Thanks, been trying to figure out what works for me and it’s slowly coming together.
It’s actually a burrito toy for the dogs haha, had to crop it pretty good to make an avatar.
2 trades today, scalping QQQ 5/25 282p & 286c for 5% each. Up 5% on the account again. Swept out most of the profits from yesterday and today (gotta wait til tomorrow for the rest to settle).
Loss today. Got caught in the chop this morning, played QQQ puts when it looked like things were gonna track down toward FOMC. Market almost immediately rallied and I sold that position -20% down, just to watch QQQ immediately knife after that to where I would’ve easily made my target profit.
Was shaken after that, played calls for FOMC but it was a small position and I set a very conservative limit sell, which filled right on cue.
Bought a couple AFRM 6/17 20p EOD after it had an 11% day.
Not terrible, only lost the gains from Monday/Tuesday so I’m flat on the week so far. Just gotta trade back up to $5k before I make another withdrawal.
Those AFRM puts ended up being a bad idea lol. It proceeded to rally another 20% the next day.
Took the past 2 weeks to focus on small plays, one or two contracts at a time, focusing on exiting each trade green. I was mistiming entries when trying to swing bigger positions for a quick couple percent, so I wanted to practice without losing more money than I’m comfortable with.
This ended up being a good thing. I didn’t make any big gains, but at least 80% of my plays I exited green. Couple bucks on this contract, couple bucks on that contract. This transitioned into setting a daily goal of +1% in the port using these small trades. Most days these past 2 weeks I’ve hit that, and ended each day green. In the past 9 days I’m up 7% (there were two days with <$15 gains throwing the average off).
I’m not nearly as good as thots and I was doing damage trying to daily 2%. I’ll work up to it, but for now I’m green everyday and will keep honing my chart skills and my entries. Hope y’all made a bunch of money during this bloodbath, just hit my 1% so I’m starting my weekend.
Today’s trades were a TSLA 6/17 690p (sold for +1%) and a couple ARKK 7/15 38p (sold for +2%).
Didn’t do much yesterday except grab a couple ALTU 10c. Sold those today for a little profit. Also opened a 4p on NEGG which I bought back today for $1 profit because I didn’t like SPY’s weakness and thought I might get a better price later today if the downtrend continued.
I promptly forgot all about NEGG, but looking back I was right and could’ve gotten a much better price on those puts (.39 yesterday, possibly .48 today).
Instead today all I did was buy a RDBX put, sell it for 25%, then accidentally buy another one EOD and sell it for 16%. I believe RDBX will likely tank again tomorrow, but profit was there and I wanted to settle my cash.
I haven’t been trading much, but the entries I’ve been eyeing been more and more consistently winners, which is giving me confidence. Hoping for a more readable direction tomorrow.
Bought 4 RDBX puts this morning and sold 2 to get my cost basis down. RDBX proceeded to not dump at all today so I held those until EOD.
TD shut the buy button off RDBX options, which from what I can tell helped kill the momentum they were having. IV dropped a little, I’m sure theta didn’t help, but every time they do that shit it sucks. Somebody did talk to them but it didn’t look like they had much reason to do what they did. Anyway.
Bought a SPY strangle, 6/24 377p/378c at 13:30. It got IV crushed after the FOMC decision was released, but JPOW’s speech let me scrape up a +2%. After JB’s callout I grabbed a 6/22 378p at $382 that I sold for +5% a few mins later (…would’ve been 30% EOD though).
Finally EOD I sold my RDBX position on a dip for a loss. Theta was gonna wreck it tomorrow, the pumpers were in control today, and TD wouldn’t let me average down. The SPY gains made up for it, so I ended the day -$2.
Hoping tomorrow the market digests this shit and picks a direction.
Took the L this morning when I had 2 SPY calls and it decided to completely shit the bed. Had I had more conviction, I’d have averaged down and come out pretty good, but I let my stop loss trigger.
Luckily I scalped back more than I expected this afternoon, so while I’m red on the day I’m pretty happy with how I played the day after that. If I can start doing that more consistently things will be looking good. I read the charts right, but the market data issues really screwed things up.
Excited for Monday, thinking we’ll see a rally next week but just trying to play what’s on the screen.
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Didn’t do much yesterday. Bought and sold 2 SPY 6/24 390c for a loss of $10.
Flipped a SPY 6/24 380c later to make back that $10.
And then towards EOD flipped a 7/8 365p for another $10. Proceeded to get mad at myself because I was gonna buy a couple puts to hold overnight and missed my buys. Had they filled I would’ve sold at open and not traded today.
But instead today I bought a 7/8 370p too early, and spent the day averaging down and trimming it to end up with 1 put at a basis of 5.75. This trade ended up working out and I feel good about it.
Also holding a few KMX 7/15 75p at a basis of 1.80. Would’ve liked to average down more but I already have a bigger position than I’d like. If we get some red PM I’ll sell most of it off at open and manage it from there.
Glad to hear your put position worked out. Interesting concept with averaging down and trimming as you go–something I’ve thought about doing and probably should look into if I grab any contracts that have some time on them.
Thanks for bringing it up, I’ll make a note of it as a strategy to think over.
I learned it from Conq.
I can lay out today’s trades to visualize it.
1st buy at 6.85.
