1/x Vanna is back & ready to turn back on the charm! Overnight the market hit our weeklong target of **3705 and pulled back... We were able to take profits & play for a bit of morning digestion. It’s been a nice +3.5% in a week w/a few extra scalps along the way...But the best

1/ Vanna’s a widow maker... waging war with her & Gary is exhausting... we were able to take a textbook short at 3803 and take a profit On half at 3771. We will look to add more in a similar way on tomorrow morning’s likely vanna rally again... looking for exuberance once again

2/ in that 9-10am CST window. The growing chorus of bulls emboldened by Vanna’s continued support the last few days gives me confidence that this opportunity will be there again. W/Gary & Vanna behind them the retail exuberance is rising to a fever pitch. This is exactly what we

3/ want to see. But what happens when their backup is gone?? Who’s going to buy this market at these increasingly higher levels this week. Better yet who’s going to buy it @ lower levels when they are forced to sell next week? Not Vanna. She’ll be @ the beach. It ain’t cool bein’

4/ no Jive Turkey so close to Thanksgiving (OpEx)... Bear Steepening of the yield curve took a breather yesterday & so did the stair steps, which was a bit discouraging, no 2 ways about it. But those pressures are far from over. But... remember w/ Vanna still at 1/2 force SPX was

5/ still just unchanged. W/out EOD vanna flows where would the market have been yesterday? The NDX generals continue to be violently shot 1 by 1 as the rotation continues. The last generals will be BTC & TSLA. Watch them closely... listen closely into the rally. The fear of Covid

1/x The window we have been targeting for 2 months has officially opened... i Can not imagine a more textbook display of the power of Vanna at expiration as we saw on Friday. The capital building was overrun by an insurrection, but all that that meant was a bigger late day rally.

2/x that ended at ATH on the close. Between Gary the 🦍 & his RVol suppression & his hand off to late day Ivol compression & the Vanna index bid, the 🐻’s never had a chance... but Gary’s getting tired after 2 months battling complacency & Vanna’s 2 week vacation, 1 of her only

3/x 2 week departures of the year (a 5 week OpEx) is quickly approaching on 1/15 morning. That means she’ll be increasingly absent as she prepares for her trip. W/ a $59 1 week straddle & $50 1 day range on Friday, & another $30 overnight drop, it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t

4/x want to take a chance on a little long gamma at this juncture. Especially given the obvious warning signs coming from the steepening of the yield curve, underperformance of the Growth complex, complacency in sentiment & positioning, anecdotal signs of bubbles in BTC & TSLA,

5/x NTM the growing exuberance surrounding a fiscal stimulus deal near $2 Trillion. The wall of worry of 3 months ago is gone. The vaccine is being deployed, the election is resolved, fiscal stimulus was passed & w/2 Georgia 🍑 🍑, ever moar 🚁💰is on the way. But what happened

1/ Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (Turn and face the strange)... as futures, sit pinned @ an odd elevated morning perch awaiting Janet Yellen’s confirmation hearing & her call for the new admin to ‘act big’...this narrative has markets on high. But the truth is that it’s actually just Gary

2/x behind the curtain, pulling the usual levers. Until Vixperation on Wed, it‘ll be nearly impossible to break the IVol oversupply. This pinning of IVol was so strong on Fri that despite a peak to trough drop of nearly -2% in SPX, fixed strike straddle were down across the board

3/x & particularly decimated in the very front of the curve. IVol particularly in the 30 day range is showing dramatic signs of oversupply relative to the rest of the IVol surface, giving a nod to the Vix strip driving the compression. Even during windows of vanna weakness as we

4/x are in now, this oversupply phenomenon paired w/ a market decline & a slide to higher fixed strike IVols can still lead to a temporary ‘Dead Cat Bounce’ where residual Vanna/charm morning flows lead to brief AM market support. These supporting flows are generally just strong

5/x enough for a countertrend thrust &, unable to meaningfully impact more important macro flows & hence generally should be faded starting around 9-10am CST. That said Gary’ll likely see to it that there is no major technical break below 1 stdev in the 20 days, likely preventing

1/x The market continues to try & shake out weak hands from overextended positioning by both HF & Retail...After a strong Vanna run up overnight, as expected, retail exuberance exploded on the open in the form of retail call buying, this fragility, paired w/a)Mean reverting flows

2/x from pinned Index Vol b) well documented, risk parity rebalancing flows & c) selling flows tied to bank EOY liquidity constraints. In combination, these flows have together have amounted to substantive selling pressures, strong enough to counteract the positive vanna/ charm

3/x flows, & point to continued likely index RVol an IVol pinning...Historically, the week of quarterly OpEx markets are notoriously volatile intraday, but also mean reverting like we saw today. I think it is fair to expect continued IVol compression & more of the same underlying

4/x chop. Vanna/Charm flows will lose their oomph after Wed 12/16 vixperation morning. There’s a window of weakness which I’ve spoken to for a month that falls 12/16-12/23. That could open a brief window that could lead to revaluation of the real risk & short interest,post 1/6...

