FIRST BLOOD

Finally starting to get forex trading. After consistently missing moves like this finally bagged one! 1:12 risk/reward, $1,750 profit using 1.5% of a $10,000 trading account. That's a 17.5% return in 2 hours, baby! (EUR/USD)

Here's to many more!!

Follow that up with a quick $270, why not? 

As to the straddles, that project is shelved for now. I simply don't have the analytical tools necessary at this time.

Re-Thinking Straddles

This week's straddle plays were a flop across the board. However, had they been held through earnings on 3/4 trades I would have doubled my money. That 4rth trade was HPE which is a blue chip and didn't move at all.

ICT says that the money is made on the analysis and trade entry.

I propose that there are a certain subset of companies which a very suitable for holding straddles through earnings.

1. First off, the analysis will be limited to companies with weekly options. This suggests the options are liquid enough.

Ideally, a chart of straddle price vs. stock price would be compared. The behavior before earnings and after earnings of both would be compared...However this is impossible...I can't obtain such charts because the data is not available to me. Therefore I need to make my own charts

At pre-determined intervals throughout the trading day I need to sample straddle data points.

Long-term straddles on issues with very low volatility are another potential area of interest of course. Strangles would actually be better here due to the high cost associated with long term options.

I need to come up with a plan to implement this data collection and solve the question of how best to trade short-term earnings straddles once and for all!!!

--It could turn out to be a crap shoot...at that point, whatever generally results in the best performance will be employed!

First equity curve

Yes, I got very frustrated and stopped after the last two fails mid September (If I had actually left those on the second would have been a success and made me break even again!)

But I have my first equity curve. Yay! Going to get back into it shortly because this is what I want to do for an independent living!!!

READ FROM RIGHT TO LEFT. I DID NOT LOSE ALL MY MONEY XD

Bawk Bawk Bawk...The Big Chicken!

So this week I put on a 5 day calendar trade on SPX. I got out 2 days before expiration because the market threatened one side of the position. Cost of trade: 2.9K. Resulting profit at get out: .54K (after commissions)

I keep doing this. Because I fear taking ANY loss whatsoever I get out at a low or high and the market reverses and everything is fine. Day of expiration today...strike was 2180 and spx is 2181...could have made 4K!!! Would have made my profit target for the month 2 weeks early. Now I'm in a pinch. I need to be willing to take some sort of loss. Otherwise I can't make the big bucks...can't make my profit targets, and will continue to be mediocre. After all what's the real risk: That the maximum value of the trade will be lost if MKT makes a massive move. Not letting trade run to get to real profits is playing with fire it seems. Sooner or later massive move will happen!

STOP BEING A CHICKEN DUDE. Be willing to take a 25% LOSS. Set limit orders to take the loss automatically. Your human judgement and fears just get in the way!!!


This has happened far too frequently. Because of not willing to lose I've missed out on tens of thousands of dollars in NET potential gains. I just have to recognize that this fear is irrational and suck it up, trade with what history tells me.

From Now On. Limited Maximum risk, Non-interventionalist weekly strategies automatically closed out for a loss if it gets to that point. Good luck!

On to Phase 3!

Phase 1: 2.5K loss. End of phase 1 came when I decided I wasn't making money and I had had enough. I decided to do paper trading only until I was making money...or something.

Phase 2: With the market in the Toilet following Britain's unexpected pullout from the EU, I placed my first big trade using my entire trading account and then some long an inverse volatility ETN. I made 4.4K. I then went on to trade options on SPX, netting another 3K or so. Phase 2 lasted a month and a half.

Phase 3: I've been hitting the books, blogs, etc. and paper trading earnings trades (so glad I paper traded these!!! Not working ATM. That's what paper trading is for. Building confidence and tweaking strategies before doing it for real. Maybe even optimizing alongside what is working. Now reading Keene's 2013 book on options trading. Stoked, although I must remember to stick to my own principles. I myself have experienced what happens when you allow your methodologies to become hopelessly clouded by others' ideas and opinions...things stop working. In fact, this greatly contributed to my 2.5 K loss and subsequent pullout, when a 1.4K profit (if I remember) turned into a 1.1K loss...due to this very thing.

Still approved to trade SPX and volatility as opportunity arises. SPX has been in a slight bit of turmoil recently so I have stayed out. Hoping tomorrow will shine some light on direction and so I can get those 2 free days of weekend decay.

