Saturday, August 23, 2008

Going Long the Semis




I've taken up the challenge of several of my Investools instructors and laid down a trade strictly based on what I see on the chart and somewhat against my "gut." I see a little bounce trade on SMH, the Semiconductors Holders ETF. I'm buying NOV 08 29 Calls which are in the money with paw-lenty of time before THETA chews my butt up. Hmm.. maybe I should have bought OCTs but here goes nothing.

This is only papermoney but I take my paper account deadly seriously because until I can stoke it up ... I've prohibited myself from trading for real. I'm up about 5.2% in one month which I suppose isn't too bad.

3 comments:

Daniel said...

Thomas, What type of trading plan are you using, invs717457@gmail.com

That is one of my chores over this weekend. Review, Update, and backtest my Long call and Long put trading plans.

Thomas Coolberth said...

I'm just starting out with 3 accounts and I'm about to add a 4th.

#1) Papertrade where I am exploring all styles except day trading. I'm an Investools student in the Basic Options course right now. So my big push now will be OPTIONS.

2) Educational IRA - This is how I intend to finance my kids private schooling. Here, my plan is my "Fred Sanford Junk selling" strategy that I learned from thinkorswim instructors: sell out of the vertical spreads on SPY, DIA, IWM, QQQQ for .30 to .40 credit, 4 - 6 weeks from expiry.

It's a strategy impossible most other brokerages because thinkorswim is only $1.50/contract!

I had some huge success from Jan-Apr with this strategy until I f-ed it all up because I was not paying attention to Market Posture and I did not have a plan in place.

3) IRA account ... looking at heavy covered call activity with some directional plays

4) Margin account (strategy yet to be determined).

Overall .. I will have strategies laid out for every trade just like a quarterback has a strategy for every situation. It's all documented in my Investools page and when I'm done I'll probably post it here or on www.mytrade.com not because I am great but because I've chosen to be an open person.

I hope I can continue to advertise myself as a newbie for a long time because it is intimidating writing about this stuff, inexperience is my only line of defense.

Thomas Coolberth said...

For the record: Got stopped out on Tuesday. Wednesday was the real buy signal but I didn't bite.

I get a little rattled even after a 1% hit.

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