The protector Alpha is up 3% for the year vs SPY ~1.3%. \u00a0We got hurt a bit on the last whipsaw. I had reluctantly rolled my 211 short puts to 213.5 when the market was at around 213 for a loss having missed the big upswing and thus losing on intrinsic value. The market moved very quickly and I just couldn’t stay up on it (overnight gaps etc). \u00a0THEN the market decided to suddenly reverse falling to 206 leaving our 213s with no extrinsic value. Talk about whipsaw. I then rolled to 211 to get a bit of extrinsic now it’s on its way up again. I do believe this is a bounce into fed Wednesday and that we may stall or reverse hard but I’ll be sure to quickly roll if we come near 210.5. Not a great environment for rolling the shorts. \u00a0That and the big loss NEM had (was actually -15%) has put our PA account at just about 3% for the year. \u00a0Leveraged 7x = 21% or just about 3.5% a month for the year. This is better than expected given the market this year. This is a bullish strategy and has its place in our portfolio. It does well when the market does well yet is completely hedged on the downside. It’s not the big returns you’ll see in the market neutral options strategies but it’ll help in big bullish years. Maybe those years are behind us in the next 5 year time span? I don’t know.<\/p>\n
My balance moved up 5% yesterday after the fall in volatility. Again, it shows how the mids and stated option pricing moves around so much in high volatility environments. It’s like the volatility was just sucked out of my accounts yesterday. It wasn’t delta losses or actual losses, it’s just that when the volatility floods out the MID pricing gets tighter and more accurate especially in the SPX. \u00a0This can affect your stated balance (AND margin calculations quite a bit). Any new traders utilizing portfolio margin should be aware of this. You can go to bed with PM stating 100k liquid only to wake up having it show -100k and be forced into liquidations. \u00a0It’s happened to me in my early days\u00a0running MICs. You end up buying back risk at a premium during the first 15 min of market open. Not pleasant. \u00a0There are tricks to reduce margin during these 15 min but that’s a subject of another post.<\/p>\n
Some early results:<\/p>\n
Aug Bearish butterfly: Up about 15%<\/p>\n
Aug M3: Up about 8%<\/p>\n
Rock Trades: up about 4%<\/p>\n
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