Short 1 S at 1533

Result:
+0.5 or $25 (before commissions)

Tried to nibble in, but not much downside follow-through.

Hate the markets

Usually when someone hates markets, that means 'losing money.' I'm no exception.

1. Money club
As some of you know I'm involved with money club. The club's position is 99% of time against the market direction because it utilizes time decay in options. I don't want to see Gold, Oil, Grains etc make new highs. Yesterday, when gold dipped 20 pts, I was relieved, but today it's +25 making a new high. Crude is +3.50 still going. Euro making a new high and even Coffee is +1.2%. Yet, this is still managable. The real deal comes....

2. Position trades
Lumber is just not taking a break at all. Yesterday limit down. Today down again. I'm net -$5400. The soybeans-soymeal spread trade is even worse. Net -$13000. These are supposed to be all fact-based trades, so eventually it'll go in my favor (sometimes it takes years) but I was totally not expecting this much drawdown this fast. I have a big chunk of money coming in July, so I thought it'd be okay, but -$18000 is more than half of my portfolio and I have to worry about margin calls unless this move slows down.

I'm honestly not sure if I can survive on this. I thought I got better, but the same thing happens again and again. Sign me up guys, I'll be one of those 95% who lose money...

Long 1 S at 1550.50

Result:
+1.25 or $62.50 (before commissions)

So much for yesterday's weakness. Soybeans are up +40 today. I rather short on yesterday's low, but the setup occured, so I entered.

Short 1 S at 1551.25

Results:
+7.75 or +$362.5 (before commissions)

I have so much things to say. Yesterday I talked about the first sign of weakness in grains, so today I entered two short trades. The previous wheat trade was not as clear, so I used a tight stop, which got stopped out on a small wiggle at +$75. What was not clear was that I would like to see all the grains sync together, but corns and beans were not following wheat yet.

Shortly after that, corns and soybeans were approaching the low of the day. I entered a short on soybeans. I saw overnight low at 1543 level and I thought if we could take out that level, we will see the previous day's low at 1534. If we take out that low, we're talking about at least 1520 level. As beans moved down, I trailed, but guess what, I got stopped out at 1543 on a small bounce before taking the prev low. So I left lots on a table, but trading 1 lot is hard because you need to book profits, yet need to trail accordingly.

Now, I see more drop in beans / corns for next few days. I will add additional contract on my beans/meal spread.

Short 1 W at 1100

Result:
+1.5 or $75.00 (before commissions)

Short 1 S at 1559.25

Result:

+3.75 or $187.5

Lucky I got the almost dead low.

I'm still facing a possible disaster on the spread trade. It seems that we might see some consolidation, or a possible pullback from this point. I haven't seen a weakness for a long time. I may short S swing.

By the way, I got assigned on both 240 and 220 March Lumber puts. I'll roll-over some time this week to May contracts.

Monthly Total - Feb 2008

Day trading account: +$934.48
Swing trading account: $0

Even if the swing account shows zero, I have a huge drawdown in open positions. I'll include them once I close them. Last year I was not that good at day trading, but this year has been consistent (I know they are small but steadily growing).