new trade

Initiated iron condor trade on CME: Sept05 250/260/350/360 for a credit of $1.80. After reading financials looks like profits are just going to keep growing with the strong economy. So i put a 50 point cushion to the upside, and 40 points to the downside. Probably won't start seeing real gains on this position until september, but when it hits the $1.40 mark i'm going to take profit. When's the last time your bank gave you 14% on a $1000 in 2 months. Not bad.

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Closed out ADBL trades yesterday because it was trading below $17....and it hit my stop loss of $.50 In the pre market it looks like it's trading back up. Great...looks like I need to take less risky trades, especially during earnings season.

Lost another 20 pips in FX account. Tried selling at previous day's low. It broke but not enough to hit my limit.

Today's trades

BC triggered a trade in GBPUSD today at 1.7386. I didn't take it because I thought the pivot play on cable at 1.7444 was a safer play. And it looks like I didn't get it right this time. The BC play netted a max 50 pips, while the pivot play stopped me out at a 20 pip stop loss. Bought USDCHF on BC indicator at 1.2982 and that got stopped out on a 30 pip loss. So, I'm down 50 pips in my FX account today. I think i'll stick to rob's trades. haha

In options, ADBL went ITM today. I'm setting a stop loss at $.60 making it a 1:1 trade. It is on an uptrend, but it looks like it may close today below the trend line. I'll wait until tomorrow to make an adjustment. All other trades look good.

Using the gyration finder in Platinum last night I came up with 4 potential credit spreads for September: BIIB, WLT, BC, IR
I'm not going to enter into any September plays until 45 days until expiration. 45 days is a long time where anything can happen.

4 Iron Condors and a Bull Put

On July 18th 4 positions were initiated....
Iron condors:
GOOG 260/270/350/360 for a $3.10 credit
NUE 40/45/55/60 for a $.95 credit
CME 260/270/340/360 for a $2.70 credit
VLO 70/75/95/100 for a $1.05 credit
Bull Put Spread:
ADBL 15/17.5 for a $.60 credit

Being a novice I didn't pay attention to the fact that this is earnings month. I was really worried when Google released earnings, but so far the stock has stayed around the 300 level. NUE had really good earnings along with the rest of the steel sector so I got hit on that one. Stock jumped up above the $55 level, so I bought back the call side of the iron condor for a debit of $1.30(ouch!)because I think the steel sector has been beaten. I think a lot of investors are going to jump in to this sector on good news. So as long as it does not go below $45 my max loss is goin to be $.35(not too bad)...It's all looking good right now, but I still have 26 days to go. If all goes well I should grow my account 10% this month, even after the hit with Nucor.

Google...??

Google announced earnings today. Good profits, but there were negative remarks durning the conference call....sent the stock down as much as 20 points in the after market to bring it to about 298. Hmm, I have an 260/270/350/360 Iron condor on that bad boy. So the drop was kinda a relief. We'll just have to see what happens. I'm thinking with a big drop like that, the market is gonna see it as a buying opportunity. It's a great company with positive cash flow, good earnings and it pretty much dominates the industry. And for those of ya who do not know what an Iron condor is, you can "Google" it... hehe...but pretty much it's an advanced option play where if the price closes in between 270 and 350 by the option expiration, I make money and that is a good thing....it's a risky play to put on during earnings season, especially with volatile stocks like google, but what's life without a little risk right....

As far as the forex, i'm staying out of it for a few days to see what's gonna happen with the Yuan reevaluation and how the market is going to play that....that's just a little too risky for me...