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It ain’t called catching, its called fishing

  #211 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416

My indicators said go short vol a couple of weeks ago, and I put on a number of short vol trades following that. Most of the setups were shitty. The trade was up money for awhile then down then up then down. Very bad conditions for short vol. I knew the indicator was gonna shift long vol today and it did.

According to the rules I have to take the short vol trades off.

My first reaction was to say, dammit I am down $100 on this trade so let me wait another day to see if I can eke out a win. Which is typical of the weasly logic I apply in such situations that always gets me into trouble. Next thing I know it's a week later and that $100 has blown into $1000 and I am married to the trade. Capitulation is in the cards somewhere south of $1000.

So then I got on the IM to my new Risk Manager and confessed my sins. No response. So I filled about ten screens of garbage about why I needed to break the rules and keep this trade on.

After ten screens of garbage sent out over IM I had a change of heart and suddenly capitulated on the $100. So I closed out all the short vol except the Jan credit spreads, which are still in the black. I may take those off too as wins once the market opens up again.

The point is, the presence of the Risk Manager caused me to do the right thing, despite my strong desire to break the rules.

I am going to now declare this as the Turning Point in my trading career.

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  #212 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416

Looking back over the trades of the past year, three of my accounts are up spectacularly. Two are down significantly but coming back.

Anyway, I want to focus on the three accounts that are up. All three are vol strategy, all three followed the rules well. So I take this as proof positive the my vol strategy can perform as expected. A lot of very good trading, traded right through the mini-crash, no sweat, flipped the cards over right at the top tick like a boss. I can definitely do this.

The accounts that are down, this is purely due to big trades that turned into losses and would have been cut off immediately if I had a had this risk manager in place looking over my shoulder. No risk manager would have let me trade that size anyway.

So for 2016 I firmly believe that we are going to make the vol trading work.

It's a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be.

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  #213 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416


Although I have been in trading the market for two and a half years now, this past year has been the first one in which I was trading on a daily basis.

Some very hard lessons.

One thing that sticks out is that I have made unforgivable mechanical errors due to sloppiness. Either fat finger mistakes or not pushing the order through properly. These errors have cost me dearly. What has typically happened is that the mechanical errors resulted in losing positions that I failed to close the next day upon discovery. The worst one took a week to realize.

So I need to add to my list of Rules that mechanical error trades must be closed immediately, regardless. This is a pretty obvious point. But once a loss gets beyond a few dollars it gets harder and harder for me to take.

Another thing that the market has beaten into me with a stick -- If the directional assumption of the trade turns out to be wrong from the minute the order is placed, then take the loss right away. If the trade goes wrong from the very beginning then there is something wrong about my thinking or timing.

Typically the wrong aspect of my timing is simply that I am late to the trade, and it's an indication of FOMO being buried somewhere in the decision to take the trade. I need to be selling into that big green candle and buying into the big red one.

I am now a week into the experience of using the risk manager/trading partner. We haven't really formally set up the risk management program, so at this point it just amounts to having phone conversations and IMing after the close of trading.

One result of this is I have naturally cut back on the size of my trades. This is going to be a big theme for me in 2016, smaller size. And taking losses faster. Fast loss is the best loss.

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  #214 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416

I think the trading partner/risk manager sessions are helping. Anyway, my PL is up since I started this. Some good, very mechanical trading in options. This is what I needed.

We are going to have a risk management meeting next week to work out the overall strategy, game plan and ground rules for next year's trading. I am going to stick to the plan and establish fines for my breaking rules. That's it, if the risk manager can catch me breaking a rule he will pocket the fine. Maybe that would be a good set of checks and balances.

The market forecast is for more volatility next year. I understand that to mean a change in the short vol strategy we have been following with VIX, etc. One of the key indicators for that whole strategy, the weekly roll MACD on XIV, has been trending closer and closer to zero, indicating that the XIV trade is going to get tougher and tougher. Not a lot of layups like before.

So, we will have to retool the strategy and learn to trade volatility from the long side. UVXY debit spreads and synthetics. I am also going to learn to scalp UVXY to the upside. Should be a lot more action in that regard, given the new environment.

I've been learning to scalp using Bitcoin. Single coin trades, simple strategy "buy on big red candle short on big green candle." I need to find a better charting solution for this. I wish I could trade it via TOS.

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  #215 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416

The theme for this year's trading is 'disciplline'.

I have decided to start fining myself $100 for rules violations.

Will stay mechanical, trade small, trade the checklist.

No FOMO, no revenge, no fat fingers, no shotgun marriages.

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  #216 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416

The first week of trading under a regime of out-of-pocket fines for rules violations.

The result?

No rules violations. Very steady and mechanical. A lot of hands-sitting.

I took one profit on perfectly executed SPY iron condor that maxed out, and one other in FXE. I have some short vol positions on that I am feeling some heat on, but with a month to expiration I expect to get relief at some point.

I am mostly in cash now but I still have long deltas on in Feb expiration in addition to the vol products, and I need to start working to reduce these. I would target a short 300 deltas for the near term. Unless the Fed and the other central banks come out soon with big easing I think I want to be net short near term.

As I said before, hiring a risk manager is the turning point for me. Now I am going to trade small and get consistent and forget about PL. This can and will take some time. But I have plenty of time, and I have capital.

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  #217 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416

Three weeks later and still working with the risk manager. Success!

Discipline has been outstanding. No rules violations. No big trades, no excessive risk. Very mechanical. My market awarness is much better than before. All around much better.

