8% Corrective Move On /ES, Whats Next?

We have had a very nice corrective move on the /ES the past few sessions. And since topping out at 1,685 (the all time high), we have traded off about 130 handles or about 8%. The question is whether the move is over or will we see lower prices?

I continue to be short the /ES (net delta position) as I believe we could see a bit more downside until we see 1,530 on the /ES and then that will likely be followed by some consolidation through the rest of the summer. In the above chart you can see the profitability range I have highlighted in grey based on my aggregated position in the /ES. To date I have collected about 100 /ES points in premium over 52 contracts traded. Although I have collected 100 points my max gain is only 70 points or $3,500 on this aggregated position with 66 days left to expiration.

Good Luck Trading!

In The Money Trades


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I AM ALIVE!!!

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post. If you look through the feed you will likely notice that my last post was on May 23rd. I really can't believe that it has been almost three weeks. Never fear I am alive and well and have continued to trade the markets. But over the last few weeks I have been pretty busy with work in both my day job and in my side pursuits. More recently I have been teaching myself programming skills. Before we break off into market analysis I will leave you with this quote I live by from Jim Rohn: "A formal education will make you a living, but self education will make you a fortune".

My last post was the first of what would be the first corrective move to the downside after hitting all time highs at around 1,685 on the /ES.

Chart from May 23rd

And 3 weeks later...

Looking at the chart above you can see that the markets pulled back about 90 points and have found support around 1,597 on the /ES. During this time we finally got a pull back and a awesome move lower in JNJ:

Remember JNJ had an incredible run of 19 strait weeks to the upside without a single down move. Although the above chart is not a weekly chart, you can see that JNJ topped out a penny shy of $90 and hit a low at around $82.50 11 days later. Only to remind us that there is cycality in the market...meaning that the market goes up AND it also goes down.

As public as I have made it, it is no secret that I have been net short the market place. But over the recent pull back I have been selling puts in NLY which finally showed some life today. I am short 20 put contracts that have an equivalent delta of about 30 SPY. If you look back in the archive you will see numerous posts about my fascination of NLY for its juicy dividend. I made really good money until exiting the trade in March and have been since been patient to build up a healthy position again. My effective long price puts me long the stock around $13.30/share. The current yield at this price is around 13.5%. There is ton's of chatter about rising interest rates and reform to fannie mae and freddie mac....I don't care!

I have continued to play in and out of VXX as a compliment to my short position in the /ES. I have mostly been short puts to get long volatility since my position in /ES is short premium which by its very nature is short premium. So although intrinsically I am up a little money...the expansion in volatility that has happened over the past few weeks doesn't show me up as much as I would be at expiration. But that is fine with me, I am currently getting paid $33/day in theta in my aggregated position. My profit range on this position is 1,537 to 1,645. I think the recent high at 1,685 has given us something to trade against to the upside.

Getting back to VXX...with a pop volatility I covered the latest short puts I had and turned around and sold out the Aug '13 $21/strangle for $5.15.

Good Luck Trading!

In The Money Trades

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Big Reversal Yesterday

Yesterday I started a new chart of the day series to record this epic move, which now looks like it may be a short lived series. We did however go on to make another all time high after my morning post yesterday. The new all time high put in on the S&P 500 via the /ES was 1,685.75...the day started out very well for the bulls until fear finally showed up in the market bringing with it close to a 40 point reversal on the day:

Before we made any new highs on the session this morning I went ahead and sold a 1,610 put for 20 points against my much publicized short /ES position. I also bought in my short 1,555 put for a small gain as I continue to believe and operate that staying small with no more than one contract of exposure the prudent thing to do in this trade. My new effective short price as of the close yesterday is 1,635 and my aggregated position looks like a giant short call spread:

Looking at the risk profile above you will notice that I have hedged off my risk at the 1,700 level via a long call. Additionally although I sold the 1,610 put I do own a 1,600 put that keeps me positioned well to profit for an accelerated move to the downside. And just for the record if I were to sell out my long call and put, my effective short position would be around 1,640, but that would also expose me to unlimited upside and downside risk.

To date I have collected a total of 80 points over 26 trades. And as I write this the market is about 100 points off where I got short around 1,555.

Good Luck Trading!

In The Money Trades

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Another Day, Another New All Time High

The chart that has been amusing me each and everyday I look at it. Today we have the /ES or what I refer to as the market up making yet another new all time high. I read a statistic this morning that said that the market has closed higher every Tuesday this year. So new high is in at 1,670.25. The interesting thing I have noticed the past few days is the vix has been trading higher as the market has traded higher, not sure if this is a sign of things to come or if its meaningless. I feel like the question is whether the /ES will trade to 1,700 before having a single decent downtick.