5/x but the overwhelming 10k 🦍 of index Vol compression should still hold any correction in time & price in check in the shortterm and it’ll be hard to have anything blow up too bad in SPX land given how cheap & abundant Xmas Vol is 12/23-12/24. NTM, a stim deal & potential Fed

Life is a continuous journey of going through peaks and troughs of Happiness and struggle.

We can only see the Happy part of other lives, but ignore what they might have gone through to achieve that.

But let me tell you, even if someone is at ease right now, doesn't mean that he will continue to be at ease for their whole life.

The struggle will come again and we will have to go through it ,whatever we do, whoever we are , we have to cross that river of pain.

Even,In trading there are times when nothing works out, you go through long time and money draw-downs.

Even if you think you are a master, you have to go through it.

If you are struggling right now, don't lose hope as the tables will turn.

But remember to work as hard as you can and do as much good work as you can in your ease or Joyful time of life, because the tables will turn again.

Thank you for reading.

Trader knight.

So..had a great conversation last night with older investment types, old friends whom I traded with/against and managed money against or for. Age diff from me is > 10+ years so the takes were interesting but the common theme was a little disturbing (depends on your view)

Was looking at the landscape of the world & quite concerned where we are (I do not share your optimism for a shinny happy future). I am a Bond guy + Cycles & my view approach is ALWAYS what is the worst that can happen (that is how I was taught to trade & manage money) As a Bond

Money manager you never every want to apologize for a negative year, most people don't understand bonds can lose lots and lots and lots of money. So my view on life is always negative & fuck you approach.

The others are similar but have more equity exposure and FX, one other is really good via commodities so the conversation was from a top down look with some bottom up approaches. So.....after looking at the notes of the great conversation this is how it looked:

basically the world changed 2007/2008 especially North America. The GFC set in motion financial engineering games and here we are. The issues pre this (2000 to 2007) set ALL this up so lots of blame to go around but to pin point certain things the real problems started with QE &

𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
The entire thread will have some quick pointers on options trading. These bullet points are based on experience and learning and even if you are completely new,will help you to build some perspective. So,lets go :

-When new,prefer trading monthly options over weekly options to reduce risk
-Set up your trades with greater than 50% Probability Of Profit
- Use implied volatility in your decision making process
-Book some trades at 50% of max profit i.e. locking of profit incase u are buyer

-Don’t adjust losing defined risk strategies. A lot of people get into the bad habit of averaging and run the risk of losing a lot
-Diversify your portfolio across product, direction, and time,this has to be considered while you are planning to put in multiple strikes in folio

-Short Strangles are one of our go-to strategies because of their high probability of profit and increased profit potential.A little effort with understanding of volatility would help
-Allocate no more than 5% of your account to any one trade

-Trade small, trade often to increase your number of occurrences. Some might deny but this works
-In options you might have heard of spreads.Multiple options legs create an options spread. For example, a short strangle consists of selling a call and selling a put simultaneously.

Knowledge sharing initiative Book 3: "Zurich Axioms" by Max Gunther

The book crystallizes how to think about taking investment bets (position sizing), and how to reduce risks in investing & speculation. It focuses on teaching a balance between rewards & risks.

(1/n)

Here are the key takeaways from the book:

1. Take sizeable bets in life: Taking small bets will give you a good night's sleep as you have very little to lose, but the important point is "it won't ever make you rich".

(2/n)

2. Taking size-able risk is necessary to get rich but make sure you don't go bankrupt taking that risk.

3. Don't diversify too much as gains & losses will nullify each other.

(3/n)

4. Be less greedy to make money - Book some profits when you see a sudden huge increase in wealth - fear of regret will stop you from booking profits but don't be greedy as consistent streaks of lucks are rare in life.

(4/n)

5. Cut losses when you go wrong don't start praying that your losses will recover rather act quickly take some loss and sell out.

(5/n)