Tag: Scalp

Unrealized loss racks up as earning trades go south – week 5 recap

Weekly Trading RecapFebruary 2, 2020

Week 5 P/L

New trades/adjustments

Date	01/28	01/29	01/30	01/30	01/30	01/30
Cycle	Feb/21	Mar/20	Feb/21	Feb/21	Mar/17	Mar/20
Symbol	AAPL	AAPL	FB	TSLA	/CLJ0	AMZN
IVR		42			55	60
Strategy	BWB – C	IC	IC	IC	IC	IC
Strikes	c:-$340 * 2 c:+$337.5/+$345	p:-$290/+$285 c:-$355/+$360	p: -$205/+$242.5 c: -$222.5/+$225	p:-$580/+$575 c:-$625/+630	p:-$44/+$45 c:-$59/+$60	p:-$1690/+$1700 c:-$2030/+$2040
Price	$.3	$1.03	$0.99	$2.5	$0.28	$3.04
PoP	79%	60%	35%	20%	69%	64%

Closed trades

Cycle	Feb/21	Feb/21	Feb/21
Symbol	AAPL	M	XBI
Total open price	$0.3	$1.07	$.94
Close price	$0.12	$.72	$.76
Multiplier	100	100	100
P/L	$18	$35	$18

Daily Scalp

Table

Date	01/27/20	01/27/20	01/29/20	01/31/20
Symbol	SPX	NDX	NDX	NDX
Strategy	Cr – P	Cr – P	Cr – C	IC – L
Strikes	-$3225/+3215	-$8810/+8800	-$9160/+$9170	Multiple
Price(o/c)	$60/$0	$150/$30	$86/$0	$314/0
P/L	$60	$120	$86	$314
Trigger	SPX opened sharply lower as a continuation of last Friday’s drop, had a contrarian bet on the market. Break even is below the low opening of the day.	Similar bet to SPX, but actually traded Wednesday cycle since Monday NDX is not available. Was luck to closed in on Tuesday.	NDX had an early up move to 0.8%, placed call spread on gap fill of previous high resistance line.	NDX was down 2%, which is really rare, so scaled into fear and legged into IC

P/L Change

P/L Week: $651
P/L Year: +$2041(40.82%), including P/L for FB, TGT and TSLA rolls
Total commission & fees: $291.56
P/L Year w/fees: $1749.44(34.99%)

Jan Recap

This month is a great start and I’ve made a lot of money on paper. What I did right is 1) always keeping 40% of cash on hand of scalp and adjustment. 2) Use longer date cycles for earnings 3) defined risk for earnings. What I incurred too much risk is 1) With volatility rising, many trades have gone to the wrong direction, 3 out of 4 earning trades are outside the expected range… Will try to defend them and survive!

Volatility is back – in a sad way – Week 4

Weekly Trading RecapJanuary 28, 2020

Week 4 P/L

New trades/adjustments

Date	01/21	01/21	01/21	01/22	01/24
Cycle	Feb/21	Feb/25	Feb/21	Feb/14	Mar/20
Symbol	TGT	/NGH0	NFLX	/CLH0	VXX
IVR	33.9	29.78		25
Strategy	IC – L	IC	Cr – C	Cr – P	Cr- P
Strikes	p:-$115/+$110 c:-$120/+$125	p:-$1.8/+$1.7 c:-$2.0/+$2.1	-$380/+$385	-$52/+$51	-$14
Price	$2.27	$.39	$0.79	$0.1	$1.61
PoP	41%	46%		50%	62%

Closed trades

Cycle	Jan/28	Feb/21	Feb/14
Symbol	/GCG0	NFLX	VXX
Total open price	$1.6	$.79	$1.13
Close price	$0.8	$.24	$.97
Multiplier	100	100	100
P/L	$80	$55	$16

Daily Scalp

Date	01/22/20	01/24/20
Symbol	NDX	NDX
Strategy	IC – L	IC – L
Strikes	p: -$9180/+9170 c: -$9250/+9260	Multiple
Price(o/c)	$2/$0	$7.53/$2.94
P/L	$200	$459
Trigger	NDX had a 0.8% move to the upside so I entered call side first, then added put side to collect more premium	Because of the Coronavirus news market has high probability to fall from record highs, however added put side too early! for the whole day I was fighting with market down trend as I added more trades and premium! At some point I had $20 spreads! Finally the market showed me some pocket money for the new year!