But phase 3 is where I go pro for real. Learning all sorts of trading knowledge and strategies...so that I can pick the most promising that appear to work for me.

Stoked!

P.S. I just got the notification from yahoo finance that "Wall Street flat ahead of Friday's Jobs Report"...Yeah...something like that. Good to wait till tomorrow to trade :) Need to start paying more attention to the events that will be going on. Should start watching the entertaining news from guerrilla stock trading .com

Was right about trade in last 2 posts. Update on loss mentality.

Instead of making 1.7K that week, because I was afraid to take any losses I wound up only making .2K on the trade, pulling out before it got any good. I should have recognized the risk/reward was good at ~ 1.6:1. Great for an iron condor. And that was max risk mind you. If the market started really going against me I could have gotten out at less than max loss, especially if this was to the downside. In fact, when the market closed at 2165 the next day I knew that the trade would be OK with 2 days to spare.

Anyhow, I told myself I needed to re-calibrate and be accepting of possible losses in order to win. Just don't let those losses get out of hand...that's the secret.

Really, trading, entrepreneurship...life in generally...if you want to improve and do more/do better you will have an eye on constantly improving your results within the limits of your emotional capital. BTW, one way to have more emotional capital is to go to bed planning to get work done, wake up the next morning, and then pretty much immediately start working. Don't waste time answering email because as Brain Tracy says in "No Excuses" basically this "unproductive" activity drains your emotional commitment to your work and then when its time to actually do things you don't feel like it. Save the "pleasant" tasks like email to the end of the day.

A little more knowledge goes a long way...

So it looks like I just became a sissy and felt I needed to pull out of the trade. I do have to admit I got pretty involved with it, more and more emotionally entangled. I suppose the secret is to be emotionally detatched! If I had held till now would have been 5.5K profit. I suppose it's not good to be keeping track like this! Time to move on to another trade.

But I'm seriously thinking of trading the VIX futures directly. Gonna explore that more. The issue with XIV is that it...since it is not trading but the futures are...it can really dive when a major calamity hits and there is no way to get out of the trade. I suppose I should always have stops for protection. But if you trade the futures I don't think there's that issue. And shorting the futures seems to be a good play. Maybe shorting those options on the futures would be good as well. Just need to stick with the vision. I'm trading too large to be comfortable with failure. I know. But I need to make a lot of money. Big balancing act. I suppose I should do "moonshot" trades then, like buy puts on SPX or something. But then there's a high probability of losing.

Something has kept me safe so far. I will trust some.

Out, with a 4.4K profit, 23.8% profit on trading capital used...1.7k or so was margin.

So perhaps things will recover but I just cannot wait. XIV was going nowhere even when VIX was falling to lows. It kindof seemed like large market players were piling on in the opposite direction. I suppose I should have gotten out at strength.

So essentially the trade could have been 20.21 * 900 shares to 29.81 which would be 8.64K. I got out at 4.45K instead of the 5.2K I had seen the day before. And a bit more than half of the maximum I could have seen had I been essentially a perfect trader. After all is said and done, average buying prices was 23.36 and percentage of profit on capital committed to trade was 23.8% over a total period of 18 days. Really good from a 1000ft view but when you consider I could have made nearly 50%...well...we have some room for improvement :). Stay safe though!

I applaud myself for taking the first large volatility trade (going all in) and coming out with a sizable profit, but I know I could have done better, especially since I ended up selling during a mini crash. I seem to have a good sense of mins and maxes and I will strive to trust myself a little more in the future.

Now it's time to withdraw 1.8K from my trading account to cover expenses. Although with that additional .7K I would have had a better payday :/

Then give it a few days and put a ratio spread on VIX betting it will go up. I do think I have been over-watching this trade a bit during the last few days and I'm fairly tired of this. I need to take a bit of a break from constantly watching the markets. I also need to somehow realize that I needn't be so hard on myself and that it's quite difficult to get things spot on, if not impossible.

I must celebrate the fact that a year or two ago I was a money-losing machine, and now I'm a money-making machine. Unfortunately my hopes were higher for this trade than the result...maybe that just shows the importance of hedging or something. For instance if I had put on that vix ratio trade I would have been a bit more comfortable waiting to see if spx turned around. I also could have put on a tighter trailing stop which would have prevented most of this gain-turned-smaller situation.

