GLD

GLD looks ugly and spike in volume today. Taking the contrarian trade:

Short GLD Feb12 130 Put for $0.75. Tried to do 10 contracts, only filled on 7.

ZB ES Charts

According to my charts I've got bonds at likely support and the ES at resistance. Vol is down 50% the last two weeks, that can't continue so the combination of risk/reward on the board right now leaves me in the neutral wait-and-see camp. Of course if these patterns break they should break hard, but I'm playing the odds and taking down my short ZB here at 143'08 in after hours for a loss of around -$335 or so. The Friday before Xmas is historically slow and we're closed Monday, so I'd just assume clock out and turn off my mental radio until Tuesday. I will however set my alert and if I get lucky and stocks fall and bonds bounce then I will gladly reenter my short ZB. See you next week.

Update: Ouch, couldn't have been more wrong. Stocks didn't break through resistance but bonds fell out of bed and cost myself a point. Lack of patience and wanting to take a four day weekend off mentally cost me. I find that when I check the charts every few minutes my time frame for patience gets smaller. If I can stick to checking 2-3 times a day its easier for me to relax. I would like to say lesson learned but this experience has been a cyclical one for me.

ORCL

ORCL shares tanked yesterday after earnings. Looking at the 3 year weekly chart there seems to be pretty good support at about $25, which is a little above the 200 period moving average. Will look to sell a January $25 Put today.

New trades - SLV and UNG

Wanted to do something today so made the following trades:

Short 10 SLV Jan 25 Put for $0.465
Short 10 UNG Jan 7 Put for $0.47

Obviously looking at the chart both of these have been hammered this year, that's pretty much the rationale for selling them. UNG is the more aggressive trade as that put is already in the money - this one was definitely influenced by Tom Sosnoff.

Current Positions

VALE Update

After hovering near $21 for the last few days this finally broke under $21 today which is at least a 2 year low. Was short 60 contracts DEC 21 Puts and didn't want to have to deal with it tomorrow, so rolled down to the Jan 20 Puts for $0.50 credit. Had taken in $1680 before on the DEC Puts, so in summary have so far collected premium of $4680 to hold these naked options which currently have a 39% probablity of expiring in the money.

POT Vertical

http://screencast.com/t/NFEntThPmRwH

Played like a fool in the futures

I'm trying to learn to trade the futures more actively these days and have decided to try trading the /YM, with very small positions while I am learning. I am looking for some advice - here is a trade I placed today. When I look at it I think generally it should have been a good trade. I went short pretty close to the high and the market went down a fair amount after I went short. However, I lost money on the trade because my stop order hit at the absolute top. I was only trading 1 contract so the loss was only $90. Realistically I could have placed the stop 100 point above my entry (YM is $5/point so I would be risking a $500 loss, not something I want to take but it certainly wouldn't wipe me out). However, I did not do this because I am trying to develop good habits and everything I have read suggests that if you are trading futures you need to accept small losses, so my stop was placed a few points above the high of 1202 that was made at 13:54. My question is this: Is it better to place the stop at a much higher level, thereby accepting the risk of a much larger loss but lessening the chance of getting shaken out as happened to me on this trade, or did I play this well and should I just accept the bad outcome as the way it goes sometimes? I will gladly consider any advice/criticism about how I handled this trade. Thanks.