Weekly Trade Summary: Jan 22-28

Last week I opened two SPX trades, and one CL trade:

(click to enlarge)

I currently have six trades open.  One expires on Feb 3, and five expire in March or later.

Total defined risk for my six open trades is currently 27.4% of the account net liquidation value. The Feb 3 trade is using 4.9% of the account net liq, and will expire next week...likely as a loss.

If the April 7 SPX option series becomes available next week, I will enter a trade with that expiration.


Follow my blog by email, RSS feed or Twitter (@DTRTrading).  All options are available on the top of the right hand navigation column under the headings "Subscribe To RSS Feed", "Follow By Email", and "Twitter". 

Weekly Trade Summary: Jan 15-21

I was planning to enter a new SPX trade in the Mar-24 expiration this week, but this option chain did not become available. This week three closing trades were executed and no new trades were opened:

(click to enlarge)

The corresponding entries for the three trades that were closed are shown below:

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

All three trades that were closed were 3-lots, all expiring in March.

Eight trades have been closed this year...all profitable.  Based on the statistics for these trades, I'm long overdue for a losing trade.  The butterfly that I am trading has historically been in the 75% win rate range.

I currently have three trades open.  One expires on Feb 3, and the other two expire in March or later. The two longer dated trades are non-core trades...active experiments.

Total defined risk for my three open trades is currently 14.2% of the account net liquidation value. This is quite a bit lower than I would like, with too much capital being underutilized at this time. All three trades will profit if the market moves down. The two non-core trades are using 9.3% of the account net liquidation value. The Feb 3 trade is using 4.9% of the account net liq, and would normally be closed by now, but will perform well if the market drops 2% to 4% by Feb 3.


Follow my blog by email, RSS feed or Twitter (@DTRTrading).  All options are available on the top of the right hand navigation column under the headings "Subscribe To RSS Feed", "Follow By Email", and "Twitter". 

Weekly Trade Summary: Jan 8-14

Three trades were executed this week. Two trades were closed and one trade was opened:

(click to enlarge)

The corresponding entries for the two trades that were closed are shown below:

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

As I mentioned in my last weekly summary, I am in the scaling up phase. The trades that were closed were 2-lots, and the trade that was opened was a 3-lot. I plan to move from 2-lots to 3-lots this month, and will move to 4-lots by late March or early April.

Five trades have been closed this year...all profitable.  Based on the statistics for these trades, I'm overdue for a losing trade.

I currently have six trades open.  One expires on Feb 3, and the other five expire in March or later.

Total defined risk for my six open trades is currently 35.1% of the account net liquidation value. This is a little higher than I would like right now, but this is due to two non-core trades that will profit if the market moves down. These two non-core trades are using 9.4% of the account net liquidation value. The Feb 3 trade is using 5% of the account net liq, and would normally be closed by now, but will perform well if the market drops 2% to 4% by Feb 3.


Follow my blog by email, RSS feed or Twitter (@DTRTrading).  All options are available on the top of the right hand navigation column under the headings "Subscribe To RSS Feed", "Follow By Email", and "Twitter". 

Weekly Trade Summary: Jan 1-7

Starting this week, I will begin posting the trades that I executed during the week. I've received countless emails asking if I could share my trades...so I'm finally giving in :)

Through 2015 and early 2016, I traded primarily undefined risk trades (strangles and straddles) on the SPX. If you've followed the test results on my blog, you know why I preferred those trades. Good win rates, good normalized returns per day, good normalized returns per trade, and low days-in-trade (DIT). The only issue for me, was that I needed to watch these trades closely...this close watching paid off in August 2015!

In 2016, my day job became more demanding and required many hours in meetings and on planes each week. With so much time away from my computer, undefined risk trades became uncomfortable to carry. I started trading broken wing butterflies (iron and put) in small size along with naked strangles in the first quarter of 2016. These worked out well. Work became even more demanding by April 2016 and my trading had to go on hold. In September 2016, based on the results of Q1 2016 and some ideas from fellow traders, I started trading (in small size) broken wing butterflies again. I haven't posted results from butterfly backtests on this blog, but will probably start towards the end of the year.

So, with that background, and in order to catch up, here are the trades that I executed last week:

(click to enlarge)

One trade above has the strikes and expiration hidden.  This trade was provided by a friend and I cannot share the details that are obscured.  Also, there were three closing trades in the trades that were executed last week.  The corresponding entries are shown below:

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

At this time I am still in the scaling up phase.  I plan to move from 2-lots to 3-lots this month, and will move to 4-lots by late March or early April.  I will stick with that size for the remainder of the year.  I will not have any more than 40% of my total account capital at risk at any point in time.

I may also add a Google Sheet during the next few weeks to summarize the results, so keep an eye out for the link to that spreadsheet.


Follow my blog by email, RSS feed or Twitter (@DTRTrading).  All options are available on the top of the right hand navigation column under the headings "Subscribe To RSS Feed", "Follow By Email", and "Twitter".