Another thing is next time I should also short uvxy or vxx if I cannot short the former as well as go long xiv. A uvxy short would have provided the best returns in this scenario of ~50%

Staring a 5.2K profit in the face

So today I experienced some rare market action as the VIX dived quite suddenly mid-day and XIV correspondingly spiked to a 5.2K profit. Since the VIX is basically at super lows, the only thing which really could be going for me with XIV is the 13-14% contango rolling addition. I suppose the vix could drop another 10% but this really just isn't all that likely ya know? So basically I'm sort of playing with fire at this point by sticking in this trade. I should also put a ratio spread going long vix at this point.

And now there was a terrorist attack in France so the markets are likely to have a couple rough days. Not really the best setup for me. Well, I suppose live and learn. We shall see.

US Markets enter a New Era...

Today, SPX closed at 2152. It solidly broke the previous all-time high of 2142 or so of the day before, and the all time high of a few months ago 2135 or so the day before that. The market rally seems to be fueled in large part by the promises of central banks to support the economy after Brexit, the low returns everywhere else...bonds at negative yields in some cases, etc. And while Britain and the EU tussle over the new order. Thus the market has decisively broken the stalemate it has had for the past several months. I'm wondering how long this is going to last.

So, the volatility trade is going well. From when I went all-in on Jun 28, to today, July 12 (a period of  14 days), my trade has had the following performance:

Cost Value: 18695.07. Since I have 800 shares that works out to $23.37 per share. Now the market value is: 23112.00 at the closing price of 28.89...and it went above 29 to 29.14 in extended hours today.

This means that I have an open market gain of 4416.93. Considering the 14 days that is approximately $315 per day. I expect this to taper off as the trade is left on. At only $200 per day, that would be ~6K per month. Which would be 72K per year. Now of course this isn't going to be the reality...I didn't buy into a money printing machine so to speak. It just shows the potential power of trading. I wish on the money printing machine though, LOL. And in essence, that is what trading will become to me. I mean how hard do you have to work, really? Not that hard I think. Mostly letting your capital sit in things that will appreciate and making sure everything is going in the right direction. I guess I'm just too impatient XD.

The big issues I face right now are 2-fold. 1) I need to figure out when to exit this trade...how to time it just right. 2) I need to figure out what I will do with my funds when I exit this trade. I'd rather not have everything sitting on the sidelines in cash. I need to put it to work. Now options trades are dangerous, so I cannot put everything into 1 trade. Thus if I am going to do options or what have you, I am going to have to trade multiple things or something...and they obviously cannot be correlated because if they are...then I could lose everything if the market has a bad day or week. Maybe I just need to be more vigilant about the options trades. Basically, don't let them expire? Because if I get out early I'm pretty much guaranteed not to lose all my money. This sort of conflicts with my day trading philosophy though.

So I need to work on directional trades AND market-neutral trades. Generally, the way I trade directionally with options I cannot put too much money into these I think. The risk is too high. Market neutral trades also have a very high risk in some sense. However, they take more capital to work than directional trades...these also have a higher chance of success, theoretically, it seems.

I mean honestly, like 72K/year is a lower salary than I could probably get at a good full-time job. The job would be far more stimulating, but at the same time...I am honing my skills on something which can explode. I.E. Next stop: hedge fund. Then I will become a millionaire many times over.

Also in the process, I can do some network marketing work and work on a startup since I will have time. I can also work on my truck and on my personal and social life. Really it's a bit of a hard way since I am in control and nobody is guiding me or telling me what to do, but I guess I just need to get over the mental blocks...and I need to do the research required to make sure I'm really doing a great job.

Another thing: I need to get back into social events, especially business ones. More hangouts with friends, etc. Dates... Yeah. the works! Let it rip! Oh yeah, first I need to finish my vehicle.

Over and out!

I quit my job...now I work part time. And I fund my lifestyle like Warren Buffet.

Hereby I make this official. It is partly an initiative after seeing what is possible, and what I think is properly doable...something I have already done at some level, and something I am now going to do on a scale I have never done before and is thus new territory for me.

