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Well, it's not that bad. XLU is slipping a little more. I moved down to a 5 minute chart to anticipate a move to the 35 mark.
Not much is happening and I am not interested in a STUUD trade. So I decided to do another option collar strategy. I couldn't decide to do SSO or SDS, so I decided to do both and call it a contra collar strategy. Since SSO and SDS oppose each other's direction in the market (SPX), I can catch the market moving in either direction in a trade. And write weekly options against both positions. So I bought the June puts for each and then sold next week's options via a buy write. So, I list the trades and my new spreadsheet.
on the Contra Strategy, I bought another 100 of SSO to protect my outstanding call strike. It kind of backfired with no follow through. I should of taken a small loss, but I sold the 52 call, bought it back and then sold the 51 call. As long as the market does what it is doing, I am okay; but I have open downside on the 100. I was rolling over the other calls, buying down my strategy ante. The market is ranging with quick swings for added volatility to keep the ATM calls rich.
On my XLU strategy, I did the wrong thing again and did a BuyWrite to protect my 35 call strike. That was dumb, should of done a straight buy. But I saw price rolling over on the chart so I closed it out as price went back to ranging in the 34s.
I have not updated my journal. I had been trying to learn to trade SSO against my written strike price and I continue to fail in the endeavor. At this point it's not working for me. But, I have plenty of cash in my account, so if my trade fails, I just quickly write an ITM option against the failed trade. So, I am nickel and diming my strategy. So, I had many 100s of shares of SSO outstanding with covered calls. So, they all cleared Friday with the Feb monthly option expiration. So, I updated my spreadsheet and it says the strategy should be in the black with option rollovers this Friday. I have had no need to trade against SSO 55 this week, so I will just wait. Currently 54.48.
XLU is quite the ETF. It's all over the place. Opening gaps, quick moves then reversals. So, it is difficult to trade it against my 35 strike price. If I have another 600 shares outstanding, it limits my cash for trading SSO. I can have 400 - 500 shares of SSO outstanding. So instead of getting in a pinch, I decided to move the call options from 35 to 36. I made a profit on the 35s, but my startegy is still in the red. No problem, March is dividend month and if XLU dips I will move back to 35.
Well, I am still trying to adapt to the trading world. My account is growing, just slowly. This is a retirement account so I can only go long stock. I can short e-minis, but they are out of my league. I will get better. Everytime I tried to trade SSO, it backfired or stalled so I just wrote an option against my trade. My Strategy went to profit and then last week when the market reversed back against me, I closed out 200 shares and open short options as selling a buy-write. Better safe than sorry, but it clipped my profits a bit. Anyhow that's the way it is. I updated my strategy on the spreadsheet and I show a profit. And today with a dip in the market, I rolled lower in strike prices to collect more premiums.
