I am participating in two main investing strategies: The 2% challenge introduced by Thots, and collecting premiums from picks originating from my Weekly Wheel Strategy thread. I’ll be putting my money where my mouth is with the wheel and hopefully proving it’s a decent strategy. I have already done some CSPs based on my last 2 weekly updates and they were both successes, but will be starting from fresh with this journal.
For the 2% challenge, I am using a bot that I made, based on (or more like copied from) @aIDEjESi 's ThotBot, but built with a GUI and that works with IBKR. I am also starting from a very small position, since I reserved most of my cash for the wheel strategy. I will be contributing a bit of cash to this account to help stimmy it over a couple paycheques, since I basically just took the remainder of the $2.5k reserved for the wheel.
Wheel strategy:
I sold 2x SFIX $8 puts, at $0.48 each. SFIX had a red day today so I could have collected a bit more premium. Hopefully I don’t get assigned on them. I also tried selling 2x NEGG $4 puts, but unfortunately it looks like those wont be filling today.
Balance: $2,594 (+3.7%)
2% strategy:
Two trades today, and actually came out quite a bit above 2%. I think this is simply due to the small account size though, lol.
Ending balance: $181 (+9%).
At 9% a day, after a year of trading with a starting balance of $166, I’d earn $973 Million. See you all on the yacht.
Started off really well this morning on SPY. $401 6/10 Put 1.58 → 1.70. Account balance +5.5%
However, I then took another put position expecting another rejection around the $410.50 level. SPY $402 6/10 Put. There was a small rejection, but not enough to hit my 2% limit, and then SPY took off for the rest of the afternoon. I should have cut the position for a loss, but work caught up with me and I had to hold until later in the afternoon.
I figure I may as well take my chances with tomorrow and see how it goes. The expiry is Friday so it’s a bit gambly at this point. Should have set a stop loss on that one. Currently the contract is down about 60%, which at this small size of an account is a big hit. Let’s see what happens tomorrow, as I’m still bearish for the week and there’s still time on the option.
SFIX still holding on this week. Earnings tomorrow are expected to be bad and I’m hoping that’s priced in. I have a 55 cent buffer to come out with these CSPs unassigned.
For the 2% account, I got really lucky. I was down bad on that $402 6/10 put on Tuesday and Wednesday.
It was originally bought at $1.67, sold this morning at $0.90. I then bought 2x at $0.55 and sold them at $0.90 and $0.92, essentially breaking even on that trade.
I then did a quick call scalp to get a current balance of $185. (+11% on the starting balance). I will likely be stopping here but will be listening to VC for any good callouts while I work.
Update: Bought 2 more $402 6/10 puts.
1x 0.82
1x 0.71
Sold both at $0.86
Challenge account now at $199 (+19.8% on starting value)
Heading into today, I am the proud owner of 200 shares of SFIX that I will be writing CCs on until they get called away. I’ll be picking as aggressive as a strike price as I can that’s at least profitable to offload them as quickly as possible. This leaves me with a limited amount of cash to open new wheel positions, so I’m not looking to hold onto them for too long.
For the cash account, I was hoping to get into calls today, but that looks like it could be a bad idea (or maybe a great one?). I will have to wait and see. No current positions going into the week with that account.
Wheel strategy:
Currently holding 200x SFIX shares, unfortunately the premiums on CCs are garbage so I only earned $5 in premiums. Now I can sell any strike about $7.50 profitably.
I took two somewhat aggressive new CSPs:
1x SPCE $5.50, for $21 in premium
1x NEGG $4, for $33 in premium
Account balance is trickier to calculate here. I have $1089 in cash for the two CSPs I took, and the market value of the 200 SFIX is $1,247. So I suppose I could say the account balance is about $2336 (-6%). Down a bit from the starting balance but that’s ok. The Covered Calls for SFIX will either pay themselves off at lower and lower strikes or get assigned away at a profit. What sucks is that it left a lot less flexibility with my remaining cash for the CSPs.
