Last Trading Day of 2016 12-30-16

Market gave me a gift in the last trading day of the year. It was what I had hoped for going down right off the gate. But I didn't handle the gift well. I noticed that I wasn't calm. I even went out for a few minutes to try to cool myself off. I didn't follow my plan of waiting after lunch to exit the RUT 1360 ATM bear call. I moved my exit target up when RUT started to bounce back after 10 AM. I started to thinking about the possible big losses or forced to rollover. I totally forgot my plan. I have a tendency of predicting one out come instead of 2-3 possibilities. I need to watch major support and resistance levels instead of minute by minute price movements.

Made 11 trades. Closed one RUT bear call ATM which is what I needed to reduce my margin pressure. I rolled SPX 2235 in late morning. I didn't think market could touch it without looking at the distance and percentage. It actually touched it in the afternoon session. Sold couple Feb 3 and 4 SPX bull puts. Also used ratio hedge to the down side since I have too many naked bull puts. Overall, it was a good day.

Net liq recovered near 6K. Margin ratio is at 87% with the new measure. The bleeding was stopped this week with a small $880 gains. I will review Dec and the entire 2016 over this weekend. I have learned and improved a lot during this year and failed in some key areas as well.

Early Tax Selling or Before Window Dressing? 12-28-16

As I woke up this morning futures were up 0.2-.0.4% I thought it was a day to follow through to the upside. I didn't expect that sellers continued to push market down after gap closing. RUT and SPX were down 1.3% and 0.9% on later day and only recovered some before closing. I am not sure if it was the starting of tax selling or a pull back before window dressing at the year end. The price action will tell us more tomorrow. Anyway it was a big, welcome relief for me. I got about 14K recover for my net liq, plus sold several puts for premiums.

Made 14 trades across the board. Reduced one SPY bear call, sold some put credit spreads and bought couple put ratio hedges. I also rolled over couple bear calls to lock in some profit.

Risk profile looks much better today. Net liq is up 14K. Margin ratio is at 71% using the new method of comparison. I collected 1.6K premiums in four of my accounts. If I can reduce one more big contract on call side then I will be able to start to pay back the loans from ET accounts. Be patience and stay disciplined for the next two days.

No Relief Insight 12-27-16

The post Christmas market shown attempts of moving up on the first day. Buyers stepped up on very small pull back until the cash closing. There was a small sell off after RTH. Every one is eyeing on Dow 20K before New Year. NQ made another new high today. It appears that all major indexes are aiming a round number before the new year. Dow 20K, SPX 2300, NASDAQ 5000 and RUT 1400. That would make a big headline and boost market sentiment. More people will be sucked in. I will be forced to cut off some positions if that's the case. My theses of two days up and two days down for the last four trading days may still play out.

Made 9 trades today. Most of them were hedging calls and exit puts. One was rollover to lock in some profit and up 5 points reduced a little margin. I plan to hold till the last day for these near the money positions expiring this week.  I will continue to monitor and hedge my risk as my priority.

Risk profile eroded some as the market moved up. Net liq is at 133K recovered from a bigger loss earlier. Margin ratio is at 43% comparing with Initial Margin which is what the broker uses. I will use it instead of Net liq from now on in the meantime watching net liq as a separate factor.

Holding Up But Choppy 12-23-16

Market was choppy but up on this last trading day before Christmas. RUT closed up 0.62% and SPX held at +0.11%. Bulls held up well and may be positioned to take back some lost ground before the year end. Market will be closed on Monday. Today's price action made me to suspect it may try to run up for a couple of days then sell some in the last day or two to close this year.

Only three exit trade got filled. I tried to buy more hedges on both side. I didn't want to push it since my expiry prediction looked OK for me to wait until next Tuesday. They may cost less if there is no big run up.

Net liq gave back 5.5K while margin ratio fall down to 33%. I am prepared to take 1-2 positions off if my net liq gets too low.

A Follow Through - 2nd Down Day 12-22-16

Market followed through yesterday's pull back. I thought it was going to be a up day since futures recovered all of the overnight losses. RUT was leading the pack closed below last three day's range. But on weekly it was barely back inside B band. The surge may not finished yet. SPX only lost 0.2%. It may be just a slow day before Christmas. Any pull back is welcomed from my portfolio.

Made 13 trades across the board. My predicted margin for post expiry was in warning zone. I made couple RR ratio hedge to make it stable. I rolled 3 more ITM calls up to lock in some profits while the market is down. Margin is switched to the put side for now. I had to pay $150 to roll up 5 pts the deep ITM RUT 1100 with a inverted put. This may be a strategy to use from time to time. Also made couple IC 2 in other accounts. I may roll up more positions if we get a 3rd down day tomorrow as it may be very slow and choppy on the Friday before Christmas.

