Steady Options - My Year in Review

[eudaimonia 13]

I started with Steady Options last January and paper traded until February when I went live with Kim's system using a $10,000 allocation for the year. Below are a few snap shots of my trading analytics. I'm very happy to report a net profit for the year 2/19/16 - 12/30/16 of 22.7%. Keep in mind that this is my own trading - warts and all. I've made a few egregious (and some less so) mistakes along the way and through it all managed to make a profit. I hardly ever get as good as Kim's fills but I do my best to setup the trades when he starts looking and simply execute as well as I can. I seem to be getting better every month.

 

Thank you to Kim for providing an excellent service that is both profitable and highly educational, and thank you to all of the regular contributors to the Steady Options forums. 

 

Edward

 

Edited December 31, 2016 by eudaimonia

[Kim 7,501]

Thanks for sharing @eudaimoniaYour returns are basically in line with our official model portfolio when you account for commissions. In fact, even slightly better because you started in February and missed the 10% in January. And it was our worst year since inception..

 

What exactly happened in September? I big spike up and then down.

[eudaimonia 13]

Yeah, the September spike was the result of closing some winning positions at the beginning of the week (making it look like a huge profit) and closing out the rest of the position at the end of the week. Because the software I use only tracks closed positions it makes the equity curve jump up and then down but in reality my account never moved like that.

 

Edited December 31, 2016 by eudaimonia

[eudaimonia 13]

@krisbee,

 

Since others might have the same questions I hope it's ok to just respond in the thread rather than PM:

 

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Your yearly review charts and data is very nice! Like you said "few egregious", I did many this year and I've to be very cautious going forward.

Yes, I made mistakes like hitting the ask and paying the full price on a calendar or two. Or putting on the opposite position and having to reverse. Fortunately, I learned quickly from these but all warts are reflected above.

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I have few comments/questions on your data.

1. in 3rd picture with horizontal bar charts, I see 1st item as "SO 2225.64" and 4th item "Edward" appears to be the same. Is it duplicate row?

I use this tracking software for all of my trades and the tags are custom. For purposes of what you are seeing here, SO and Edward are the same (I filtered the tags to exclude non SO trades and trades done in accounts for my wife).

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2. Can you me few examples of "Structured_Theta" trades that you did? I have no idea what that is. 

This is another custom tag. I used it to refer to SO trades like the SPX butterflies and RUT broken wing condor. I also use this tag for other trades beyond SO.

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3. did you do thru IB? I read from your post, you had trouble with fills like Kim. How did you manage? chased the trade/ or kept GTC with kim's price and eventually filled?

Yes, everything was through IB. How I managed to improve my fills over the year (still not perfect): 1) When Kim says he's looking at a trade that is the time to start working your orders, 2) use IB's feature of OCO and go for multiple strikes as appropriate to the stock and strategy, 3) Sometimes I didn't get filled. Sometimes I chased. As I said this is very much my imperfect trading.

As far as how to improve in the future? Look above at the stocks that did well this year - maybe ok to chase those for a few cents but don't chase the losers and the sub $1 calendars. Pay too much on a $.35 calendar and you will regret it. Also, you may notice that I started avoiding straddles and strangles. Adjusting these is too much work for me since I have a dayjob. So I let these go.

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Thanks, Your post is very encourage for all traders. My wishes to you for 2017 to make more profits.

Thanks. 

Edited December 31, 2016 by eudaimonia

[Kim 7,501]

Thanks again for sharing your experience @eudaimonia Couple small comments/suggestions:

 

1. Always remember that this is an ongoing process. After being in the stock market business for almost 15 years, I'm still far from perfect and improving all the time, and I'm doing this full time. The key is to realize that it's like any other profession and requires continues learning.

2. Regarding fills - this is a very good advice. And since our setups repeat cycle after cycle, you will get better and better each cycle.

3. Adjusting straddles is not critical. We do it to stay delta neutral, but some members select to let the winners run. Remember that if the stock moves and you adjust, and it continues to move in the same direction, you would be better without adjusting. Of course if it reverses, adjusting would produce better results. Over the long term, the results should not be dramatically different. 

[eudaimonia 13]

@Kim thanks for the advice. I wanted to post this to show that even someone still learning can do pretty well following your service. I had never traded options until this year (been trading futures for about 12 years). I wish that my futures strategies did as well when I was still learning

[akhouston 16]

@eudaimonia which software do you use to track trades / performance?

Edited December 31, 2016 by akhouston

[eudaimonia 13]

@akhouston Tradervue. 

[Edwin 63]

Are there instructions posted on how to setup the OCO order for an options trade in IB? Is it only available in the Mosaic view?

Is it possible to create an OCO order in WebTrader?
Thanks

[eudaimonia 13]

Search for One Cancels All order on the Steady Options forums or on IB's website. You can do an OCA order with the Classic TWS view as well as Mosaic.