I will be the first to admit that there are plenty of gains to be REALIZED in the market. But as I write this the gains we are witnessing in the market are all paper gains. Remember, you don't actually make money until you book profits. Remember all those folks that had made thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars of home equity? We all know what happened to that paper gain.

Look I am happy that the markets are showing solid signs of recovery in the market. But the retail investor is going to be the one playing the regret game for not booking their double digit gains when they see this market make a corrective move to the downside when profit taking eventually takes place. At the very least if these folks are not going to sell I hope they are at least selling calls against their long stock.

Anyways just my ramblings for the morning. I continue to be short the /ES and trading around the position. As of this morning my effective short is at 1,627 on the /ES. The key has been to stay small, not trading more than 1 contract in either direction. With hindsight we can see that has been key to staying in this trade, for if I continued to add to this position I would have likely been forced out of the trade. But instead I have stayed small enough to trade around the position and continue to increase my effective cost basis.

Good Luck Trading!

In The Money Trades

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Hedging Short /ES Position

As many of you know who have been following the blog the past month or so, I have flipped from bullish to bearish. Admittedly I have been wrong as the S&P 500 has rallied over 100 points since I initiated my short. As you may recall I sold a call on the /ES at the 1,555 strike for 32 points that effectively got me short at 1,587 which was only about 5 points off of the S&P 500 all time highs. We have since then traded to NEW all time highs several times over. With the most recent high putting us 1,000 points off the March 2009 low of 665.75...putting the new all time high at 1,665.75. The thing to keep into perspective is that it took only 17 months to trade off the previous all time high in 2007 to the March low. It has taken over 4 years to recover from that fall and finally build enough momentum to make a new all time high.

So what have I done while the market has moved 110 points against my short position? I have bought OTM upside calls at 1615, 1650, and 1700. I have sold various OTM puts and put spreads. The position started off as a naked call position that had unlimited risk to the upside, but once my breakeven was challenged I had to do the prudent thing and begin to hedge to the upside while defining my maximum risk. At the same time I have had to sell put premium in the direction I want the market to go at extremely low volatility levels. The short position at this point is really just a stake in the ground to trade against. So far I have moved my breakeven up 30 points to 1,618.

Over the coming weeks I will continue to trade premium around my position. We still have 33 days left until expiration...and really about 30 days before I need to start thinking about rolling the short call out to pick up some duration and hopefully some additional premium.

I will continue to be conservatively aggressive if that makes any sense. Although I have sold OTM premium in the direction I need the market to go, I have been conservative in the sense that I have left my ability to profit from a downside move open. My preference would be to get a nice pop in volatility and thus option premium that would allow me to be a little more aggressive in trading around the position. Otherwise I am forced to continue to sell low vol premium.

Good Luck Trading!

In The Money Trades




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Remember When Apple Was Going to Be 1st Trillion Dollar Company?

In the not so distant future everyone in their brother were buying Apple and touting that it was going to be the  first $1 trillion dollar company. At its all time weekly closing high of $705 Apple was valued at $663 Billion. Don't get me wrong, I love apple but really a trillion dollars. The at some point the market ran out of buyers and over the preceding 8 months the stock lost $300 billion in value.

Why am I telling you this? Its to make a point that things do not go up forever. Eventually we run our of motivated buyers and eventually we get to a place where people need to take profits. The crazy thing is that it usually takes an overdone and overhyped move to act as the catalyst lower.

As I write this the markets are making yet another all time high at 1,637:

I admit that I have no clue when this market will finally correct, but I also still favor playing the downside when thinking about risk/reward. Although my portfolio is short delta, this does not mean however that I have not been taking on any long trades. I have and will continue to play the upside as I trade around my short position until the market finally starts moving in my direction. The ultimate goal at the moment is to keep losses as small as possible while I wait out the market.

Why am I short? Because I don't like the prospect of entering into a position at all time highs. Obviously I don't know which "All Time High" will be THE ONE, but eventually we trade lower off of an all time high and I have obviously been early the past 5 weeks.

Good Luck Trading!

In The Money Trades


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Anatomy Of A Trade

Last week for all of you who are following I finally traded my first futures option on the /ES. To bring everyone up to speed before I go further let me remind you what I did last week. It was last Sunday night (4-21-13). The /ES was up 9 points in the Sunday session and since it was the only thing that was tradeable I was interested in selling a call to serve two purposes:

1) Scalp 4-5 points on a pull in as we rolled into the normal US trading session. I thought there was a chance that the futures would reverse and allow me to possibly scalp some profits. I do need to add that we were within 1/2 a futures point from getting filled on the scalp.

2) To initiate a short position on the /ES at all time highs. Since I sold the short 1,555 call for 32.5 points it would get me an effective short of 1,587.5 only about 4 points away from all time highs.

