July Performance Results

Closed 2nd month of new RUT Iron Condor Strategy:

June +8.94%
July +11.42%

Opened RUT Aug 760/750 Bear Call Spreads today at .95, looking forward to another profitable month. We'll track volatility over next two weeks to ease into our spreads. This Call Spread is still trading at good target price, if RUT moves above 710, we'll want to click up a strike pair. Will notify regarding our Puts later.

Good weekend.

7/18 Update

Whew! We made it, RUT opened at 696.95, our spreads expire worthless and we can bank our full premiums. Thanks for hanging in there.

Will post July results over the weekend.

7/17 Update

Alright, we're gonna play with fire. RUT closed day at 696 and we're short the 700 Calls. If we traded out today, we'd of had to pay anywhere from 1.50-2.00 per spread. If market opens under 700, where in full profit. If it opens up to 702, we're in same spot we would have been closing out today.

Google earnings missed expectations after close today, so hopefully that will put damper on markets open tomorrow.

Either way, it's never dull.

Update 7/16

Strong market bounce today, we have nice cushion on all of our remaining Bull Put Spreads to get us through Thursday and market open Friday. Hopefully there won't be too much follow through to the upside, as we opened those 710/700 Bear Call spreads to complete our Condors. We'll watch them closely throughout the day. Be prepared to take action, rolling them into August if necessary.

We will be opening new "Catastrophic Coverage" puts before close on friday as well, to cover our tails.

7/15 Mid-Day Update

Open top Bear Call Spread for RUT Iron Condors. Sell 710/700 spread for .35 or better. If spread begins to trade above .65, click up a strike to 710/720.

It's going to take a whole lotta good news to break these levels before friday and we can squeak out a couple % points.

Update 07/14

So we got pretty battered around today. RUT was down 1.5%, while DOW was down less than .5%. Were only 14.5 points away from crossing the line on our sold Puts, just a hair over a 2% move is going to drops into negative territory. This is one of those few unfortunate weeks where we're really going to have to keep our eye on the ticker.

Keep you e-mail alerts on, we'll give you the heads up on any necessary action. Meanwhile, get back to doing what you love, breath easy, these 4 days will soon be behind us and we'll be on to a new slate of trades.

Update 7/13/08

Long story short - I'm back to posting.

This is expiry week, and it could be a tough one, we had to roll down our RUT 660/650 bull puts to protect our capital, but settled last week above that 660 line. We had to eat some crow in doing it, but that's ok. Our 650/640 and 640/630 positions will keep us in the black for this cycle if we stay above 650 on Friday's open (when our options settle).

Although this is primarily a hands-off system of investing, we will want to keep a mindful eye on the index. If possible we will want to open some Bear Call Spreads to complete our Iron Condors, there was so much downward momentum this cycle that we never got a chance to open positions. It'll be worth it here to make good use of our margin and add a percentage point or two to our bottom line.

Depending on volatility, we may try to put some August $$ to work this week. We will also roll out our Hazard Insurance positions before the weeks close.

Good Trading!!