Net liq recovered another 10K at 143K. Margin ratio stays around 40%. So far the projected post expiry is OK for early next week. I will buy more hedges early next week if we see another surge for window dressing during the last week of the year.

A Small Pull Back 12-21-16

I was expecting to see Dow to break that 20K line today since it was less than 60 point away from yesterday's closing. Market took a breath today to my surprise. RUT and SPX closed down 0.61% and 0.24% respectively. I suspect that market is awaiting for the Jobless Claim Report tomorrow. I thought that nobody cared about any fundamental news anymore. I expect the jobless report won't have much impact to the market unless it is a big surprise. Overall there is not even a daily range broken.

Made 5 trades today. Rolled 3 more this week ITM positions before I went to get colonoscopy. I am glad that my hunger game is over. Unfortunately I had my first IWM assignment today. My 12/30 128 bear call didn't get rollover yesterday as I thought I had a little more time. I sold the 100 shares for a loss of near $1000 with dividends that I have to pay. I intend to get it back once I am out of this crisis.

Risk profile got a break today with the market pause. Net liq is up 10K to 132K. Margin ratio is back to 42%. Although it may be temporary as most of the positions are ITM it's a breath time for me with a little more Theta decay. I will start to get more hedges on tomorrow.

Up, Up and Away 12-20-16

The up swing from the day after Fed hiking the rate continues. The market is in such bullish mode even disregarded the Germany truck terror attack and the assassination of Russia ambassador in Turkey yesterday. It appears that nothing would stop this bull until the year end. RUT closed up 0.86% and SPX is up 0.36%. Both are near making new highs again as DJ is ready to strike that 20K mark. My portfolio is pushed one more step closer to the cliff.

Made 6 trades today as I am fasten to prepare for tomorrow's colonoscopy. Rollover all ITM bear calls of this week in IB. There are couple positions in ET didn't get filled. The IWM Dec 30, 128 is facing a possible assignment unless I get a chance to roll it tomorrow.

Net liq dropped near 11K today. Margin ratio is at 29%. Net liq value is at 123K as of tonight. It may stand for another 1% pop tomorrow as I will be in the doctor's office most of the afternoon. I will continue to buy hedges for next week or two. I may have to take out a RUT bear call to reduce my margin and shore off the net liq in the next couple days. My last result is to gather some money in other account and do another wire transfer of 10K or so.

Bulls Won't Wast Any Time 12-19-16

Bulls took another swing on Monday. Despite couple attempts of pushing down RUT and SPX still made an up day. RUT closed up another 0.6%. It appears RUT is ready to make another swing high to close this year unless other indexes stop pushing. There may be a tax loss sale coming soon. I need to be able to hang on to my account until then.

Three trades got filled. They were all exit of puts. I was at Northlake to receiving my flooring order from Homedepot. I couldn't place many orders with only a slow notebook. I need to place most of my rollover orders for this week by tomorrow since I will have a doctor's procedure on Wednesday. I will not allowed to take any solid food starting tomorrow morning.

Risk profile lost some ground and back to the danger zone again. Net liq is down 6.7K to 133.8K. Margin ratio is at 28%. The Excess liquidity of 46.8 K could hold me of until late part of this week. Currently I have 11 RUT and 1 SPX ITM. I may have to pick one more to buy back in order to increase the net liq. I need to set a firm number of contracts that is allowed to trade after this crises.

Another Week Survived 12-16-16

My hypothesis for today's market movement was right for once. The big money pushed it up in morning session then let it go in the afternoon. It wasn't much fall at close but it was in negative territory. Any down move is a relief for me. Although the bull flag and uptrend are well intact.

Made 6 trades today. I bought back the assigned 100 shares of SPY 210. It was a loss on top of the ITM 203c from last assignment. I still don't have a good understanding of how the assignment works. I moved the position on expiration date but not the strike price. It didn't void the assignment happen. I made couple risk reversals in SPY and IWM for near term to long direction as I expect there may be another attempt to go higher next week. No meaningful premiums collected.

Risk profile survived the early surge and got about 3.5K increase in net liq. Margin ratio is up to 40%. The threat could not be reduced significantly without getting any bear call positions off my book. It's all at mercy of RUT since most of my bear call positions are ITM.