I quit my job. Now it wasn't a very good job mind you. 24K per year self-employed was about what could be expected at the amount of effort I was putting in and the experience and "fanciness" I was employing. However, while I will continue to do some work in this e-commerce space, I will by and large not be counting on it to be my primary source of income. I guess things are just wrapping up or something. I'm not sure I want to quit entirely but I don't want to labor over trying to make a 2K or 3K target per month. Come what may instead I guess. I also want to remain diligent, however. Not just become extremely lazy and do nothing! NOOOO. While I don't think trading should take up all a body's time by any stretch, it's really the strategy research and testing...the indicator development...the system development which should be taking up the time. And this is preparation to be an effective entrepreneur. The entrepreneur creates the system, and the workers execute it. The entrepreneur must trust himself to make a good system--and work diligently at it--and trust the employees to execute it properly...while building in safe-guards to minimized the damage if they do not. I am not an employee, I am an entrepreneur. But I must also experience my own system and the way other systems work as well. And in some cases, I must function as an employee temporarily.

So there are limited resources in all spaces.

-Time

-Energy

-Personal Financial Resources

-Location

-Technological

-Social

-Network

Basically the idea is you make the fastest possible progress by throwing off the things that consume most of your time but don't give you the same current or projected results as something which consumes maybe even less time but has much more potential. Sometimes you need to make a leap of faith...and in fact...to go at the fastest possible speed you need to continually make educated leaps of faith. It's not a tested and proven road yet but it works out in theory and you should be able to make it work. Go.

Of course there are other things which are like...it MIGHT works, but I'm not quite sure if the way I propose to go a bout it will work. DON'T GO. Take the time to define and refine. To develop and roll this out before you put your weight on it and put your trust in it. Additional research and talking to others might be the difference between life and death. And its always good to have more options than not enough. So one should always have some of these "MAYBES" in the works.

There's perhaps a fine dividing line between the two. Between "GOs" and "MAYBES"

And a man is not an island. Once a proven set of systems have been established in the trading arena, basically all I need to do to really make bank is to open a hedge fund and get investors on board. They make a lot of bank for taking the risk, and I make a lot of bank as well for providing something to them that they are not in a position to...or lack the will to...provide for themselves. (I, as well, outsource specific aspects of my operation which I am not about to do. My computer, for instance, I cannot build alone. It takes a large, dedicated team of people with different backgrounds and divers experiences to build such an awesome product. Internet service I cannot provide. I don't grow the food I eat....nor do I want to! The profit per unit is so low!!! I am very thankful to all the providers I use because I could not do these things for myself. My investors will be thankful to me just like they are to their other providers because they can then live and do what they are good at. The trick of course, is getting the ball rolling. If you're barking up the wrong tree so to speak, you will not do well. I.E. if you're trying to build a prototype of a computer you're just wasting your time. You'll never be able to compete with the likes of Apple or Intel yourself. However, if you are assembling a team and the resources to build a machine (run by individuals) which can produce a product which can compete with what is currently on the market, this is the best use of your time. The next question I suppose becomes: is the world too full of entrepreneurs? Wouldn't it be better to be a highly skilled laborer...perhaps more honorable? I think the world is probably lacking entrepreneurs. Thus by being an entrepreneur, I fill a void. Of course there are many entrepreneurs, especially in the service sector of the economy. Many of these people run small lifestyle businesses OR are self-employed. They provide useful services to others. And also, frequently, they make less money than professionals who are in high demand such as computer programmers, electrical engineers, physicians. There will always be relative scarcity in some areas, and relative abundance in others. Also, consider. In developing nations, coding projects, for instance, can be outsourced. Coding is merely a skill which can be learned. The barrier to entry is the time and commitment required to advance the skill to a level useful to employers. There is also a barrier to entry for entrepreneurs. However, the barrier to entry is variable depending on which sector one seeks to enter as say a coder or an entrepreneur. Some programmers only know Java...but some applications require HTML or something. Now a good programmer will be proficient in many languages. And they will be paid well for the value they can provide.)

There is risk in every profession. The coder risks wasting his time doing something not valuable to the company...going down a route which makes him look bad relative to the other programmers and thus getting replaced. Everyone makes mistakes here and there. The issue is the severity of the mistakes. If the whole workflow is compromised, the employee is compromised. If just a few projects go south relatively, the coder is still rewarded and even perhaps esteemed above his peers (I talk of coders because I admire them and I personally want to be able to do amazing things with the computer although I recognize that likely I will not have the time to acquire the level of proficiency I wish to have with this skill. This is unfortunate, but my inner self will NOT ALLOW me to deviate from my major definite purpose which is to be a very wealthy entrepreneur and philanthropist...I san entrepreneur because that is where the major wealth is to be created. Aside from some chance major scientific discovery say...entrepreneurs have the highest likelihood of major success. They simply have to assemble teams which create massive value. Or they must invent and commercialize. Big things are possible to anyone who has the desire to do great things in nearly any field they find themselves in. However, upside is more limited in some fields than others. And entrepreneurs have the highest upside. The richest people in the world are entrepreneurs and investors....but Warren Buffet really is sort of an exception (the richest investor ever) and a hybrid...he owns a company that investors poured money into for him to manage. Sort of a closed-end fund. So although he did extremely well and deserves much credit, he still owes much of it to the use of other peoples' money and to his purchasing Berkshire and turning it into an investment company instead of a textile factory....I think he did this by buying the shares on the open market and gaining control. Kind of a convoluted way to go about starting a company, actually. Probably not the most efficient use of capital. Starting one would probably be better....As I wrote this I decided I had to look up for a fact what happened. I nailed it:

