Tip From the Geek September Recap – Geek Turns Bearish with 16% ROI
Bearish Month For The Geek – Recapping September Trading Tips
I know, it is surprising to see me say this. I am a perpetual bull, looking for the good spots of the economy is what I do, I can’t help it. Don’t let this fool you though, I will still trade a put when I see an opportunity and that is what happened last month, a lot. I was surprised myself, it was one of those things I noticed in hindsight, 72% of my trades last month were puts. Not that it really matters, so long as the trades are good, right? In any event it was something I noticed and thought I would share. Something else noticeable about last month is the trading I did outside of the weekly tips. Volatility was high and I used my Opening Momentum Strategy quite a bit.
Total Cost Of Trading = $13,500
Total Return On Investment = $15,725
Return On Investment = 16.5%
Due to the way the month fell there were only 4 Monday’s in September, this means 20 tips. I won 11 of the tips trade for a win rate of 55%. I also made quite a few trades aside from that, 7 to be exact, 6 were winners. This brings my total number of trades up to 27 with 17 wins for a monthly win rate of 63%, 4% above my average. I used a higher risk rate on some of my trades, you’ll have to visit the forum to find out more about that. For the sake of this discussion I will assume all trades were my typical $500. So, 27 trades means total cost of trading was $13,500. With 17 wins total return is $15,725 with net profit of $2225 or 16.5%.
Volatility And A Bearish Stance
Week One 9/8/2015
This was kind of a wanky week. First off its the first tips of the month despite being the 8th, and a Tuesday due to the Labor Day Holiday. Not to mention the market was reeling on bad news from China, global stock market correction and wound up on FOMC speculation. I was bullish on the market, after it hit the first bottom, and won that one. Also bullish on the dollar but only partially right in that regard. My trade on gold was fine, the ones on the euro and the yen were not. Finally, I played a put on oil, following trend and supply demand issues and won that one as well.
Week Two 9/14/2015
This was the FOMC meeting week. The old goats did not make a rate hike as expected and the market began to rally. It was also the week of option expiry so volatility was a little high. The good news is that was a good week, four of my five trades paid off. The S&P bounce was good, my stance on the dollar was better and oil was still trending lower.
Week Three 9/21/2015
This is post FOMC week. The week after they lowered inflation targets, and basically pushed the rate hike out, and then pulled it back in with “fed speak”. The dollar barely budged, it moved a little, but more sideways than anything. I was fifty fifty on that, and I lost out on gold as it shot back to the top of the range. Trades on oil and the SPX were both good too, bringing the weekly total up to 3 wins and 2 losses.
Week Four 9/28/2015
This is the last week of the month, and the last week of the third quarter. Volatility remained high as institutional investors shifted their positions to get ready for the fourth quarter. And the market moved lower to retest support and bounced much earlier than I had expected. I had a bad week this week, I can say it, but I didn’t get skunked. I won one trade, on the yen, but failed on all the rest. Dam old FOMC and weak data hurting the dollar, if not for that it would have been a better week, but oh well.