Wednesday, August 13th

Exciting news worked out!

So the test last night of use a different order type to place the order actually worked!

1st trig OCO

Yeah to Nick for figuring that out.  

We now have a way to enter trades so that our stops are in place immediately once the ordered is filled.  That saves us some risk between when the trade goes on in the morning and when we can put the stops on later that night for entry the following morning. 

I like this!  I'm sort of as geekily (yes, that's a legitimate term.)  excited of this as I was for the trail stops.  And I really like those.  That's a great way to further minimize loss and protect profits.  

Going forward, we'll be putting our orders on using that type and getting our stops on right away.

On to Trades:

We closed out profitably thanks to a trail stop today on our YHOO Condor.  It looks like Yahoo is still in the range of the condor, but the gap up today triggered our trail stop.  Luckily, we were still profitable.  So that's a +1 to the favorable close.  We're still hitting those more than losses, so something we're doing is working well.  

Overall, our positions are doing well.   We have 4 Iron condors and 1 vertical, a put spread.  True to our strategies, we sold all these positions, and things are looking mixed at the moment. 

GLD -- we have a condor on GLD that we sold.  September expiration 130/131/122/121.  The underlying is staying firmly in our range, though we're not yet to a break-even trail stop.

IWM -- Sold the September Iron condor 117/118/108/107.  The stock has been going up for the last 9 days or so, so maybe a put vertical would have been a better choice.  As long as we stay in our range, we'll be okay.  Though it looks like there might be a level of resistance at just over $114.  This will be fun to watch over the next few days.

QQQ -- this is one where we might lose the condor because the stock is going higher.  I'm thinking we're going to get stopped out of this one soon, and I'm not exactly pleased with that.  Another up day will do it for us.   I can see on the chart why we thought a condor was a good choice, however, this week has been up, up and more up.  Hmmmm.....  not entirely sure what to do about this.  I realize you win some and you lose some when trading options, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.  I guess there is the possibility that this will go back down tomorrow, and we can stay in the position, but I'm not very hopefully.

SPY -- We sold the September expiration 198/199/186/185 Iron Condor today.  I put the stops on tonight (last time!), and we're going to be sitting and watching this one for a while.  If we have more days like today with the small gap up, we're going to be out of it pretty quickly.  It's actually quite similar to the above situation with QQQs right now. 

TWTR -- Twitter moved up today, which is what I want it to do.  I'm a happy girl at the moment on this one.  We get to keep watching it and see what happens.  It's already got the trail stop in place, so we're good to sit back and enjoy.

And that's all folks!  (for tonight at any rate.)  Happy Wednesday one and all, and I'll check back in tomorrow.

Question -- do you like seeing charts and additional information?  Let me know in a comment.  I appreciate the feedback!