"In 2010, Buffett claimed that purchasing Berkshire Hathaway was the biggest investment mistake he had ever made, and claimed that it had denied him compounded investment returns of about $200 billion over the subsequent 45 years.^[9] Buffett claimed that had he invested that money directly in insurance businesses instead of buying out Berkshire Hathaway (due to what he perceived as a slight by an individual), those investments would have paid off several hundredfold."

I then wondered how in the world he could have afforded to purchase Berkshire Hathaway...where in the world did he get all the money? Another clue from a Quora poster:

"At the age of 26, Buffett had already accumulated a "retirement fund" of $174k (around $1.5 million in today's dollars) having been making and investing money since he was a young lad, particularly during his years working for Ben Graham's hedge fund in NYC.  He bought his home in Omaha (the one he still lives in) for $31k cash and his living expenses were modest.  It was at this point he decided to strike out on his own and launch his investment business."

The poster then goes on to say, "He did not need to tap into this retirement fund to launch his investment partnerships, viewing that capital as the key enabler of him running his own business.  During this period, Buffett lived off income and gains coming out of this personal investment portfolio, which was no doubt rapidly growing alongside his spectacular partnership returns."

SO now I need to look into Buffet's investment partnerships. More than likely there will be a plethora of information about these! (But what I'm liking so far is Buffet didn't push. He took life as he found it, didn't try to do something he wasn't...basically he wasn't in a gigantic rush of any sort yet look at his success.)

For the buffet partnerships, apparently the compensation was as follows (I proposed something similar in a hedge fund presentation I developed, although...and later refined.) : "The compensation formula was simple.  The investors received 4% interest on their money from the partnership.  After that threshold, Buffett got 50% of the gain, and the limited partners got the other 50%.  If there were a loss, Buffett took 25% of it himself.  That means if he broke even; he lost money.  His obligation to pay back losses was not limited to his capital; it was unlimited."

"By 1959, Buffett, who had only contributed $100 to each partnership, had earned fees, counting reinvested earnings, of $83,085 and owned approximately 9.5% of the combined partnerships due to his performance."

Ah, see he used other peoples' money once he had workable strategies. This is exactly what I will do and need to do! Basically I need to get some strategies on the table which work well, in addition to some functional risk management system. Once i have proven these introductory strategies in my personal portfolio I simply show the results to investors and ask if they want to partner with me. Thus the limited partnership AKA hedge fund is formed.

I was sold (yes, I admit. I was SOLD...I didn't exactly buy...rich dad coaching.) It cost me 5K which is approximately 17% of my current net worth. Not cheap for me, but definitely a decent price market-wise. (it just shows how cheaply one can live if one has a mind to I guess). (That gives me a thought...basically I can remain in my van (temp fluctuations and all) if I simply install an overhead canopy to keep out the light and put solar panels on that, which then feed into the vehicle. All these investments! I had better make a princely sum or start my partnerships soon. Yes, time is of the essence. I love how Buffet purchased 40 acres of farmland...probably didn't do much with it at the time. He just bought an asset. Sometimes he just did things for the heck of it, it seems, as long as the potential was there in some way...btw I have also thought about moving to NC where the VFTs grow and buying some land with VFTs on it and living on that land. Interesting concept I guess. I love Cps so would love to own my own piece of their habitat. And in North America, the venus flytraps are the ones which are the most threatened of the major CP genres I guess. I guess that is another side diversion to look into. I did some looking and most of the venuys flytraps are in a tick and chigger infested "Green Swamp" in north Carolina around Wilmington. Doesn't sound promising!! Maybe another CP site somewhere else would be better. Not moving to NC any time soon it seems haha.)

