New Trade: Short ZB Calls

For anybody following my trades the last month in ZB this trade might seem counterintuitive as yesterday I shorted a call at the lower end of the 119-122 trading range. Here is my thinking: Shorting ZB for the last two months has been easy, nothing this good lasts forever and I've missed the last two entry points when I was out of town and chose to turn the markets off for a few days. The intra-day volatility has been amazing the last few weeks. Just using basic technical analysis and shorting near 122 has worked flawlessly and I've been paid several times http://bit.ly/fwdDFk, http://bit.ly/e3F3DH. Again, nothing is that easy and nothing this good lasts long. I'm concerned that volatility will dissipate, thus you have to wait longer to find entry points. Or worse, this thing breaks to the downside before it goes back up to test 122 and I get caught not having any short exposure. Since I'm willing to short up to 5 contracts at 122, I'm getting some short exposure here now by selling a FEB 122 Call for '520. That's $812 if it ends up expiring worthless. This way if volatility does die down or we break below the trading range, at least I get something before this gravy train ends and I'm forced to find my next meal.

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WOW! I think that sums it up

Many of you have been reading this blog may have noticed that my blogging frequency has increased over the past few weeks as I got short the market. As you can imagine I am down money since getting short the market, this is the time when most people pull away from posting. But my goal is to stay active and involved and show you that trading is not always rainbows and butterflies. It is times like these that the things I have been sharing over the past couple of weeks are so important. You need to trade small relative to your account. I have a decent short position in the market and my portfolios are set up to make some awesome returns if we finally turn lower. But something I would like to point out is that my account is 70% Cash. I learned a long time ago how important it is to live by the rules you preach. Because of my discipline I am able to continue to hold my positions, I have time and capital on my side. I can't stress enough how important it is not to get to big....

Stay Small, Stay Out of Trouble

To expand on my post from yesterday about patience. I want to talk about a very important element that allows patience in a position, and that is staying small. If you trade too big RELATIVE to your personal account size, you are likely to be forced to exit the trade before the trade works in your favor. Many trades myself included have all experienced the pains of trading a position way too large given our account size. There is this predisposition out there that the only way you are going to make money in the financial markets is if you are trading 10 lots of options and 1000 shares of stock at the time. This is not the case, and if this is your mentality you will likely ensure yourself trouble. We have all read the stories of traders blowing up their account. I personally think a good rule of thumb is to not risk more than 5% of your account value on any one position. Good Luck Trading! In The Money Trades And 1 favor that we ask: If you like the hard work w...

more good news from FXStreet : Tom Fitzpatrick, senior technical analyst at Citibank in New York. Monday, July 15, 2002 "Parity is a psychological, not a technical level...and whether we pause around parity or not, we are likely to see significant further dollar losses...Our initial target is $1.03 to $1.0450. If that level is taken out, it actually casts a question mark against the whole of the dollar's rally of the last seven years, and could open up a full-blown bear market for the dollar." Julian Jessop, chief European economist at Standard Chartered Bank. Monday, July 15, 2002 "The dollar is under pressure from everything from economic problems to asset reallocation away from the U.S. and corporate accounting problems. It's difficult to see any positive factor for the dollar at the moment. The root of the problem is the U.S. current account deficit. If the U.S. doesn't have to attract an enormous amount of foreign capital, people wouldn't have to wor...

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