SPY Iron Condor and Update on Positions

Implied volatility is really high across most of the market right now. I feel some of the best opportunities arise when IVP rises above 50 in the S&P 500. This is because you can get insanely far away from where the market is trading right now and still receive a pretty good credit.

From stocktwits :

$SPY tested and bounced off that 1812 support on S&P500. MAR-24 170/172/198/200 short iron condor FILLED @ 0.63. Nice and wide!
— Brandon Powers (@BrandonP) Feb. 12 at 03:19 PM

 Summary:

• DTE : 42
• IVP : 50
• PoP : 60%

I think it's a decent trade; most SPY iron condors that I put on when IVP reaches 50 turn out to be winners. Past performance is not indicative of future results, but hey.

I'm kicking myself today for not shorting TLT yesterday. The spread I would have put on is worth about 50% less than it was yesterday. Shit. I wanted to see the S&P bounce a little stronger off that 1812 support line, but subsequently, TLT printed a massive black* candle completely outside of the top bollinger band in addition to putting in a fresh 4-year low in 10Y Treasury yields.

* - when the thing opens and closes above the previous day's close, but the close is lower than the open. Implies 'going too far too fast.'

Charts: 

Red lines are the breakevens on the iron condor. Need a 8.5% decline or a 6.5% increase.

Also, man, what a rally gold had yesterday. It's down about 50bp today, and I think it still has room to fall. It's incredibly short term overbought. XOP declined big yesterday, but it's up 250bp today so the P/L is relatively unchanged, trading for 0.86 up from 0.85 where I sold it. As you can expect, the GLD position has lost some dough. That spread is currently trading at 0.64, up from 0.48 where I sold it.

Expect to see monthly return updates in the form of excel spreadsheets. I don't feel comfortable sharing any dollar amounts, but rest assured that they are pretty small. Everything on this blog will be in terms of basis points (bp), percentages, and cost bases.