So anyhow, here's to my new career as an entrepreneur and investor/trader!

New Initiative: Day trading options.

It's almost an ideal to trade weekly SPX options on the day of expiration in my mind. No overnight and multi-day risks. Fastest price decay. And with the addition of the Wednesday options, one can trade like 7x per month in this manner. I will probably continue the weekly iron condor routine. In fact, of the last 4 iron condors I put on (3 of them virtually and "on paper") all were successful although the real one was hit by Brexit but still managed to make a $320 profit on a $1200 max loss....profit would have been $860 if it closed clear.

I also recently learned about calendar spreads. That really adds another dimension to options trading. Not only are there a multiplicity of strikes and expiration time frames, but one can trade cross-time frames as well. I'm hoping to do calendar spreads on SPX...The advantages are 2-fold: you can basically sell a strangle without all the margin necessary to do so. And strangles are the most profitable things possible...the protection of an iron butterfly reduces the profit tremendously of course. And sine the long portion has a much lower delay than the shorts you can exit the longs after the day and they will have the majority of their value while the shorts have gone to nothing.

The second advantage is one could keep one or the other side of the longs on overnight etc. if the market is starting to rally or plummet and then potentially make even more money! Even after the calendar trade is closed.

If calendar spreads don't work there are also double diagonals and if I can't do these on such a short time period I can always make iron condors or regular butterflies or double butterflies or ratio spreads...the options are numerous (excuse the pun) however the calendar spread holds much promise to me. The big issue is it will probably be very expensive relative to other trades and thus although it provides good odds a lower-yielding iron condor might be more worthwhile. That rally advantage, however, is something to consider. Basically if the market was rallying strongly and you got hit on the short, you could hold the longs and potentially make much more. However, you could always put additional trades on so really...meh.

Since I am now fully committed to inverse volatility at the moment, and I don't know how well or if this will work, I am going to paper trade it. Good boy! Paper trading the experimental strategies before employing them! Very good.

Self improvement time.

This guy is good: https://youtu.be/4a51wQAOGR4

Apparently other viewers think that his other videos are good as well.

All in to Inverse Volatility after Brexit. Wish me luck.

So this is the first time I've put everything on the line...and then some....I dipped into my margin a bit.

I made quite a few mistakes. During the day the S&P500 fell 3.55% (and wound up hitting my short bull put spread of an iron condor at 2040...cut in to by closing at 2037.41. Since I had gotten a $4.20 credit on the 10 pt spread I still made money on the trade. But instead of $860 or so I wound up with $320. And the crazy thing was during the last 5 minutes of trading when SPX was pushing 2050 and I thought for sure I would be OK, I could have bought back the short for less than $100 USD. Next time if it gets that close in such a scenario I will have to do that. Things could have been a lot worse that day with the iron condor since the max loss was 1.2K and...Brexit ya know?? SPX -3.55% is a very big move.

Early during the day, I thought (stupidly) that somehow maybe markets would rally and volatility would subside. I wound up taking a nibble of 30 XIV at 25.744. Then I decided to make it 100 shares as SPX started to rally. But the brokerage was clogged with orders. Later reporting stated that volume during the first 30minutes of trading was as much as up to lunch on a normal day. So Optionshouse was lagging. I accidentally submitted 2 orders to buy 70 shares. And when I tried to cancel the second, a few seconds later I was informed that it had been filled. So I wound up with 170 shares at $26.10 or so cost basis...and then of course SPX goes down and XIV 21.49 to close at 22.00. So now I'm like 700 USD in the hole on this stupid trade. I mean the principle was sound but I got in far too early.

Then on Monday, SPX fell again, but VIX receded as SPX fell. Furthermore, VVIX fell. XIV, however, reached a low of 20.21 (in after hours) and since I decided to dollar cost average as XIV went down, I bought 100 more XIV after hours at 20.33...this was even lower than it went in the regular trading session. I had an order ready at 20.22 and was following it lower but wound up not getting it that low. Why I didn't buy more than 100 shares I do know...I was just scared. Although the signs that this was the end of the xiv decline were there, and I had an opportunity of a lifetime in after hours, I only bought 100.