I've had a change of mentality about PL, decided to focus for this year on getting more and more disciplined in my life, particularly around emotions. So that has become a major theme for 2016. Master the emotions.

Another thing that has changed is that IDGAF about making a big profit. If I can average $50 on my one lot Johnny trades, I will take it. I am going to focus on keeping grinding it out and worry about making serious money later. I don't have lots of time, none of us do, but I will pretend that I do have all the time in the world to make this happen.

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  #218 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416

Trades for today (trying to get on some short deltas):
XLU Mar call spread 47 49 $0.64 credit IVR 81
FXE Mar call spread 110 113 $0.86 credit IVR 100
CAT Mar call spread 67.5 70 $0.94 credit IVR 76

Put in a LNKD IC order earnings play at 100 IVR, didn't get filled, thank goodness. Sheesh, LNKD is a POS but at least no cat photos if that's any consolation.

Otherwise, in the portfolio I've got
AAPL IC
CCL call spread
FCX put spread
GILD put spread
coupla TLT call spreads
TSLA IC
TWTR put spread
buncha rotten UVXY call spreads
and some VXX calls spreads
and some rotten XIV

Waiting for 'em to rally up to 1950 then clear off some of this old inventory and put on more short deltas.

Mo' short deltas.

[side comment, as for the UVXY and VXX trades, we have now had a month of backwardation, which is actually a 2SD+ event (very rarely happens). That roll yield generated by this backwardation has raised the support levels for all of these vol products. Maybe 3 or 4 points for VXX and 6 to 7 for UVXY, I am unable to calculate how much. Anyway it is significant. So the assumption behind these trades no longer holds, and unless we get a good dose of contango next week on a major rally I am going to have to take them off for a painful loss before Feb expiration. And this leads me to the point that I have avoided putting on any long vol hedges in UVXY up to now, since I got my fingers burned last time, but again, the old assumptions from the low volatility regime no longer hold. I need to start getting some short deltas on via UVXY. Every time we get one of these rips I want to take on a little more.]

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  #219 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416

Highlights of the past week for me, my FCX play paid finally came in, after inflicting a lot of brain damage on me. Like a lot of other positions lately. I got caught by WTW, initially it was green then I made the mistake of holding into earnings. One of these days I am going to learn about earnings. There's a right way to do it and a wrong way.

I have long positions in base metals and PMs and also biotech.
GDX and SLV. I am waiting to get some USLV.

I put on a bunch of short verticals in SPY QQQ DIA IWM for April, as I see us hitting 1800 at some point before then.

Options portfolio is now short delta for the first time ever, just slightly. I'd like to get a few hundred more deltas on, at least, before we make the next leg down.

Vol products. Despite the fact that my XIV position is up 33% from the low last week, I have decided I need another toolkit. Swing trading these things when VIX is over 20 can be very painful. Very choppy. Sailing in a very gusty wind. I do not like it, and I it's just untradeable for me. So I am venturing into intraday, trading off the charts, now learning VWAP reversals.

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  #220 (permalink)
 
suko's Avatar
 suko 
Kyoto, Japan
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TW TOS LiveVol
Broker: TD, TW, IB, Saxo
Trading: VXX, VIX, SPY
Posts: 1,326 since Oct 2013
Thanks Given: 844
Thanks Received: 1,416


I need to say something about the contrarian approach vs the trade-the-trend approach.

One thing I learned when I first started trading is that FOMO on trending stocks is a huge problem for me. My biggest trading psych problem.

FOMO chasing after trending stocks is the default retail trader/investor mindset and practice. If you talk with retail traders they will mostly repeat the mantra of "the trend is your friend."

OTOH contrarianism is the default mindset for professional traders (by professionals I do not mean self-employed retail but traders on salary and market makers). Market makers by definition always have to take the other side of your FOMO trade, so by their nature they "sell into strength and buy into weakness."

Anyway, coming at this with a retail mindset, and making the switch to contrarianism is tough. There is a lot of fear. It's like you have to rewire a lifetime of thinking and behavior.

It's really like making the switch from blue pill to red pill. Or from no game to got game. Lotta fear and pain in the process of making the change.

Old habits of thought die hard.

But I need to do it not because contrarianism is better than trend trading or momo trading or whatever, but just because I need to rewire my trading psych to burn out the old, bad habits of thinking.

So nowadays I am doing some very small day trading using the VWAP reversals strategy. Keeping the size down.

And I have been learning about VWAP. It's kind of the all-purpose indicator, the one indicator to rule them all.

An interesting thing about VWAP is that institutional traders, guys at banks and funds, are incented to trade a certain way with respect to VWAP. That is, VWAP is a sort of benchmark for pricing for the day. It's one way banks judge trader performance objectively.

If VWAP is the benchmark, then if the current stock price is below VWAP it's considered to be underpriced and thus buyable and vice versa. So as a trader you get a bonus from your employer if you can get your buy order filled below VWAP, and likewise for sale orders.

The institutional trading platform is even set up so that the trader gets a bonus of a certain amount of money for each share purchased below VWAP and sold above VWAP.

In other words, contrarianism is hardwired.

OTOH, for the retail trader, when a stock breaks up through VWAP it's a bullish signal and a sign to buy, and vice versa.

Now that I understand this it becomes very easy to judge my own performance. If I am buying above VWAP I am calling it a FOMO trade. I need to focus on how the stock behaves right as it hits VWAP.

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