vacation is over

ok...vacation is over, i will need to get back on this ball.

Week 1

After one week, Johnny Trader is doing better than all others except for oil. Had you invested in oil this past week you would have made more money than Johnny Trader, Dow, etc. However, Johnny Trader did have about twice the return as the other indexes. One week doesn't indicate success so, we will keep on working on it.

Day 26, $22,345

Markets closed and options expire today. My IBM iron condor and NTES bull put expired worthless. The bullish trend continues. See the trade details below for more info. I am interested in reopening similar positions, but with earnings coming up, I think I will wait for and place more momentum based trades. My current open positions are my long NYX stock and my DRYS naked put and long call.

Date Opened	8/25/09	8/25/09
Ticker	NTES	IBM
Position	Sep 40/35 Bull Put	Iron Condor 125/130 110/115
Number of Contracts	5	10
Cost Basis	0.80	1.10
Reward Potential	0.80	1.10
Risk	4.20	3.90
Date Closed	9/18/09	9/18/09
Closing Price	0	0
Reward	0.8	1.1
Total Value	400	1100
ROI	19.05%	28.21%
Length of Trade (Days)	25	25

Day 25, $22,280

Market zig-zagged for the day, first making gains, then going in the red to finish just below where we started. Economic news for the most part pretty good, with initial claims coming in lower than expected and some positive housing data.

No change to current postions.

My IBM and NTES positions should expire worthless tomorrow, closing at their maximum reward.

My DRYS Oct 8 long call was filled for 0.55. I think I might have waited too long to make this play and this isn't based on proper fundamental analysis and time decay is on my side, but I will see what happens in the next couple days.

Day 24, $22,259

Markets had another bullish day based on better than expected economic data for the most part with pretty good volume. No changes to current positions.

There was more suspicious activity with DRYS options. There was another heavy day of calls being bought in both Sept and Oct. I have been observing this for quite a few days. During these observations DRYS stock has climbed from about $6.00 to almost $7.50. That is quite a jump. Today once again I noticed the same thing. I might be getting in this too late but I will be placing a limit order for 10 contracts of the Oct 8 strike at $0.55. This goes against a few rules that I typically trade by. For one, there is less than 45 days on the option I am buying. For two, I don't really have a spread type strategy. If it gets filled I will put in an order to close the trade if the option loses half of its value. If it begins to gain value, I will place a trailing stop order. Once again, this is typically not the strategy I follow, but it seems appropriate in this case. Worse case is I lose $275, but with the heavy options volume, short term uptrend with heavy volume, MACD, RSI and other indicators pointing bullish, let's give it a shot.

Day 23, $22,058

Markets had another up day. Bull trend continues. I closed out my NYX call calendar at my PE today. The profit booked was small, but a profit none the less. See below for trade details.

Date Opened	8/19/09
Ticker	NYX
Position	30 Sep/ Dec Call Calendar
Number of Contracts	5
Cost Basis	1.29
Reward Potential	25%
Risk	1.29
Date Closed	9/15/09
Closing Price	1.62
Reward	0.33
Total Value	165
ROI	25.58%
Length of Trade (Days)	28

Week 0

Testing my ability to post a chart. If it works, then this will be what to expect and will be updated on a weekly basis. I just wished I would have started this initially because I think this first month was a pretty good one for Johnny Trader. Anyway, I collected the values from all the items listed in the legend in the chart. At the end of this week I will take the new number subtract the old number and then divide that value by the old number thereby normalizing each entity with one another. In other words, I am just finding the percent gain or loss for each week and comparing. If I can get Johnny Trader all the way to the top at 1, then I have doubled my money. That's the plan anyway, let's see how it works out!

Day 22, $21,786

Markets started the day lower today based on news regarding US imposing larger tariffs on Chinese tires, but by the end of the day, all three indexes made their way into the green. No change to current positions. Getting close to primary exit point on my call calendar so I put in a limit order good until canceled to do just that.

My iron condor and bull put are currently in a good position to expire worthless by the end of the week. If that happens those trades would also be closed at their primary exit point.

DRYS had another strong move up today, almost 6%. This bodes well for my naked Jan naked put.

I am also working on some additional content for the blog. I will start to include weekly charts that will help track Johnny Trader's progress and compare it to Dow, Nasdaq, etc.

Day 21, $21,448

Markets had a down day today, even after some positive economic data. Consumer confidence was up and inventories were down. Todays down movement was just due to some profit taking after a nice 5 day bullish run. No change to current positions.

Day 20, $21,389

Markets had another up day, fifth in a row. The Feds have stated that the recession is over and the economy is recovering, the initial claims numbers came in better than expected, the stock market has hit new highs for 2009 and everyone seems pretty happy. The contrarian side of me makes me wonder, but play the trend. The trend is your friend. Cautiously bullish to flat. So far the trades are looking good, time decay is on my side.

No changes to my positions.

NYX - call calendar

DRYS- naked put

IBM - iron condor

NTES - bull put

Day 19, $21,013

Markets continuing the bullish trend. No adjustments.

DRYS had a nice move up today off higher than average volume. Sentiment also very bullish short to long term with heavy call option volume for Sep, Oct and Dec. Will watch closely next few days to see if I want to add to my positions.

NTES also had a nice move up for the day.

Things could still turn for the worse so I will be hesitant to put more money on the table until I close out some of my current positions, which will hopefully be the end of next week. If things did turn I will need capital to adjust trades.

Day 18, $20,793

Markets had a nice up move today based on a weaker dollar and merger and acquisition news. The bull trend continues. So far all my credit trades are working to my advantage, with time decay on my side. NTES had a really nice move up based on an impressive earnings report from NTES competitor Shanda. I might consider a long call position on NTES because I think that there is a lot of growth potential. I might also consider adding a short term bear call to my bull put position for an iron condor to take advantage of time decay.

No change to current positions. Not adding any new positions at this point. Will continue to keep an eye on the market and watch my current trades. Since the trades have been placed, the due diligence has been done so there really isn't a lot of additional time required just so long as my trade doesn't become broken. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

Day 17, $20,454

Markets had a nice move up following a few days of selling off. Although my trades were never broken during the week, it was hard seeing the value in my account fluctuate so much to the downside. This should be a reminder to always have clearly defined primary and secondary exit points so that fear does not force you into making bad decisions. There were times when I considered to add positions to the IBM iron condor, but the stock never closed below my designated resistance level of 115. The sideways trend continues. No change to current positions. Two more weeks to go until expiration.

Day 16, $19,518

Markets had another down day. So far still a bullish trend and none of my current trades are broken yet. Although my account value is much lower, my trades are still working just so long as my support levels hold. My time frame will still be the same. If everything were to be at these levels on September 18 my trades would be closed at their maximum rewards. I am a little bit nervous still because of my 10 contracts of IBM instead of 5...which was my mistake when I had placed the order. I had also placed my NTES trade at about the same time. With a smaller account, I think it might be better to not place all my trades at the same time. Had I spread them out it would have acted as a bit of a hedge for me to trade the trend. Right now I am a little bit limited, but I follow through an any needed secondary exit points if the time comes. There hasn't been too much bad news so I attribute the downward movement to profit taking.