I added 5 x 1230/1280/1310 call BWBs to each of the Oct RUT RHINO trades @ 20.85
I have been toying with adding some 1170/1220/1260 BWBs in @ 4.6 if we have any move up to 1260/1265 area to beef up the sea of death area and for a play on an expected pull back.
Oil is rallying huge today! Nearly 5%. Bonds are taking a hit (TLT down 1.6%).
Oh and I added back 1 futures hedge per trade on the pull back to 1256 TF
Yesterday I had closed off some of my futures hedges at my pre-determined level of RUT @ 1260. So far it seems like a decent close. I don’t see us going much above 1260/1265 area as the upper trend line sits right around 1260 (but is rising hence the 1265/1270 possibility).
SPX Oct-D (Rhino)
No adjustments here.
RUT Oct-D (Rhino)
I have to address the upside risks here. I am going to look at some adjustments today at 1pm.
SPX Oct-M (Rhino)
RUT Oct-M (Rhino)
No upside adjustments required.
I have to address the upside risks here. I am going to look at some adjustments today at 1pm.
SPX Monster Oct-P (Rhino)
The monster trade. This one is doing well. I have a solid 8% to the downside before any issues and I’ve got that hedged off on other trades until at least Sept 15. No adjustments needed here.
I closed off some of my upside hedges at rut 1257 which was close to 1260 where I don’t think we will break above sustained. I view it as major resistance. I may start looking at more Rhinos and even some bearish butterflies here once I get back in front of the computer.
I think all the trades for Oct and Nov are setup to put this year in a nice profit zone. We are quite over extended due to the maniacal up move from Feb lows (33%). Any 5-10% down move would make this year. I’ve been trading the rhino mostly by guidelines but at times I’ve been in and out of futures and call hedges and so far all of those have been profitable. It’s doubtful that I will use those going forward. They are mostly put on for events and from conclusions based on technicals. When I do put on a futures hedge, I usually replace by DITM calls soon after when I can.
More to come later.
I just joined Bruno’s new service for Rhino trades. He has a fresh interesting outlook on the Rhino trade that interests me. I highly suggest it for anyone that trades Rhinos. I think it’s $900 for the yearly membership today. The Baby rhino looks like a nice addition which I haven’t traded yet. I need to diversify a bit and I’d love some more short term trades as I am not traveling and basically at the computer all day. I’ve started to look at some simple rules based trades to add to my repertoire as well. Just something that’s low stress and management that has a very consistent track record. Specifically the super simple spreads which I just saw a 15 year back test that was fairly impressive. I want to add some tweaks of my own (specifically a STT like addition to it).
Coming towards the end of Aug, I felt like my trading and the methodology was “a solved thing” but as I started getting more time late August and I started watching fellow trader videos/presentations and reading group conversations, I found ideas and data that proved that wrong. I’ve been inspired recently I guess. I mean, the Rhino is a very low maintenance type trade that’s both resilient and very powerful. I didn’t really want to put any serious capital outside of it in other trades and I felt like I hadn’t really needed to explore much more on the Rhino trade in specific. Find something that works and is resilient and leave it alone type thinking. But I think there may be interesting things that we can take away from the new Road Trip Trades (RTT) while adding Space trip Trades (STT) in for downside crash protection. The Rhino has a serious problem with runaway markets to the upside and addressing that weakness would be nice while not over exposing the down side. I don’t know if the STT would help in that as it’s meant for Crash protection, but I want to explore it. I also am not loving the calendar adjustments on the upside and have been mostly using call BWBs.
I’ve had a mostly unemotional hands off approach to trading it since the summer. I follow the trade plan and mitigate risk as needed. I haven’t profited much since the meteoric rise from the February lows since it was a 33 % or so move. The way I trade the rhino doesn’t allow for profit in a runaway market like that. I mean, how could I expect to profit much when each cycle had a 5-7% up move. It’s just not possible for me to make money in my trade plan for the rhino if the market has 7% up moves in each cycle of the trade or if it rises 33% in 5 months 🙂 All that said, I am looking to add some strategies for my upside and I’ve started to add some mechanical strategies I used to do.
Here’s my September trade that’s basically closed down pending any significant down move before expiry, it’ll be closed at a loss. If I get a 5% down move ANY time before Sep 20, it’d be a profitable month 🙂 If I get lucky and have a 10% move, I’ll be up massive amounts.
Here’s my October trade
It’s up a tiny bit and I think it’s in a good position for the cycle. My upside risk is quite low and any decent down move will get it right in the tent (hopefully later in the cycle so the T+0 builds in the tent).
Finally my SPX October trade
This one is my biggest trade with the most potential. If we get any 4-5% move in the next 30 days, It stands to make several hundred k. The upside risk is low but I’ll have issues if it sits between 2170 and 2200 and will have to address that sag.
I don’t know how I let the blog go this long without a post. I blame the traveling. The downside to long ass traveling is that I’m always behind in everything and am always catching up with any free time I get.
The summer was super slow and not much interesting happened from a trade perspective nor a p/l perspective. Basically broke even over the summer due to the huge rise from the Brexit bottom which the rhino trade couldn’t really profit from. The August trade was expired at a negative and the September trade is now basically a lotto play for a 5 percent down move and has no more upside risk or really any risk at all.
The October and November trades are all sitting nicely and hedged to the upside by some calls (almost m3 like) which I had on through the jobs report on Friday. I’ll remove them at rut 1260 which I consider major resistance.
I’ll be posting all my trades and trade graphs starting now. I have no more travels and I am utterly traveled out :). It was a great trip but 2 months was a bit long. We started in Vienna and went to Kraków, Lower Selesia, Dresden, Hannover, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Arona, Turin, Lyon, Milan, Strasbourg, Nuremburg, Salzbourg, Munich, London and back home to Cayman.
I’ll probably post every day and will post more interesting things