Guy

Ophir -- Just one perspective...but I too look for trades that can be frequent and irrespective of market direction. I want strategies that I can run weekly, or at a minimum monthly, and work well in all market environments. With Trade Machine, I found a set of weekly strangle sales in some of the major ETF's that seem to do that, and posted that previously (to the sound of crickets!). I think I would personally find it difficult to manage trades that occur only 4 times a year or less. (But I count on Kim to do that with SO trades!) Also, I am more likely to believe in a strategy that has proven successful with a large number of occurrences (like 25+) than one that has less than 10 -- and can be influenced by an outlier. So, keep up the great work on Trade Machine and CMLviz. TM has advanced my own trading more than anything I have run across in the last 5+ years, and at significantly less cost than some of the guru courses I have unfortunately spent a small fortune on!!!

Darcy -- my read on this is that the risk analysis is incorrect. Absolute profits may be fine, but to say that in 58 trades on the RUT, you only risked around $1200 is way wrong. Just one ATM RUT butterfly, 30 days out, with 45 point wide strikes risks about a $1600 loss...though the BP reduction is about $12.50 with portfolio margin. Maybe Ophir can check and see how risk is calculated on butterflies. If risk is buying power reduction, I think the risk analysis in the Trade Machine might be a little goofy! Your trade is probably still good, just not as good as stated as risked reduction. Hope that makes sense.

Here's some learning from running some tests on the CMLviz Trade Machine. I shared with Ophir.... One edge in options is the difference between IV and actual volatility. But unexpected market moves can upset going after that edge. But, what if one sold inversely related options so as to be agnostic to market direction? Would that work?? So, wth Trade Machine, I tested selling ATM straddles every 7 days on two positions SPY and SDS, with the loss capped at 100% to avoid disasters. To implement, I would sell 5x the SDS straddles to adjust for roughly 1/10th price difference but 2x leverage versus SPY. Did it work?? Over 2 years, SPY Straddles were up 55%, and SDS Straddles was up 40%. For the ETF's themselves, SPY was up 22% and SDS was down 39%. SPY -- http://tm.cmlviz.com/index.php?share_key=QNZI9KQnt3YVFEW5 SDS -- http://tm.cmlviz.com/index.php?share_key=tvH47Munqx9GdIhI Seemed to capture that volatility edge pretty well without worrying about market direction. Any thoughts?