2nd buy at 5.55. Average now 6.2
3rd buy at 5.0. This gave me an average of 5.8.
Sold 1 at 5.5, made $50 off that last buy. Made my new average 5.95. Sold the 2nd at 6.15 which gave me my current average of 5.75.
The only thing that sucks is TD fucks up your cost basis as soon as you start selling, so i have to manually do the math. After that first sell it was telling me my average was like 5.28 which was way off.
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I hate that they still have the app and browser versions do that. Their staff has always said to use the TOS and that shows the correct amounts. I just got so used to TD but try to switch. TOS on computer is solid.
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I do use TOS for watching charts because it has a lot more features, but Im so used to trading on TD mobile that that’s where I do it.
I’m mostly on my phone.
ToS on the PC/phone fucks up the cost basis when you start selling off a position as well. At least, it has for me.
But yeah, I should’ve done that today, honestly. I averaged down, things rebounded, and rather than start to sell it off a few things I just kept the whole position which bit me pretty hard. Something I have to think about, maybe, is ‘well this particular trade is up 10%, so while the whole position is still down–I should probably sell these anyways,’ if only to reduce my exposure.
Definitely using this in the future. Thanks!
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Hope it works for you!
Didn’t do much at this week worth journaling. A couple single option scalps, most profitable, a couple not, to end pretty much flat on the week.
Dipped into HGEN yesterday given the data lock and anticipating good top line data. I’ve followed HGEN off and on since last year, but after it became apparent EUA was never happening I knew it would be a while before there would be any big news. We might be getting close to some now.
The only positions I’m holding are a single HGEN 8/19 2.5c @ .6 (fuckers won’t sell me anymore below .60 even when the bid/ask is .45-.60) and 2 cash secured 2.5p @ 1.02. If assigned my breakeven would be 1.48 which I’m comfortable with. TLD might be dropped before then, even.
On to next week.
Slow week, just making small trades.
Tuesday:
- bought and sold for +$1 SPY puts because I rethunk my thesis (right move, SPY went green)
Wednesday:
- flipped CCL puts for +10%
- played an ATM 0DTE SPY strangle for FOMC. both legs solds for +15%.
- flipped a SPY put for +2%
- sold a SPY put for -6% that would’ve hit my target sell but hindsight is 20/20.
Today:
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sold AAL puts from yesterday for a few bucks
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flipped an NVDA call for +6%
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sold a GME call for -12% that later would’ve at least been breakeven
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flipped SPY calls for +5%
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flipped more SPY calls for +5%
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holding an AMC 13p FD that’s down 50% lol
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holding an AFRM 11/18 10p that’s down 3.5%
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holding a SPY 8/5 370p that’s down 2.5%
The FOMC strangle was surprisingly effective and I’ll probably go in a little bigger next time. The only position I think will ultimately be a loss is the AMC put but that’s only a couple bucks. Plenty of time for the others.
It’s been a couple weeks since I updated this. BUT – I have a good reason.
I got the job! I mentioned on TF a few weeks ago I had an interview, and holy shit they actually hired me. Now, it’s only contracted remote tech support, but it gets me in the industry I’m going to school for and brings in some decent cash while I’m at it. The best thing is they’re gonna work around my school schedule so I’ll keep this job while I finish my last year and probably end up interning here to round off the course.
Bad thing is they’ve been short-staffed these couple weeks so I’ve been putting in overtime and haven’t really had time to trade. Legit barely have a few seconds to check my app if I’m in here during market hours. But that changes this week, and I’ll be on a regular Fri-Sun schedule which gives me most the week to watch the market.
I have scratched the itch a little during this time – a call scalped here, a put scalped there, rode some AFRM puts for a few days – and I ended up making $100 while barely being able to trade. Spent a few days with VC playing on my days off and learned a lot.
So here’s back to making some cash and writing it down 
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Monday:
- scalped a COST 575c for 10%
Tuesday:
- scalped a SPY 410p for 2%
- scalped a SIGA 17.5p for 2%
- scalped multiple TSLA 1000c for 2%
- proceeded to get trapped in one of those TSLA calls, averaged down once, and held it overnight. That position ended the day -30%.
Today:
- Sold those TSLA calls for +2.5% at open. Was happy to get out green but had I held for 2 mins they would’ve almost been 100%. Green is green though.
- scalped a CVS 100c for 10%
- scalped a few AFRM november 15p for 2%. Holding one now and will add more later if it goes up more. Other than that done for the day.
Thursday:
- flipped a QQQ put for 2%
Friday:
- sold those AFRM puts for 10%
- sold my EWT put for a loss. Small loss but I bought too close to expiry & didn’t wanna end up losing more to theta.
- thought about re-entering AFRM puts but really didn’t like it’s strength compared to SPY. that shit might end up really pushing up if SPY goes bullish early next week. Will be on the lookout for a new entry.
I was right about AFRM pushing up further, unfortunately I didn’t think about UPST earnings tonight so I didn’t enter a position today. That push above $36 would’ve made a very nice entry. Oh well, still plenty of room for it to fall.
I scalped a QQQ put today for a couple percent. Collecting these small wins has been huge for my confidence in believing what I’m seeing and acting on it.
Pretty happy with my trades lately, only one or two small losses among numerous green trades. Most have been intraday, still not confident in any swings in this climate.
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