The markets irrational move to the upside has continued as investors poor money into anything with some possibility of a return of more than they can earn in money markets or bonds...which is much closer to zero. As I write this the /ES is currently trading at 1,586.50. But lets update you on what I have done with this trade as it has moved against me.

First let me tell you that the above risk profile shows you the aggregated position that I now have in /ES. As convicted as I am in this trade I have to realize that markets can do crazy things and I am not willing to be a hero as I am always trading with longevity in my mind. So as my break even on the short call began to become in danger I had to do the prudent thing and define my risk to the upside. So lets outline the different adjustments I have made to this position:

1) I sold 1,415 put @ $4.10

2) I sold 1,550/1,530 putspread @ $4.50

3) I bought the 1,615 call to spread off my risk to the upside @ $4.35

All in all you will see that on a net basis I have collected $36.75 in option premium. Now look we have 53 days left until the expiration of these options. Looking at the risk profile you can see that I have a peak in profitability at the 1,550 strike price. So other relevant stats:

Downside Breakeven: $1,398.50
Upside     Breakeven: $1,592.00
Profit rage: 1,398 to 1,592 = 194 point profit range (with short bias)

1. Profit in 1,415 - 1,530 range = $837.50

Margin Requirement: $2,873 (risk capital)
Max Gain: $1,837.50 (at $1,550 /es, potential return on capital of 64%)
Max Upside Loss: ($1,162.50)

I know I have put out a lot of numbers above, but these are the things I am watching. You will also notice that I left my risk to the downside open as we are so far away that I am not concerned with the downside at the moment. If we move 175 points, I may look at protecting the downside...but that is not likely in my opinion.

Until next time I continue with my bias to the downside. The risk/reward at all time highs favors playing the market with a short bias. I will continue to update you on this position and what I do with it.

Good Luck Trading!

In The Money Trades

And 1 favor that we ask: 

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Who buys at all time highs???

As I write this post this morning the markets are back within arms length to ALL TIME HIGHS! I really don't know how you can buy all time highs. If history tells us anything, buying all time highs whether in the stock market or in the housing market or any other market for that matter is a losing trade. But we have to remember that the markets can stay irrational for longer than expected. If you don't get too big for your pants, you can weather the storm.

In continue to be a difficult environment to sell option premium given the super low volatility environment. 

Positions: Short /ES, Short JNJ, Short GME, Long CLF, Long NLY,

Markets at all time highs are not great on my portfolio but I do have 2 pieces of saving grace:

1) I have positive theta

2) I am long CLF and that is offsetting negative P&L as we move higher.

Good Luck Trading!

In The Money Trades

And 1 favor that we ask: 

If you like the hard work we put into our blog posts and videos, PLEASE help us out by sharing them. Click the share links below and share them on FB, twitter, etc. It really helps us get more exposure and grow IN THE MONEY TRADES!

Trading Options on /ES for the first time

So Jason and I have talked about trading /ES for so long...and one of the big benefits that I have thought ever since he started trading /ES is the extra trading time that comes with trading futures contracts. For those of you that don't know, the futures markets only shut down for 45 min/day during the week and is closed on Friday through Sunday evening before it opens back up. There are a few times when I see markets trade on a Sunday afternoon that I would like to put some kind of position on going into the open on Monday. Well I finally executed a trade in options on /ES.

It feels like the steam has been lost to the upside in the /ES for sometime and I have a short to neutral bias. So with the /ES up 8-9 points last night (at high) I decided to sell a call for almost 32 points (was ATM option). I am looking to make about 4-5 points on this option. But I sold it with the mindset that I would be okay being short at my breakeven price which puts us at the highs for the markets around 1590. Otherwise I am happy to make the 4-5 points. So I really look at this as two possible positions:

1) A scalp for a nice overnight trade or a swing trade.
2) A nice short entry at all time highs...would rather be a seller than a buyer at these levels.

I do have to admit however that I was apprehensive to execute my trade last night, not because I was not comfortable with my trade idea, but because it was the first time I have traded this product. With that said I did not sell the top, we were up only about 6 points when I executed my trade.

I have a limit order in to make about 4 points on this short call in TOS and will let that work this morning. A few more points lower on the /ES and it will get filled. It feels likely that it will get filled this morning based on how its trading (down 3 points as I write).

The only caveat that I would give to traders venturing into a new product is to make sure you understand the product and what price movement means to your P&L. I had to refresh my memory that each point in the /ES is +/-$50.

Good Luck Trading!

In The Money Trades




And 1 favor that we ask: 

If you like the hard work we put into our blog posts and videos, PLEASE help us out by sharing them. Click the share links below and share them on FB, twitter, etc. It really helps us get more exposure and grow IN THE MONEY TRADES!