Friday, July 12, 2013

Enjoying Life While You Have The Chance!

Hey everyone!  It's Friday and Special Agent Thomas has put his gear away and is looking forward to having a good weekend with the family!

Let's talk about this weeks option trade first. I placed a 167/169 bear call spread on the SPY on Monday.  I lost the trade and gave back some of the gains I've made the last few weeks.  I knew I should have bumped up to the 168 strike but there's no use crying over spilled milk now.  There's always next week right!  One thing I've come to realize is that no one wins every trade.  The market's just a beast!  I even read this week that only 8% of hedge fund managers actually beat the market!  These hedge fund gurus are supposed to be smarter than the rest of us and even they get humbled by the market. Whether you invest or trade its important to stick with your plan and just ride out the bumps in the road.

Now to the good stuff.  When I came home tonight there were a million things I could have occupied myself with.  But I decided I wanted to sacrifice my desires and give my time and energy to my wife and kids.  I played ball and wrestled with the kids and even helped my wife cook dinner.  It wasn't anything big, but this was one of the best evenings I've had in a long time.  So the message here is to take the time to enjoy the important things in life.  We only have so much time and when it's gone.......it's gone forever.

Have a good weekend everyone.  I'll be ready to trade on Monday!  If you're new to options be sure to read the first few blog posts to get up to speed fast.


                                                  

Monday, July 8, 2013

Expanding the Boundries

Hey everyone!  I'll get right to it!  To date, this blog has been all about trading options.  Specifically, Bear Call Credit Spreads.  For the two people that have read each post you should be up to speed on how to execute either monthly or weekly credit spreads.   But today I was thinking (uh oh)!  There are a ton of other things I would like (love) to write about!  Things that may be helpful to my readers.  I suppose I could start a second blog but I'm much to lazy for that.  So, as I continue Options Adventure I plan on sprinkling my posts with random Sean "ness".  I hope I don't lose my two readers!  Anyway, here goes....

Today I went to play basketball after work.  It was still about 90 degrees here in Florida.  The heat was killing me.  I shot jumpers for twenty minutes, ran suicides for ten minutes and then shot free throws.  Everything was cool (sorta) until I got to the free throws.  I was exhausted from the heat and all I wanted to do was hit seven out of ten and go home.  Five of ten.  Six of ten.  Five of ten.  The frustration was building by the time I got to the fourth set.  But I finally got myself together and hit six of seven.  Then I missed the next two.  Thank the Lord I hit the last shot to get my 70% average.

After I shot, I sat down to cool off and started thinking about what just happened. I've been having some "issues" lately and it appeared my free throw escapade was an opportunity to learn a life lesson.  Here's what I learned:

1. When you have mountains to climb in life there will inevitably be problems along the way.  My goal (mountain) was hitting seven out of ten free throws.

2. When dealing with problems you have to control your emotions and stay in control.  During the first three sets of free throws it took every ounce of strength to not curse out my ball and kick it into the woods.  Does anything good ever come out of you blowing your top?  Not in my experience.

3. You have to learn to persevere.  If you give up to early you are going to miss out on a lot of blessings in life.  Keep moving forward! I could have quit after the third set and went home, but I stuck with it.

4. Sometimes you have to learn to adjust from whats always worked for you in the past.  During the first three sets I shot the free throws all the same way.  In the final set I changed my shooting motion a tad and got the results I wanted.

5. Lastly, even when things are going good, expect the unexpected.  In my last set I hit my first six out of seven shots.  I was cruising and had only one more to hit. Then I stumbled and barely reached my 70% goal.    When I hit the first six shots I just knew it was all good.  That last shot was pressure filled!  Not what I expected.

Well that's it.  I can't say basketball can teach you everything you need to know about life but I believe there may be a little wisdom in my experience today.

By the way, I placed a SPY 167/169 Bear Call Spread today that expires on Friday.  Premium was sweet!

                                            

Friday, July 5, 2013

Weeklies Update

Wazzup people!  If anyone has been following my blog you'd know that I've adjusted my strategy to trading weekly credit spreads instead of monthly spreads.  So far things have worked out really well.  On Monday I placed a SPY 165/167 bear call spread and earned $11 per contract.  The SPY closed today under 163 so I was good to go.  It appears even when you calculate commissions weeklies can be more profitable than monthlies.  Plus if a weekly trade were to go bad there are more options to roll the trade out.

In the mean time I've tried a couple other services that provide trading signals but I just don't think they're for me.  If anyone uses a service that's made them some money let me know.  I'm willing to check out just about anything.

I hope you had a good holiday.  Fireworks in Jax, FL were pretty cool!  Later!


                                            
                                                                         My City!