follow the leader

I need to do a better job of following the indicators I spent soooo much time learning. Common things like MACD, RSI, Stochastics, support & resistance, bollinger bands. Instead I spend time watching the $TICK. My time frame is wrong for the tick. I don't need to care about +-1000 tick reversals and tick hooks. It doesn't matter over a 2 week holding period. That is about my normal holding period.
I held my bear call spreads thinking I could reap some 'free' decay over the holiday. AS usual that was a mistake. The NDX & RUT are still on buy signals. I should have bought some calls.
Now it looks like the market is bailing me out and I expect to be on sell signals soon. But that is not the point. Yes, my signals are often wrong. I do have a positive expectancy if I have the courage and discipline to follow the signals.
One problem with holding positions in opposition to my signals is the exit strategy. My signals give perfectly good exit signals. Now that I am on the wrong side of the trade when do I exit? What is my stop loss? I'll tell you, I don't have a good stop loss if I don't follow my signal.
Sometimes life is tougher if you are stupid.

notes to myself

Need to account for seasonality. Today hurt. Got my very late buy signals. New quarter / half/ holidays tend to be positive. I need to account for that.

Dive, Dive Dive!

I'm back into full money losing mode, er I mean I have my full bear call spreads in place. NDX 1975 (short) 2025 (long) & RUT 850 s 860 s 880 long. As always, the front month to take advantage of decay. Not always the best play FWIW. If I get a buy signal I will cover 1/3 this morning. That seems likely, and I will lose some money on this one.

regrets

Never bought those calls yesterday, boy was that a mistake. Oh well.
2:30:Chop chop. Lets see how the market handles the fed.
I Sold a bull put spread yesterday in the RUT. Long 770p -810p. But I over trade. So I bought to cover all of the short puts (810) yesterday leaving me long the 5 770p. The market went up a lot and I am down a bit on the overall trade. I didn't hold my short calls like I was supposed to. Not so bright. I don't want to hold those puts over the long weekend, This is July paper with lots of time decay. Plus, I don't have a sell signal. I should either resell (at lower prices) my 810 puts, of sell the 770 puts and take my loss like a real trader would. Not a poser.

fed shmed

I don't think the fed will make any significant language change. Given the big move yesterday I bet we chop around for the rest of the week. So I am selling some vol. Resold 1/3 of my NDX & RUT bear call spread. With the looooong weekend & slow July 4th week I hope to reap some decay.

I suck as a blogger

It's official. I do this to clarify my thoughts and when things are going well (like now) I tend to skip the blog. Luckily I doubt anyone reads this anyway. There is probably a way to see if anyone bothers to read my entries but I don't know how.
I've had a great time with this correction. I am mostly flat right now. I sold 2/3 of my short RUT & NDX calls yesterday and today. I've got a ratio -1 RUT 850 call & +3 880 calls. 1/4 ratio for the NDX 1975/2025 calls. That way if the markt tanks my long calls don't cost me anything. If we rally I am slightly delta positive.
I have had a great couple of weeks and now I have toned things back a bit. I would like to buy some calls but I need to step back and think about it.

confused

Still on my cheezy sell signal but it should go to neutral at any time. Not really sure what to do here,. I sold my last puts (DIA 137 puts bought last week). Now I have my bear call spreads on the NDX & the RUT left as well as my AMZN short & a few other trades (OIH bear call spread). Mostly in cash right now. I would like to go long but I have no signal yet.