Day 119

The market was almost flat this week - but it had decent up and down movement to make for an engaging trading week. I closed some bearish positions, made some stupid trades then quickly cut them down with small losses, and placed a few range-bound trades that paid well!

Portfolio Status

Here is the portfolio status, including unrealized Profit/Loss. My current net liquidity is ~$56K.

Here is the entire Year to Date P/L list for closed positions - I added previous post's list here for comparison.

My overall profits for the year breached $8K for the first time, moving up by ~$2.1K since the last write-up.

Note that the strike prices I trade at are based on expected moves, and not just delta or theta. Typically my price point is between 1x to 2x range of expected move depending on my comfort level with how fast that symbol can move. For example, if I need to sell calls on tech stocks with high IV then I will go further out towards 2x the expected move (or not sell a call at all!). While I may look at delta and theta as a secondary or tertiary factor, I don't go up and down the option chain using them as an indicator, they are only useful for me to understand whether the risk/reward is good enough for me.

Expected move is same as a gaussian distribution in math, which says that 68% of all data points fall within 1-standard deviation (±1σ) of the mean. This is the same concept that governs your performance ratings if you work in an enterprise - most employees fall along the gaussian distribution and get an average rating. The concept of deviation (sigma, or σ) also comes across in quality control, such as Six Sigma/6σ method invented at Motorola to control defects.

Anyway, most brokers show the expected move (EM) as a value - I have it overlaid on my option price chart itself on tasty. For example, here is the SPCX expected move right now for Oct 16, 2026 - the middle overlay banner from $115 to $160 in brown is the expected move range. And my theory is Elon can send SPCX running high feverishly, so when I sell a Call (if I sell a call), I will sell at 2x the expected move - so here EM is ±22.99 (see blue banner, towards the top-right corner of the image), so I will sell a call at or greater than $135 (current price) + 2x22.99, i.e., ~$181 - as you see delta or theta did not get factored in as the primary factor.

And if your broker does not have this, you can lookup its calculation and calculate it yourself (what I really think is you should find a new broker!).

With that out of the way, here is a strategy breakdown for the week.

Iron Condor

• AMAT
  • Idea: Use deceleration in IV post earnings cycle to scalp a tiny premium
    • On Aug 14, sold the Aug 21 Iron Condor with Put Credit Spread at $470/$465 and Call Credit Spread at $525/$530
      • Closed for $71 in profit
      • Risk: ~$500
• QQQ
  • Idea: Since the market was trading in a range, thought to try an IC in QQQ which I have never traded before in this account. Slightly bearish with a wider call spread.
    • On Aug 14, sold a Sep 18 IC ($695/$690 Put Credit Spread - $760/$770 Call Credit Spread)
      • Closed for $63 in profit.
      • Risk: $1000

Call Credit Spread

• AMAT
  • Idea: Scalp on a little down move post-earnings
    • On Aug 20, sold the Oct 16 Call Credit Spread at $570/$580
      • Closed for $20 in profit after losing confidence in the idea
      • Risk: ~$500
• CRWV
  • Idea: Don't think CRWV will keep ripping higher, scalp a little premium on a small stabilization/down move post-earnings
    • On Aug 14, sold a Sep 18 Call Credit Spread at $115/$120
      • Closed for $38 in profits
      • Risk: ~$500
    • On Aug 19, sold an Oct 16 Call Credit Spread at $100/$110
      • Closed for $47 in profits
      • Risk: ~$500
• PLTR
  • Closed a prior bearish call credit spread as PLTR kept going higher and spread was in the money. Closed for a $187 loss.

Strangle

• HOOD
  • Had a $80 - $120 Sep 18 Strangle open from a prior week
    • Kept adjusting as HOOD moved up and down. After the latest up move today, I am now in a $90/$120 Strangle for Oct 26.
    • Gained $178 in premium across these adjustments
• INTC
  • On Aug 18, sold a $80/$125 Strangle
    • Closed the call with $58 in profit, now short the $80 Put
• NFLX
  • On Aug 14, Sold a Sep 18 $72/$84 Strangle
    • NFLX moved up a bit too much for my liking, decided to cut it on Aug 19.
    • Closed for a $104 loss.

Short Put

• RDDT
  • On Aug 20, sold an Oct 16 $115 Put
    • Closed next day for a $47 gain.

Calendars and Diagonals

• LOW
  • Idea: Buy Earnings calendar spread to play for an IV crush post-earnings
    • On Aug 18 Sold Aug 21 at expected move ($230) Call - has high volatility and thus rich premium and high theta, bought the same call for Oct 16 which depreciates slower due to being further away in time, paid $550 in debit
    • Closed next day for $227 in profits as IV crashed