The CSPs I took here are quite aggressive and I actually expect one or both could be assigned this week. I think they’re good prices and would be ok holding them and doing CCs on them.
2% account:
Made one trade today, playing a June 17th $393C around 11:15am. Current account balance: $204 (+2.5% from June 9th).
Played a $384 call and a $383 call today off of bounces from the $373 level. Could have played that $373 level with calls all day and made good profit!
Was planning to be active during FOMC meeting but got scheduled into a meeting. Turned out to be a blessing. I took a $363 06/22P around 3:32 around the $383 level and saw profit immediately. Switched to a trailing stop and rode the wave down for more than expected profit!
Started off so well this morning. One trade, and I was up $18 on the account to $292 (+6.57%). This was with a 6/21 SPY $380 call.
But I got cocky and felt like that was too easy, so I tried to go in again. This time at a $379 strike, same expiry.
I got greedy and didn’t take profit when I could have very quickly on. Instead, I am holding this one overnight. The contract was cheap enough that I was able to scalp another contract and made back another $11, but that doesn’t cover the current red on the call I’m holding. I’m currently down $36 on that $379 call, and I’m hoping to cut it if we see some green tomorrow. I don’t intend to hold this until Tuesday.
Challenge account now has about $74 in it (-75%). Morning shenanigans had me make a great scalp early on, but then the call I had held overnight got absolutely destroyed by the market glitch and I cut it for significant loss. I probably could have held it to recoup some of the lost premium throughout most of the rest of the day, but I guess I panicked and thought we’d see a downtrend the rest of the day.
Think I will let this account idle until next paycheque contribution to the account. With this balance, all I can hope to do are 0dte FDs, where I could just lose it all.
For the wheel account, it looks like my SPCE put stayed out of the money, but my NEGG was assigned pretty much at cost basis. Going into next week I should be ok doing CCs on both my SFIX and NEGG positions. It doesn’t leave much cash for another CSP right now, so I will have to pick something cheaper or just hold cash.
I just wanted to say it has been great reading though your journal. Don’t get too hard on yourself, sometimes shit just doesn’t work out. I think you have some real skills and I believe in you as a trader. Keep it up!
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement, @Tedro! I’ll get this back!
Taking a step back from today, I am actually incredibly proud of the progress I made even with very limited funds.
Date
Expected Amount
Change
Actual Amount
Percentage
06-Jun-22
166.00
0.00
166
0%
07-Jun-22
169.32
3.32
181
9.04%
08-Jun-22
172.71
3.39
188
3.87%
09-Jun-22
176.16
3.45
193
2.66%
10-Jun-22
179.68
3.52
199
3.11%
13-Jun-22
183.28
3.59
204
2.51%
14-Jun-22
186.94
3.67
216
5.88%
15-Jun-22
190.68
3.74
274
26.85%
16-Jun-22
194.50
3.81
291
6.20%
Take a look at this. Aside from today, My account was +75% in only ten trading days. That’s incredible. Nearly +$100 on the 2% target.
There were a lot of lessons learned. What happened today was a series of wrong decisions. I shouldn’t have traded yesterday without a stoploss. I shouldn’t have held a call that was red overnight. I could have cut at open, even though the position was still a bit red, and repositioned for the day. I could have paused and not panicked when SPY dumped from the morning pricing glitches. Lots of things I could have done differently.
Just rambling here, but what frustrates me is that I could be diligent and careful and make incredible progress for two straight weeks, then lose it all on one bad play.
I think I will paper trade next week and try to practice entries and exits, replenish the account, and get back on the horse. Wheel account is still steaming right ahead.
Sold a Covered Call on my new NEGG shares, $4 strike with a premium of $15. Brings my cost basis to around $3.50. If I don’t get called away this week, I am happy to keep going with them. If I had waited longer in the day I could have gotten more. I actually hope we don’t hit $4 this week as this is already in a nice position to keep collecting returns on.