Another Leg Up? 12-15-16

Market brushed off Fed's rate hike and popped up again. SPX and RUT took back 2/3 of their losses from yesterday. They closed as an inside day with bull flag formation. They are positioned either retest the break down points of yesterday or ready for another leg up. May be Dow for 20K, SPX for 2300 and RUT for 1400 before the year end? It's possible with the current bullish sentiment. Obviously it will be a bad situation for me. Tomorrow is quad witch day. I would expect a pump up and settle in range day. The big money may want to pin a upper number before they close or roll their positions.

I made 9 trades today. 3 rollovers with 1 spy Jan 19 210 for attempting to void assignment due to low OI. Let's see what happens overnight and tomorrow with the dividend day. The rest of them were mainly hedges. I was too eager to roll 12/23 long calls to 12/30 that reduced my available funds. I may have to buy more hedges to raise my margin and pick another position to exit for the net liq issue.

Risk profile fall again. Net liq is down 10K back to 135K. Margin ratio is down to 23% due to my early roll out of long calls and market raise. I will be on the edge of cliff again if we get another 1% up day tomorrow.

Fed Came To Rescue 12-14-16

FOMC announced to raise the rate by 0.25 point with possible three more hikes in 2017. Market finally pulled back somewhat. SPX and RUT closed down 0.81 and 1.33% respectively. No major support was broken. Both of them are still in their newly established ranges. However, any pull back is a relief for me. I do expect that bulls will try to reload at lows and push up again. I just have to play it day by day and be defensive.

Made 7 trades today. Two for clients. My last leg in GLD was out to release a little margin and net liq. I also exited my RUT Dec 30, 1400 bear call at a loss to reduce margin and net liq this morning as planed. I might have executed the order a bite early. I just couldn't tell how the market would react to FOMC rate cut. Make 1 SPX rollover for next week and sold 1 bull put for end of next month.

Risk profile edged back to safe zone. Net liq is back above 145K for the first time since last week. The last 10 days were tough for me. I had to move a total of 45K funds from ET to prevent margin call in IB. Net liq recovered 18K today while margin ratio is back to 45%. I hope this is the beginning of my long road to recovery.

No Fear of Rate Hike 12-13-16

I was expecting some pulse or small pull back on the day before FOMC announcement. Instead DOW, SPX and NASDAQ made new highs. Luckily RUT didn't follow the suite. It may be next inline if market react positively with FOMC announcement. It appears that market is fully priced in a rate hike tomorrow and they just want to push it higher before the year end. The squeeze on my holdings may not be over soon. I will have to prepare for the worst.

Made 12 trades today. I rolled most of 12/16 long calls to 12/23 to extend my hedges. Also rolled out more deep ITM RUTs. Booked about 20K losses. I may take RUT 1400 short calls off before FOMC to reduce my risk and add it back when the crises is over. Some of my positions are moved out to late Jan and Feb.

Risk profile is still on board line. Gave back 3K of net liq despite a flat RUT. Is it due to my rollover to naked positions plus the 9.65% increase in SPX? Margin ratio is at 28%. I think IB calculates ratio between the Available Funds and Initial Margin which I have about 46% left. Things can change very quickly to the worse. I may have to use my 10K reserve in ET again.

Any Pull Back Is Welcomed 12-12-16

Opec reached agreement with None Opec members to reduce crude production over the weekend. Futures shoot up on Sunday night. Crude was up 3% and ES had 8 points gain. I was really worried about a gap up open on Monday. Luckily market faded overnight. Shanghai went down 2% and European markets were all down slightly. RUT finally had a 1.1% pull back, 1st time in Dec. The market is still very resilient. DJ was and SPX didn't give up more than 3 points. At least the overnight gain of ES was faded. We may see another attempt to go higher. For me any weakness is a good news. I finally got additional 12K breath room. It may save me for another up day.

6 orders got filled today with 3 rollovers. I closed my GLD put with a loss to reduce margin. I need focus on reduce and roll over RUT tomorrow just in case FOMC cause a surprise on Wednesday. We may not see any meaningful pull back before next January. A common theme is that people want to hold their short term gains after the New Year to get better tax rate. On the other hand some may want to sell before the year end to show good results for 2016. We will see.

Net liq was up 12K to give me 26K cushion for now. It is still too thin. Margin ratio is at 48%. It may hold me off until this Friday if there is no big surge. Get to start to put hedges on for next week.  

