go long?

I'm pretty short term for my index trades. I'm also not very good at keeping this blog updated, but I only do this to clarify my thoughts. I sold the rest of my index puts this morning. I kept one RUT July 850 put for no good reason. I'm glad I sold the rest. My cheesy short term buy signal also kicked of on the NDX & RUT. It's just a combo of MACD, Slow Sto. & and my support & resistance guesses. Things still look negative on the daily charts but that bet has worked out pretty badly.
I bet we get a bunch of analysis over the weekend on the effect of higher 10 year bonds. IMHO the sell off was justified. With options expiration next week we may get a lot of chop, but I doubt we get another move straight back up. I like Rev Shark over on RM. His commentary is of a similar bent.
One of my silly tricks is to start a spread delta neutral.** In this case, since I think we are going up I started a bear call ratio spread. I will turn it into a regular bear call spread on my next sell signal. If we don't go up I don't lose any real money. If we do go up & then turn back down (and if I get a sell signal in time). I sell more of the nearer to the money calls for a higher price. Here is how I am doing it (ratio wise):
RUT STO n Jul 850 calls @ 12.5
BTO 4n Jul 880 calls @ 3.7
If we drop like a stone from here oh well. I lose a little. If the market lifts and stays higher I lose a little since I would cover the spread with 3 weeks or so till expiration.
I get to make money if we rise and I get a good sell signal, then I would sell 3n of the 850 calls at my higher price. If the market ignores my sell signal and still goes higher, I lose less money than I would by buying the straight spread.
Question: why don't I just trade by going long puts or calls?
Answer Not sure. It may be better I'm still testing this out.
Thats the theory anyhow.

** not really delta neutral more like cost neutral. I'm net positive the underlying with this strategy.