Was up nicely on my account today at one point. Then got "cute" and tried nms on (guess...?) 0dte SPY. Gave half back. Worth it? Maybe, for the potential it had? Update: it did play out later for coulda shoulda.
Let's focus on GOOGL. It was gapping down below trendline, but still in the base, arguably. So when the market was holding on at the open and GOOGL did that big reversal I tried a long. I think it was a decent case, but that was not my intended trade. Took the loss, then did enter my intended trade for a winner.
Here's today's experiment and thoughts. I took the 122 puts and the 121 puts. I took 10 of each, so the 121 position had less starting capital in it. In the "normal" profit range (see here, 20-40%), the gains were similar. If I put the same $ in each, I'd have similar $ gains. If I can take more contracts at a farther otm strike, I have more options for scaling/holding, and if it goes really far the % gain will amplify.
That's great if I get a big move. What about last week in LEN. I thought it was going to be a big breakout. I got 118s to start with and 120s later. A little hard to compare, but over there the 118s went well into the money and the 120s barely. So the 118s paid well, and if I had only had the 120s it wouldn't have been a great trade.
My conclusion from those 2 trades is that it is a good idea to take 2 strikes in some shape or form. Should I combine with multiple expirations? I don't really want to be holding/swinging anything (at this point in my career) so should I do equal number or equal dollar allocation? And, I'm going to have to really be decisive about levels. Today I panicked and tried to take off partials of both the GOOGL calls, but I couldn't get the order to execute like I thought it should have. I think I had done the same thing for the LEN calls, and it did work. I'll go back and see what I overlooked in a panic that didn't execute.
I have a learning curve for this, but it has some promise!