Survived Another Day 12-9-16

The bulls won't even take a breath. SPX and RUT both closed up 5 days in a row. SPX made another new high closing at 2259.5. Both are closed outside of their Bollinger Band again. My net liq didn't get much of any relief, luckily that RUT only gained 0.11% with a gain of 5.6% for the week.  With the FOMC for next week I am not sure how the market will react. So far it seams no body cares about FED any more. I hope that people will return to their economic common sense soon and my account will last to cover from it. Right now the market is chasing the performance before the year end.

Made 6 trades today before I had to go to Clemson to pick up Alissa. I followed my plan to wire another 15K from my 2 ET accounts to make it through today. I rolled all of my ITM expiring positions out. Luckily with some ATM protective calls so reduced a little loss and built more hedges for next week. Right now the emotion of the market is so high and money is chasing quick returns. Fundamental and technical analyses are not major concerns.

Net liq is barely above water mark at 114.7K with the 15K wired in today. It probably won't survive another 1% pop. Margin ratio is at 48% and IB prediction for post expiration is slightly higher for Monday. I will test if I can roll out much further to reduce margin. I don't have many out of the money positions that I can take off. Net liq will increase only if the market pull back some or adding more money to it. I don't have much extra fund available after the 45K injection for the last 2 weeks. Surviving this draw down is my first priority now. I will fight to my last resource.

Hanging On A Thread 12-8-16

The pattern of this week continued to play out. Market attempts to sell a little in the morning, then buyers step in and lift it up. It followed the momentous of yesterday and booked new highs across the major indexes. RUT gained 1.6% following yesterday's 0.88%. Adding almost 2.5% in just two days. It hit me in the worst possible place. My net liq lost 23K to below P.M level. I had to wire 10K and 5K from ET to shore up my net liq. In the early afternoon I was limited to close positions only when yellow lights were flashing. It was a terrible situation where I could get liquidated easily.

Made 9 trades with 3 rollovers before I was put on closing positions only. I closed SPY 222 at a loss to reduce margin. It didn't help much when market start to push up. I tried to add more hedges with only 3 filled without much margin reduction.

Risk profile is in brink of breaking down. Net liq at only 1000 above the P.M line. I will have to wire more money tomorrow if we don't get even a small pull back. I will decide before the market open tomorrow. Margin ratio is at 52% at least for tomorrow. I need to buy more hedges for next 1-2 weeks.

Another Day of All Time Highs 12-7-16

Market started mildly up in the morning session. It caught on fire from early afternoon. SPX advanced 29 points, a 1.3% gain and closed at 2240. It blow off my 2220 and 2230 bear calls which I thought I had a good chance to close it by Friday. Now they are both ended ITM. RUT made another all time high for the 2nd day. It ended up 0.88% and closed at 1364.5. It took another position of mine ITM. Needless to say this move pushed me to the edge of a cliff.

Made 17 trades across all accounts. I sold some Jan 27 SPX 2330-2350 call spreads while assuming SPX would be up about 0.5% for the day. I was a bit early. Only one of my RUT rollover orders got filled. I have two more to do tomorrow. I was mainly focusing on hedging both sides. After the rollover in late afternoon my available funds was below 20K. Then I placed couple risk reversal calls to shore off the call side. I over did it in quantity and exposed the put side. I then rushed to buy some near term long puts to plug the put side. In the end I pull the margin back to yesterday's level. It was a temporary fix to get me by today and possibly tomorrow. The bigger problem is my net liq getting so low. I may have to close some positions and take losses for now in order to survive this crisis.

Risk profile is near a breaking point. Net liq is closed at 110K, down another 15K from yesterday. If wasn't the 10K from ET I would be in "close positions only" status today. Margin ratio is better than yesterday after I rushed to add more hedges. It may get me through by Friday if we don't have another big run tomorrow. I will add more hedges for next week before end of Friday so I don't have worry about it over the weekend. Right now the projected available funds is at 14K after Friday's expiration.

RUT On Fire Again 12-6-15

RUT logged another 1.1% and reached a new high of 1353. It's on fire for a 20% run from the election night low and almost 18% on day sessions only. SPY also closed near the all time high again. Both of them are near testing their top trend line. Let's see how it will react in the no man's land. I suspect that the big guys to get as much as they can before the Fed meeting next week.

Made 6 trades today. Added a RUT Jan 6 Call CS to form a Iron Condor. I don't understand why that was required margin too. I rolled over another RUT 1280 deep ITM up 10 points. I have a total 9 RUT ITM now. That is my worst record. I made couple hedges in RUT and SPY. Also closed 2 RUT puts to reduce the fees. I felt the heat.