For my SFIX CCs, my ask did not hit today. The premiums are pretty garbage actually around the $7.50 so I’ll wait for a green day and hope to collect something maybe for next week’s expiry instead. Cost basis is about $7.50 now, so it’s free money at this strike.
2% account:
On hold this week.
Super busy at work today too and wasn’t able to watch or paper trade at all.
What’s so so so agonizing is that I panic sold my $373 call for a massive loss during Friday’s glitch, but today we hit $376. If held, my account could have not only recovered my cost basis, but would have been a couple hundred dollars green… I’ve moaned enough about that play in TF so I won’t bring it up again, but man. Agonizing to see that and to see my current balance.
Well I couldn’t stay away that long. Paper traded a bit this morning and felt pretty good about today.
So I made one call today after having a chunk of time to really focus on the SPY chart, catch up with support/resistance, view some of the callouts that had already happened, etc.
Practiced quite a bit this morning trying to identify support/resistance, find trends/patterns, etc. Decided to play a bounce off the $375 area and made another $10.
For the wheel account, my NEGG covered call was assigned. So let’s break down how this play worked out over the last two weeks.
Monday last week: sold $4 CSP on NEGG for $33 premium.
Friday last week: Got assigned. Cost basis for the 100 shares: $3.67/share
Tuesday this week: sold $4 CC on NEGG for $16 premium. Brings cost basis down to $3.51.
Today: got assigned.
I made $49 in total from a $400 initial risk (+12%) in two weeks.
Wheel: Tried to open some CSP positions on both CCL and NEGG. Both haven’t been filled and may not fill today, so I might adjust my ask on them to get them filled today. For SFIX, I deeply regret this pick lol. The CC premiums are garbage. I picked a $6.50 strike that if assigned would put me red for the overall trade. I’m ok with doing that to free up the capital again. Cost basis is just below $7.50 per share at the moment, and I’m not interested in bringing it down cent by cent when I could use the money elsewhere.
Challenge account: Took a put this morning after $390 was tested a few times. It eventually went green and I sold for a couple bucks. Account balance: $102 (+8.7%). Back to triple digits lol
Didn’t trade anything yesterday and also probably not trading today either.
Actually thinking I might take some time off from trading SPY and let the account build up again before playing more. I just get the feeling that I’m playing with fire with such a small account balance. Every trade is an FD. I think I’ll build the account up to $1k flat and then start trading it again. This will let me take options that are not FDs, allow me to average down on bad entries, etc. Right now it’s just a bit too risky when every trade can potentially zero the account.
I’ve been stuck with SFIX for a while and trying to sell more aggressive CCs on strikes that, if called away, would be a net red position. However, so far, it has been beneficial in bringing my cost basis down more quickly. The premiums are pretty garbage on SFIX.
BBBY and NEGG I was assigned at the end of last week. I’m trying to sell $5.5C’s on BBBY and $4C’s on NEGG. However, neither got filled today even with a decent rally by NEGG at the end of the day. My ask was only $0.10 for that one, which was the current ask price, but it didn’t fill. NEGG is only about $0.15 cents OTM, so I thinkt he premium should be higher with 3DTE.
I got a bit blindsided by BBBY last week and it dropped much harder than I thought it would. I had my CSP before the news of the CEO getting ousted came out. It may be a while before that recovers and becomes profitable.
So yeah, all positions just trying to sell covered calls on. Hopefully not for too long, but nothing wrong with collecting the premiums along the way.
@internetkings suggested I look at expiries for next week instead of this one. I’ve been pretty hyper-focused on the “weekly” side of things so didn’t bother to check that before.
BBBY - managed to sell a covered call with somewhat decent premium for 07/15. Cost basis is now low enough to unlock the next lower strike price and exit profitably if it gets called away at that one.
NEGG - tried to do the same as above but my ask didn’t hit. Anything less didn’t seem very appealing to lock myself into. So I’ll check again tomorrow. NEGG had a bit of a rough day so premiums were not good.
