Options Trading Update

Hey, it's been a while since I have updated my trades so I will give a synopsis of what I currently have on and what I have closed or adjusted. As I write this before market open I have a Net Liq of $594.69 and $60 of buying power available. So far my realized P/L is $(87.15), that stupid TSLA trade is still following me. If I hadn't made that TSLA trade I would be up $55. You can see my overall P/L below.

So, since the last time I wrote here, I got out of the NVDA trade I put on a couple days after entry. I was tested on both sides of the iron condor and got out for a small profit. I closed my JNJ put spread for a $26 loss. I will be shying away from debit spreads due to the burn by JNJ. I closed my WMT Iron Condor at a $17 profit. I closed my XLE call spread around my 50% of max profit.

On March 6, I put an Iron Condor on in X. For this trade my call strike prices are at $42 & $43 and the puts on the original trade were $32 & 31. I this trade brought in $38 with a $62 at risk. The original trade is below. I closed this trade yesterday at $11 which is a little more than 25% of max profit

I closed my XRT trade for $10 which was 25% of my max profit and reestablished the trade adjusted down for the stock price. My current iron condor strikes on the call side are $44 & $45 and the put strikes are at $41 & $40. I brought in $32 with $68 at risk.

I have placed some more trades on ETFs following the Indices. I have an iron condor on IWM that brought in $40 and an iron condor on QQQ for $36. My GM iron condor is in trouble right now and my GDX iron fly is behaving but I am looking for an exit if I can get one from it.

This week I but an IC on BX which is already approaching a potential 25% profit target. I sold a put spread on NFLX for $32, and an iron condor on CSX for $32. I am trying to be more mechanical and only collect 1/3 the width of my strikes to remove some delta risk from my portfolio. I am keeping my strikes on my spreads $1 wide to stay mechanical until my account becomes larger. Now, I also start looking to manage trades at 25%. My evaluation at the 25% profit target won't be mechanical managing, if I am comfortable with the position then I will stay in it. Tastytrade was discussing the earlier managing of winners removes some P/L volatility. Collecting the 1/3 the width of the spread strikes should allow me to stay in theses trades closer to a 50% profit target with less issues of being tested. I am hoping that these small adjustments will give me some more consistent success, and allow more profitability. As always feedback is always welcomed and appreciated. 

Follow Up On Febrauary

So if you are new here I am tracking a micro options trading account. I started a couple of weeks ago with $560. You can read about my first trades here, and I put some other trades on in this post. Let's jump right into what I have done in my account in the last couple days.

On 2/28/27, I put an Iron Condor on XRT netting $.50 with $1 wide wings. This underlying has an IV Rank of 47 at the time of this writing. My short call is at the $45 strike and the Short put is at $42. Depending on how this behaves in terms of volatility I may manage this as an Iron Fly. Below you can see the charts and where I put the trade on.

Yesterday, on 3/2/17, I moved my Iron Condor in GDX to an Iron Fly. I netted an extra $0.10 in premium and now only have $.05 at risk in this trade with 49 days left till expiration. I am not feeling very good about GDX coming back my way unless the Fed decides not hike rates. However, I feel comfortable letting this ride with $5 on the table. If I can get out of this trade for a profit I will be happy. Below you can see the updated trades on GDX and can see where I bought back the higher call spread and sold the new call spread to make this an Iron Fly.

Putting the Iron Fly on in GDX freed up some buying power for me and I put on my last trade which is an Iron Condor in NVDA for the March Expiration. I put the trades on at the 40 Delta and netted $0.71 with $1 wide wings on the condor. This seemed like a really nice risk reward matrix on NVDA. Check out the chart and trade below.

One of the things that I think has happened is that IV has expanded since I put on my other trades otherwise I would believe I should be looking to manage some of these trades soon. I have been mentored by many of you reading these either here or on r/options, I appreciate all the feedback. I promise I won't be a one trick pony with these Iron Condors forever. I appreciate all the help you have shown me and I hope I can show you that your advice has fallen on good ears with some winning trades. In closing, you can see my P/L to date, and the only loss I have locked in is that dumb move I did in TSLA with their earnings.

Any advice is always appreciated, and check back soon for more updates in trades in my Micro Options account.