Net liq was lowered again to 125K. For however that IB calculates its margin requirement the margin ratio is up to 29% from yesterday's 25%. The initial margin was lowered right at the open. Tomorrow I will continue to rollover this week's positions and buy hedges to reduce margin. The situation is pretty bad but I must fight for it to survive.

An Italy Job 12-5-16

Italy Constitution Referendum got a NO vote on Sunday night. S&P futures dropped 10 points immediately after the news. By the time I woke up this morning it was up 10 points due to European market react to the news positively. It was another "black swan" went positive, like the Brexit and US Election. This one was just in a smaller scale. It was an open drive session for the US market. RUT and SPX went up 1.8% and 0.6% respectively. I was expecting RUT to reach 2% possibly. The doji on Friday played out to the up side. However MACD and B bands are not showing a very strong up move potential so far. But you never know during Dec.

Made 7 trades with 2 rollovers. Sold a RUT Jan 1430 Call CS to form an iron condor. The rest of them were just hedge and exit puts. One the realized base I got hit again today.

Obviously my portfolio was hit hard with today's surge. Net liq lost near 20K to 134K. The margin ratio of 24% became a concern as well. It wasn't even at this level during the election surge. I guess many of my near the money long calls were gone. There are only some far out protective calls left. The long put side is also stretched with  equity exposure fees. I tried to buy longs in both sides without much luck. I will work on buy more hedges on both sides tomorrow more aggressively. Must bring the margin ratio back.

None Impact Job Report 12-2-16

The Nov Unemployment Report came out this morning with 178K new jobs added v.s. 180-200K expected. It was unusual for the market without much reactions one way or another. In fact the market was choppy all day long and closed flat for SPX and RUT. It appears that the rate hike is priced in and the Trump herd doesn't care anything else. Well, market is not always rational.

Only one order was filled with such a small range choppy day. I rolled RUT Dec 9 1270 up and out to Dec 23 1275. It's hard to roll once a position is deep ITM. I didn't have enough time and focus to move every position out of them money during the rapid run up of RUT. It was also a discipline issue. I disbelieved that RUT could go up 12% and hoped for a break. It's true that hope is not a strategy.

Risk profile went lower due to the expiring Friday. Luckily I got two more SPX bear calls of 2005 and 2020 expired worthless. Now SPX is the 1st one to be come delta nurture. Net liq is up another 3K. Margin is down to 48% as some hedge positions become worthless too. I plan to add more hedges next week.

Establishing A New Balance Area 12-1-16

Indexes continued to the down side in small steps. RUT reached my estimated 1310-00 area but closed above it at 1314. SPX is retest its prior range of 2190 area. If this area holds then SPX will establish a new balance area above 2190. RUT may retest its June 2015 high of 1295 and build its balance area above 1290. If both falls below their levels then we have a top formed. NASDAQ lost another 1.7% today. Is the tech bubo busting?

Made 9 trades today. I continued to roll my bear calls in RUT and SPY to take advantage of this pull back. Also added some bull put spreads across board. I have SPX 2205 call may be OTM if SPX doesn't jump up 15 points. The other one should all be expiring without any problem.

Risk profile improved mainly in net liq which is back to 150K. Margin ratio is at 50%. At this pace I should be able to return the 10K from ET soon.

Are We Seeing A Topping 11-30-16

It was the 2nd day when bulls pushed price up then got knocked on their heads. SPX and RUT were down 0.25 and 0.40% receptively. A more telling signal may be on NASDAQ/QQQ which was down 1% today. MACDs are turning down but haven't crossed yet.  RUT formed a lower low in the last three days. It had a bearish engulfing candle today. We may see it move down further to 1310-1300 area. SPX didn't break yesterday's low so the bull flag is still intact. It could well be a consolidation before another leg up.

Made 10 trades across board. I followed my plan mostly for these near or at the money positions. But I didn't quite recognize my emotions and acted under the assumption of that prices won't come down enough to let me exit. I didn't think my SPX 2205 could be OTM since I had bad experiences on pined target at expiration days, particularly for month or quarter ends. I tend to panic when the price move to against my positions, instead of watching certain levels to confirm the movement. It's a learning process but need to be consciously practice it.

Risk portfolio is out of the dangerous zone for now. Net liq is up to 142K while margin ratio is above 55% now. This week's ending projection is not looking too bad so far.

I took a pretty bad beat for this election period. RUT continued to be my loss leader. My mark to market loss is near 25K. Although I rolled most of the positions up and collected over 10K premiums. The recover will take well into next year. I need to exam my premium calculation. It seems not adding up correctly.