This move up from 950 to 1040 (~11%) in the space of ten trading days has put a damper on both the March and April trades. Especially the 4.5% move in the space of the last 2 days. I am back where I started about 10 days ago, break-even for the year. I guess it’s not a bad result considering the moves and volatility. Just 3 days ago right when I was taking off my call spreads, I was up significantly (5%-6% of equity) and now I’m hovering around $0. Is what it is and the market sometimes does not makes it easy. Any pull back in the next 2-3 weeks will benefit the April trades and we’ll be right back up. I haven’t checked yet, but most of the pain is definitely in the April trades and March theta has offset some of the negative deltas as of late.
April Trades
So for the April trades, I am just about at my delta limits and am looking to buy a modest amount of call BWBs or call calendars to bring the deltas down just a bit. NYMO is extremely over bought, the RUT is sitting at heavy resistance near its Oct and Sep lows, it’s moved nearly 100 points and the volatility in the market is high = I will be a bit more patient with adjustments to the upside. Though it’ll hurt a bit if this turns out to be an Aug 2014 style run to the upside. Any move down to RUT 1035 today, and I’ll be putting more of them on, if it runs from here (1038), I’ll be slower to add as I await some exhaustion and for Monday/Tuesday to see where we stand.
March Trades
This has been some terrible timing for our 21 DTE removal of trades week. Sitting quite health last week to have a 4.5% move right into our most unpreferred area of both the Bearish butterflies and the Rhinos that remained. I had kept removing trades through the last 7-10 trading days but not enough to prevent some pain. I’ve got these deltas under control for now and it looks like I will wait till Monday/Tuesday to get the rest off. Taking off those damn call calendars at RUT 1008 after it touched into the 990s was a huge regret, especially now, that RUT is at 1039! That hurt a bit.
Frustrating week.