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New Year's Resolutions - How are you doing?

Since I have not yet posted my New Year's Resolutions it difficult for me to say how on track I am. So here they are:

I will become MCSE Certified by the end of the Year.

I currently weigh 190lbs. I will weigh 145 by the end of the Year.

I will set up a working network at home to include but not limited to: Domain Controllers, File Server, Print server.

I will have 6 months of profitable trading on think or swim paper money.

I will take at least one class per semester at George Mason University.

I will save at least $5000 in a high interest savings account ING or Emigrant Direct.

I will document my success and failures for my 2008 Goals.

I will start a journal of my daily activities.

I will attend at least one marriage seminar to improve the quality of my marriage regardless of how good I have it.

I will attend at least one 'better my understanding' class to improve myself as a human being. This is not a desire to change who I am only to build upon my desire to be a great person.

I will limit my time on computer games to weekends and no more than 3 weekdays a month.

I will take 1 vacation with my husband this year that requires us to leave the current time zone.

I will organize and file ALL paperwork in a timely fashion to relieve both home and office of paper clutter.

10 years, $1Mill Dollars. I will solely make $1 mill by the time I'm 36. This is on top of the salary I make with the government.

Now that you know what they are let's see how I'm doing.

I have 4 more tests to become MCSE Certified (out of 7).
I currently weight 186.5! Down 3.5 lbs, that's 1.8% :)
I have only become more frustrated with my current computers so I have not started my home network.
I am down 9.3% for the month of January due to a UAUA trade gone horribly wrong. By the time I realized the trade was submitted incorrectly I was down just over 9K!! OUCH!!
I am taking a computer class at George Mason.
I have money set up on a direct deposit into my high yield savings account at ING Direct. Currently my balance is up to: $911.00
I am keeping accountability of my Goals by posting them up for everyone to share.
I'm not journaling my daily activities but I am journaling all my trades and significant events at work that I have accomplished.
I have enrolled in LandmarkEducation's beginner seminar and will attend the Feb 29th weekend.
I am happily staying away from the computer games (WoW) until Sundays, leaving the weekdays and weekends for my family and school work.
Argh, the papers are still over-running my fort. I have not yet started that battle.

So far I am pleased with the progress I have made and how successful I have been at sticking to my goals. With only one month down there is a long road ahead of me.

I challenge everyone to check their goals and see how they fare.

Open: Put Calendar on GDX

After recently learning about Calendar spreads I was excited at the chance to try another one. Mojo has found a nice channel on GDX. The purple lines show the edges of the channel and the dotted red line show the median between them.

Unlike Mojo I sold the Feb/Jun Put 47s for a debit of $2.90. As Mojo states in his blog we will most likely roll this one early. I chose the puts because although Gold is on the rise, the mining of gold is on the fall.

Our stop loss on calendars is set at 50%

Open: ERSX Put Vertical Feb 70/65

In a bearish market it's good to find some of the bullish trades.

My friend and teacher, Mojo, at insanemoney found one such trade. He put on a diagonal but I'm much more of a vertical fan. The "fire and forget" method of setting for max loss (see bottom of post for explanation on max loss) and letting the trade expire is more my type of trade.

If you look at the chart there is a strong uptrend and it just bounced of the 50 day. I put in a Put vertical for the Feb 70/65 and got a credit of $1.59.

ROI is 1.59/3.41 = 45% in 4 weeks!!


Max Loss: Any losing trade can not equal more than %2 of your portfolio before exited. Example: 100K portfolio has a %2 max loss of $2,000. If your trade is risking $4.00 per contract you multiply the risk * 100 (number of shares in a contract) $400, and divide that by your maximum allowed loss per trade (2k) for the number of contracts you can trade. 2000/400 = 5 contracts.

**Note** When using a stop loss, the stop loss price is the "risk" of the trade.

Open: WMT Call Calendar Feb/June 47.50

WMT has always been a favorite stock of mine. I've never learned how to make money in such an ugly chart until now.

I recently learned about Calendars. In short, a calendar is a diagonal trade with the same strike on both ends. (Ex: Feb 47.50/June 47.50) This type of option is great for channeling stocks that just bounce up and down between two numbers. The more the stock touches the strike price the better opportunity to make money either thru a roll or early exit.

Now let's talk about this trade. Walmart has been channeling between 44.50 and 49.50 for the last 2 years. It has a high of around 56.65 on 03/01/2002 and a low of 41.25 hit on 10/02/2000. This definately classifies as a channel!

The options on WMT are great right around the median of 47.00. I placed a Call Calendar at the median Feb/June 47.50 for a debit of $1.95. Roll out will be either the week of expiration in Feb or within 10 day of exipry if the stock price crosses the median line again.

Feb 47.50 price 1.30

June 47.50 price 3.40

ROI = 1.30/3.40 38% in 5 weeks!

Open: BRCS GS 210/220

I opened a BRCS on GS today.

Here's the chart.

The most recent down run has increasing volume and the rally had declining volume with a large down day today. There is strong downtrend and volume to confirm the downward runs.


I put on a BRCS Feb 210/220 for $1.85. Expected ROI 1.85/8.15 = 22% in 4 weeks!

Current trades: LFC, TGT and RIG

Just to get everyone up on my account right now I have 3 trades that I entered into on Jan 10:

RIG: BLPS (Bull Put Spread) Feb 130/125 for a credit of $1.25
Calculated ROI (return on investment) 1.25/3.75 (Risk: $5 difference in strike - credit) = 33%

TGT: BRCS (Bear Call Spead) Feb 55/60 for a credit of $1.01
Calculated ROI 1.01/3.99 = 25%

LFC: BRCS Feb 85/90 for a credit of $.075
Calculated ROI .75/4.25 = 17%

Any questions??