P/L Change

P/L Week: $810
P/L Year: +$1191(23.82%)
Total commission & fees: $233.1
P/L Year w/fees: $957.9(19.158%)

My first losing trade /CLG0

Weekly Trading RecapJanuary 20, 2020

Week 3 – P/L

New trades/adjustments

Date	01/13	01/17
Cycle	Feb/21	Feb/25
Symbol	TSLA	/NGH0
IVR	65	28
Strategy	Cr – C	Cr – P
Strikes	-$625/+$630	-$1.8/+$1.7
Price	$.68	$1.5
PoP	85%	72%

Closed trades

Cycle	Jan/15
Symbol	/CLG0
Total open price	$0.66
Close price	$1.0
Multiplier	1000
P/L	-$340

Daily Scalp

Date	01/13/20	01/15/20
Symbol	NDX	NDX
Strategy	Cr – c	Cr – p
Strikes	-$9150/+9160	-$9010/+$9000
Price(o/c)	$1.11/$0	$.7/0
P/L	$111	$70
Trigger	NDX had a 1% move on Monday but since option was not available for Monday I chose to trade Wednesday	Low risk companion trade since the call side is almost worthless

P/L Change

P/L Week: -$159
P/L Year: +$381
Total commission & fees: $164.35
P/L Year w/fees: $216.65

A rollercoaster – week 2

Weekly Trading RecapJanuary 12, 2020January 20, 2020

Week 2 – P/L

New trades/adjustments

Date	01/06	01/07	01/07	01/08	01/10
Cycle	Feb/21	Feb/21	Jan/15	Jan/28	Feb/14
Symbol	TGT	XBI	/CLG0	/GCG0	VXX
IVR	42.8	31			49
Strategy	IC – L	IC	IC – R	IC – L	Cr- P
Strikes	p:-$115/+$110 c:-$130/+$135	p:-$85/+$82 c:-$100/+$103	-$60/+$59	-$1540/+$1535	-$14
Price	$1.72	$.94	$0.2	$1	$1.13
PoP	57%	65%			62%

Closed trades

Cycle	Jan/28
Symbol	/NGG0
Total open price	$0.014
Close price	$0.007
Multiplier	1000
P/L	$70

Daily Scalp

Date	01/08/20	01/08/20	01/10/20
Symbol	NDX	SPX	NDX
Strategy	IC – L	IC – L	IC – L
Strikes	Multiple $10 sp	p:-$3220/+$3215 c:-$3260/+$3265	Multiple $10 sp
Price(o/c)	$5.9/$10	$.95/$0	$4.8/$0
P/L	-$410	$95	$480
Trigger	NDX had huge swing overnight on Iran news, decided to short it on opening, which turned out to be premature.	A companion trade with NDX scalp, but with smaller size.	Emotional Trade! No good setup but eventually got lucky!

P/L Change

P/L Week: +$235
P/L Year: +$540

I violated my rules

Post mortemJanuary 10, 2020

Jan 8th 2020 is not a day that I am particularly proud of: I violated my rules and almost blew up my account.

The background is a little complicated: Iran attacked US base in Iraq the night before and futures were down almost 2.5% at some point, and I thought there was no way they’ll bounce back and we might see a -3% day the next day. So I almost ready for scalping from the long side.

However in this wicked world we live in, Nasdaq opened green… I got up early and saw it, I go, how is this possible? Angrily puzzled, naturally I shorted NDX… and SPX, $10 spread and $5, then started my nightmare day, when /NQ is getting greener and greener, and my spread was fully in the money.

Then came the familiar feeling: I had to check the market every 10 second, I felt dizzy and defeated and wanted to close my eyes, and then I started to believe my trades had to work.

Finally I started to manage the position by selling put spread against it and I added to the short position, which at some point was tested too, when /NQ was up more than $100! My account lost almost 50% at the worst time, because my /CL and /GC positions started to go against me too.

Finally the option god heard my pray and the last 15 minutes the market started to reverse, however my $10 spread was closed under the water.

The daily scalp business continued to proved to be just gambling. However something I could do to improve? Stick to the plan!

Do not scalp immediately after market opens.
Wait for 1% move(in my defense, the market moved from -2.5% to +0.4% when I placed the trades)
Do not go too big! Currently $10 spread is still too big for me, especially when other conditions are not ideal.
Do not force emotional trades!

A green start for 2020

Weekly Trading RecapJanuary 5, 2020January 12, 2020

Week 1 – P/L

New trades this week

Date	01/02/20	01/02/20	01/03/20	01/03/20
Cycle	Jan/28	Feb/21	Jan/15	Jan/28
Symbol	/NGG0	M	/CLG0	/GCG0
IVR	36.7	41	27.9	46
Strategy	Cr-P Sp	Strangle	Cr-C Sp	Cr-C Sp
Strikes	-$1.95/+$1.85	$15p/$18c	-$66/+$67	-$1600/+$1605
Price	$0.014 cr	$1.07	$0.13	$0.6
PoP	73%	63%	80%	84%

/NG: High IV, bullish since it’s been down for long time.
M: High IV, price between short term resistance/support, familiar retail stock.
/CL: High IV, bearish since it’s been up for so long.
/GC: High IV, bearish since it’s been up for so long.

Daily Scalp this week

Date	01/03/20	01/03/20
Symbol	NDX	SPX
Strategy	IC – legged in	Cr-P Sp
Strikes	p:-$8760/+$8750 c:-$8850/+8860	-$3215/+$3210
Price(o/c)	$2.5/$0	$.55/$0
Trigger	NDX down 0.8% within 1 hour trading	SPX down 0.8% within 1 hour trading

P/L change

P/L Week: +$305
P/L Year: +$305