do what it takes. I for myself and probably everyone else that follows admires you. You have what it takes. You are an inspiration to everyone that you have shown that if you take the time and do not give up, and just keep at it, and never give up, ever, ever give up. Thank you for your posts. Mike you are an inspiration.
I have just been reading your thread and in line with remarks from others, superb stuff, thanks for sharing and posting your trades!
Looking at your charts I am a bit lost however on what lines are on your charts...even though I am trying hard to interpret would you mind texting up on one upcoming chart apart from the EMAs which line is which? This would be much appreciated!
I assume the A and B studies are the Squeeze related A and B waves or are they something else?
Also for CL you are trading the futures market and not the options on CL am I right?
I've never looked at weekly options before. I brought up the June AAPL weekly and there's 0.10-0.15 bid/ask spreads while PCLN has 0.40-0.70 bid/ask spreads. [Interactive Brokers quotes]
How are you managing the entries/exits with such large spreads? Are you limit buying on the ask and limit selling on the bid to ensure a fill, thus losing the spread on both entry and exit or are you doing some kind of combination like hit the middle of the spread with a limit on the entry and then take the full hit on the spread when you exit? [Even if you entered a limit buy on a long at the bid, it probably wouldn't get filled until that price hit the middle of the bid/ask range]
For example, you mentioned a 50 contract order earlier on in the journal. On AAPL, that could be a potential $1500 slippage just to get in and out of the trade. So, if you're taking a $1 stop loss, that could wind up being a $1.30 loss with slippage factored in. Right?
Just seems to me that you can run into situations with these weekly options where you get stuck on the exit with partial fills (at your level of the game) and gains can erode quickly, considering those spreads.
I am tired and thus will be keeping this short tonight. Oil was a “bear” again today, mainly because the EURO is stuck in neutral waiting for those great European minds to come up with solution 5,000 this Friday.
No great start today in oil, it was a battle all day. Traded oil 21 times today (13-8) and again I had two (2) losses of 60 ticks or more today. My last trade was actually a -60 tick trade. That said, I still ended up + 130 ticks for the day on oil.
Summary for oil; I started and went up +62 ticks then fell to -14 ticks then battled to + 190 ticks and crashed landed at + 130 ticks for the day. (ticks again are based on 4 contracts, ½ off at +13 and trailing the rest until stop out.)
Today was my first official day for trading TF and it was a very good day there. I traded TF 17 times today (14-3) and finished the day + 316 ticks. Best trade +72 ticks, worst trade -64 ticks
Summary for the TF; I climbed all day to +372 ticks then coasted in to finish at + 316 ticks for the day. (ticks again are based on 4 contracts, ½ off at +13 ticks and trailing the rest until stop out.)
AAPL was very boring today, 2 small wins....like oil, it too seems to be waiting for direction from Europe this Friday. My wife took today off and thus the other weeklies were not played as I was too involved with CL & TF.
First off, AAPL is the only weekly where I buy up to 50 contracts as it has the volume to handle those kinds of buys without even batting an eye, (AAPL 570 calls traded 16,583 contracts today alone). AAPL rarely has a spread greater than .15 so why mess around with limits? Personally I could care less what the spread is on these options, as I use my "price charts" to get me in and out of a trade, the price of the option and the bid/ask are "almost" irrelevant for me. Sure I might be able to save a few bucks, but when I have an option go from $ 3.00 to $ 6.00 or even $ 9.00 is it really worth worrying about a $ .15 spread? To me it is not, but it is a free world and we all have our ways of playing this game.
PS: It is also not a mistake why I play what I play, they all have volume, (except maybe PCLN), and their spreads are small when compared to many of the others. Secondly, I do NOT play the penny options, stocks less than $ 50.00. But one thing I do pay attention to is the delta, I like to try to buy options that have a .35 delta or greater. But come Friday I am usually ITM or one strike OTM only.