Zero DTE

• NDX
  • Bearish: Call Credit Spread
    • On Aug 20, sold a Call Credit Spread slightly outside of expected move at $29490/$29510
      • Closed for $138 in profit
      • Risk: $2000
  • Neutral: Iron Condor
    • On Aug 21, sold a Call Credit Spread slightly outside of expected move at $29420/$29400. A bit later, I thought to add the Put Credit Spread too since there was no increase in risk to do that (only one of the spreads can be breached at the end of the day - since these options are cash-settled at the end of the day they can either be up or down, not both).
      • Closed for $417 in profit
      • Risk: $2000
• SPX
  • Aug 18
    • Bullish: Sold Put Broken Wing Butterfly
      • 1/2/1 for $7675/$7690/$7695
        • Closed for $105 in profit
        • Risk: $870
  • Aug 19
    • Super Bear: Sold Call Credit Spread to finance a Put Debit Spread
      • (Technically a 1-DTE trade) Sold Aug 20 Call Credit Spread at $7740/$7750 + Put Debit Spread at $7675/$7655
        • Closed for $315 in profit
        • Risk: $1915
    • Bear: Sold Call Broken Wing Butterfly
      • 1/2/1 for $7725/$7730/$7740
        • Closed for $55 in profit
        • Risk: $945
  • Aug 20
    • Super Bear: Sold Call Credit Spread to finance a Put Debit Spread
      • Sold Call Credit Spread at $7720/$7730 + Put Debit Spread at $7690/$7670
        • Closed for $140 in loss
        • Risk: $2535
        • Stupid trade since I had to pay a debit to put on the trade. Glad I cut it quickly and din't let the loss balloon up.
    • Super Bull: Global Trading Hours, sold an ATM Put Credit Spread to finance a Call Debit Spread, 5 minutes after market close, expiring next day (i.e., Aug 21)
      • Sold Put Credit Spread at $7650/$7640 and Call Debit Spread at $7725/$7750
        • Closed next day for $195 in profit
        • Risk: $2500
        • This is also a stupid trade, but hey I made money so I will call it genius! The key difference here is I didn't need to pay a debit to enter the trade, a premium was paid to me to enter the trade.
  • Aug 21
    • Neutral: Sold Iron Condor
      • Sold $7695/$7715 Call Credit Spread and $7630/$7605 Put Credit Spread
        • Closed for $240 in profit
        • Risk: $2500

Custom

• MRNA
  • Idea: MRNA had a positive news on Wednesday regarding its Cancer research and I took a shot at it. (https://www.barrons.com/articles/moderna-stock-ai-chips-short-squeeze-450815c0). This trade was all about timing and cannot be replicated!
    • The timestamps are below - in and out for first win between 6:35 AM and 7:07 AM, net $388 in profits.
    • Quick follow-up scalp thinking I should be greedier, but bailed out after just another $25 in profits.

• AVGO
  • Idea: X-Bullish - Sell a Put Credit Spread to finance a Call Debit Spread
    • On Aug 19, sold an Oct 16 Put Credit Spread at $350/$340, and bought a Call Debit Spread at $420/$440
    • Closed for $32 in profits as the debit spread was weighing on my mind
    • Buying Power Required: ~$2000
• Closed some other condors from prior weeks such as IWM and LULU for a tiny profit.

Stupid Trades

• SPCX
  • I saw SPCX drop a little and decided to get extra bullish. So I sold a Put and bought a call. Usually I don't buy options. I immediately closed it after feeling uneasy so I had to eat a rather unnecessary $67 loss. The short Put is still open, hoping that can compensate this loss.
• WMT
  • Walmart had earnings and the stock dropped post-earnings. I thought it was an opportunity. I sold a Put and bought a call. But I had never traded WMT and soon enough I realized WMT doesn't move that much. I didn't want to stay in a slow moving trade for long and lock up my buying power. So I exited the entire position within a couple of hours. Net loss: $70.

Unrelated to typical trades, I have now soured on the idea of continuous hedge based on a potential 30% drop, so I closed my SPY hedge this week. I will provide a deeper analysis on why in a subsequent journal.

Market Recap

SPY is at ~$766, and QQQ is on ~$713. Market seems to be stabilizing in a range - this week started with a move down but later saw some good both sided (sometimes up and sometimes down) movement.

VIX inched up slightly and is now just over 15.

Current Positions

Most of my cash is in BIL and SGOV to earn some interest on idle cash.

I am leaning slightly bullish in my portfolio. I am long 8 deltas, collecting $40 in theta per day out of a remaining $3266 in extrinsic value.

I have a short position in SPX and TSLA, long positions in SPCX, INTL, and NFLX, and neutral positions in HOOD and SOFI.

What's Next

More Zero DTEs?

I made $1325 this week from Zero DTE setups on SPX and NDX. I had one losing trade out of twelve with an average win of $110 per trade. What's not to like? Well, you can see my pre-July history for how fast you can get burnt on Zero DTEs. I added an AI-generated analysis of my first half of the year earlier: https://www.foolishtrader.com/day-115/

Looking ahead, I have couple of more weeks before I go back to work. Hopefully the market offers similar opportunities in the coming days as it has for most of August so far. I made more in profits in August alone (Net realized gains in August are $4969) as I have made in all previous months of the rest of the year before that (Net realized gains for year were ~$3690 on Jul 31, 2026). And it will be hard to better my August results once I resume work. But I still consider myself foolish - I have made money but I have no idea if I can replicate what has happened in August! Once August ends, I will hopefully have still kept most of the current profits, and then I can ask Claude what it thinks of my August trades and if it can find any discernible pattern in what is working for me.

Thanks for reading.

📌 Disclaimer: Nothing on this site is financial advice - I’m just here to entertain! Here’s my introduction, my trading philosophy, and some ground rules.