Then today, (Tuesday) it took me until XIV climbed to 23.08 for me to buy at that price. I could have gotten in as low as 22.21...22.60 easily. But I just was afraid things would collapse...wasn't looking at the evidence. But then I saw SPX break 2025 and decided to go for it since this was said to be an important level by some article I read. And I went all in and bought 530 more shares for a total of 800. I realized if I just hung on to my 270 shares I could only make 2.something K on the trade. And as I am now trying to trade full time that just wasn't enough by any means. I had to put more money on the table, and it was pretty much now or never for this episode. I was already sort of late.

Thankfully XIV continued to rally and SPX continued to rally so at market close my position was OK. Of course I am concerned because I am used to volatility lasting for much longer than this seems to have. However, here is another piece that gives me a little bit of comfort.

So although I went all in an entire day late and left ~$2.7K on the table due to my retarted trading...the only thing I got right was buying those 100 shares at aftermarket. But that should have been 800 shares. Or 900 shares. Or 1000 shares. Oh well, it's hard to be perfect.

I'm honestly concerned because vix closed at 18 something. It can't fall much further! It can only fall another 25% or so. And honestly I don't like to be shorting volatility when vix is ~19. However, I shorted it when vix was 25 or so and xiv was 26. They don't move in sync necessarily. I suppose I'm counting on a long period of the vix futures being in cotango (they just came out of backwardation today! (another of my indicators to go long inverse volatility)) to reach my 50% profit target of 9K on this trade. XIV gets hammered when volatility spikes...and VXX gets hammered when volatility is low and futures are in cotango. I think we could get to levels on XIV of 36 which is where we were at before Brexit hit. Higher is possible if we have a long period of relative calm.

Surkus

I haven't done my HW, and the company apparently hasn't been approved by the SEC yet, but just reading the Surkus promotional material on Startengine really excites me. The team looks amazing. Apparently they are already generating revenue, and they are looking to expand quite rapidly. Count me in (unless HW turns up something really negative): https://www.startengine.com/startup/surkus

I've been waiting for a few months now for them to open for investment.

Ground Floor with ELIO Motors, a potential 5x return! (holding now)

ELIO: A Startengine campaign though the new A+ regulation. I bought 100 shares from the company at $12 each. I need to transfer them into my brokerage account and look for a favorable opportunity to sell and/or buy. One to sell has already passed. Oh well. This was my first time doing a venture-capital-like deal and I essentially looked at this as a long-term investment where I was potentially throwing my money away. Another thing I noticed: The chart for day 2 of trading on Think or Swim showed a low of 0.03 cents!! What a range!!! Newly traded company shares could be very profitable IF one puts in limit orders for ridiculously low prices. Just think if such an order was hit!! OMG like 5000% profit...on a few shares at least. This is not a large-scale strategy due to the low volumes. Therefore I'm afraid I will essentially have to shelve it...except for times of severe market turmoil when even large companies like GM went in minutes from $30 per share to $22 per share, then "instantly" recovered to $28 per share. Ford, Appl, ARI, others did the same thing.

Anyhow, next time I do a venture capital deal and the company alerts me that the shares are listed for trading (Elio Motors was apparently a historic first to do so after raising funds through A+ legislation.) I will transfer them for live trading immediately and look for those insane opportunities to sell for 5x after just a few months. The company was honorable, with shares starting to trade at $14, $2 more than what I purchased for!! Thank you Paul Elio and CO. for not burning your investors!!! Elio now has a profile on SEC.gov I believe, where all their information can be analyzed. I don't know if they had this when I invested. I kindof did so blindly on faith, which I don't like to do of course.

$1.1K With VXX

Yesterday my first (complete) real trade since taking a break from the markets. A success. There will be many more. I think I have finally mastered the concept of using real money for high confidence trades and paper + research for theoretical.

A short on VXX at the approximate levels indicated selling about $4000 in stock and buying back -1.1K later (after commissions). I held the trade for 39 trading days. It was definitely not the best trade in the world. I could have sold more short, I could have added to my short on that second peak, I could have traded between the peaks, I could have waited to buy back and squeeze a bit more profit from the market. I could have traded VIX options instead (need to look at strategies and compare to historical data first). The point is simply: stay safe and get better a little bit at a time. There are so many ways to trade, so much uncertainty, and so many ways to mess up. Bringing the flight home and not panicking is a big accomplishment for a novice trader. Not being tempted to get out early. Sticking with the plan although I could see the second peak coming and didn't know how volatility would go.

As a bonus, enjoy the following volatility instrument comparison:

P.S: I have been thinking lately about starting a fund of some sort. Will look into the legal requirements of this.