SPX (S&P 500 Index) Iron Condor initiated on 13 May 2008
19 Jun 2008
SPX (S&P 500 Index) Iron Condor initiated on 13 May 2008
Trade Summary
SPX at 1334.44 (-3.37)
0 days to Jun expiration.
Do nothing, let remaining call spreads expire worthless.
Profit or Loss: +$45 per entry.
Trade Analysis
There is no point in buying back the remaining call spreads for $0 even if you can manage to get filled. The SPX is currently trading at about 24 points away from our short put strike. If we hadn’t made the adjustment on 12 June, we could be buying the put spread back today at about $0.60 debit, which will increase the profitability of this trade.
Well, we didn’t make much from this trade, but at least we didn’t lose anything. Let’s hope all our trades for July will do better!
This trade made $45 using $800 of margin, which means that this trade made a mere 5.63%. As such, this trade will cost you $5.63 for your June’s bill.
Good trading,
Gary
***************************Trade History****************************
12 Jun 2008
SPX (S&P 500 Index) Iron Condor initiated on 13 May 2008
Trade Summary
SPX at 1350.12 (+14.62)
7 days to Jun expiration.
Buy SPX Jun 1310 Put
Sell SPX Jun 1300 Put
For a net price of $1.55-$1.60 Debit or better.
Trade Analysis
I’m not sure how long this bullish rebound will last. Chances are high that the market will resume its downtrend after a while. So I feel that it’ll be wise to eliminate our downside risk for this trade and take our profit off the table while we can.
Our intial alarm was set at 1370. As you can tell, we have long crossed that line. I was waiting for a chance to get out of our put spread and today seems like a good chance.
We still have a put spread left over from the RUT iron condor intiated on 22 May and the SPY iron condor initiated on 29 May.
We should not have too high an expectation for this month and should be happy if we can even get our of June with a small profit. So far so good. We managed to lock in 17.65% profit with the 14 May RUT iron condor. It is very likely that we’ll simply let this remaining SPX call spread expire worthless next week. If nothing goes wrong, we are likely to lock in some tiny profit from this SPX iron condor.
For the remaining positions, rest assured that we’ll try our best to avoid any losses at all. After all, I have these same positions on like many of you!
Take care out there folks!
Good trading,
Gary
*********************Trade History*************************
13 May 2008
SPX (S&P 500 Index) Iron Condor initiated on 13 May 2008
Trade Summary
SPX at 1399.57 (-4.02)
37 days to Jun expiration.
Sell SPX Jun 1485 Call
Buy SPX Jun 1495 Call
Sell SPX Jun 1310 Put
Buy SPX Jun 1300 Put
For a net price of $2.00 Credit or better. [All tos auto-trade participants were filled at $2.00.]
Total margin required: $800 per entry.
Trade Analysis
This is our first trade for June. We’ve been queuing for the past two days to initiate some new positions for June but we simply can’t get filled. As I speak, I have another working order waiting to be filled.
We are risking $800 to make $200. This give us a risk/reward ratio (R3) of 4. As you can see from the P&L chart below, this iron condor has a probability of 73.23% of being successful.
The breakeven points for the iron condor is at 1487 on the upside and 1308 on the downside. This condor is current flat, having a delta of a mere -1.06 per position.
Since we are short the 1485 call and 1310 put, we shall set out mental stop at about 60 points away from our short strikes: at 1425 and 1370.We should be alert and ready for any adjustments when SPX trades pass our mental stops.
I will keep you posted and informed about any necessary adjustments in the coming days. Let’s hope that we don’t have to adjust anything for June!
Good trading,
Gary
Founder, Head Trader of MarketNeutralOptions
www.MarketNeutralOptions.com
