Given that the market is still showing a little bit of weakness today, I figured it would be a good idea to lock in our profits from the May SPX Iron Condor and roll it forward to another Condor for June. I decided to again be quite conservative with the June trade; as a result we are well below the 6 month lows for the SPX, and outside of the 2nd standard of deviation channel for the 6-month chart. We are still able to get a good fill and substantial ROI, so I’m pretty comfy with this trade.

• Bot back 20 May SPX 1320/1330 1260/1250 Iron Condors
• Purchased for $0.48 Debit
• Cost: ($960.00)
• Commissions: ($129.95)
• Account Cash Balance: $104,370.30

• Position Summary May SPX 1320/1330 1260/1250 Iron Condors
• Position $1,020
• Commissions ($259.90)
• Total $761.1
• ROI: 3.8% in 5 days

New position

• Sold 25 June 2006 SPX 1350/1360 1200/1190 Iron Condor @ 1.10 Credit
• Credit $2,750, Commission: ($159.95)
• Margin $25,000
• ROI 10.36%
• Account Balance: $106,960.35
• Risk profile: 3.8% Chance of Expiring above 1350, 5.53% Chance of Expiring below 1200

• Total Margin: $80,000
• Cash Available to Adjust: $26,960.35
• Total Cash in Account: $106,960.35

I’m going to sit on the May GOOG position given that things are looking pretty safe. No point is giving the market our money if we don’t have to. There is a nice 25 point cushion on either side of that trade and there aren’t any announcements due out from Google over the evening. That trade should turn a nice 9.96% profit and just about $3,000 in profits. I’ve also opened a new trade on the MSH that has lowered the available cash in the account to a normally unacceptable amount. I did this simply because GOOG is going to expire tomorrow, and that will free up $30,000 in margin. We will then have 3 open June positions and plenty of money to adjust positions if needed. I’ll keep and eye out to see if we can add up some additional profits into our pockets by selling a few more safe plays. If something crazy were to happen tomorrow with GOOG, we run the risk of not being table to adjust and might need to react by freeing up margin elsewhere.

The MSH is a pretty volatile index; it’s comprised of 35 tech companies, so it can move quickly. Some of the big players are Yahoo, Dell, Cisco, Intel, Applied Materials etc… Needless to say, this trade has a chance of moving big and we’ll need to keep an eye out. The MSH was sitting right at 544 just about a week ago, but interest rate concerns and higher commodity prices have sent shockwave through the tech sector. Given the short time period of only 28 days till expiration, I think we’ll be in good shape. Here is the summary…

• Sold 25 June 2006 MSH 540/550 460/450 Iron Condor @ 1.09 Credit
• Credit $2,720, Commission: ($159.95)
• Margin $25,000
• ROI 10.26%
• Account Balance: $109,525.40
• Risk profile: 6.8% Chance of Expiring above 540, 7.3% Chance of Expiring below 460

• Total Margin: $105,000
• Cash Available to Adjust: $4,525.40
• Total Cash in Account: $109,525.40

Overall things are looking up. We’ve racked up almost a 10% gain in the account within the first trading month; of course all of this money isn’t ours yet, but we will work hard to lock in as much as possible! I’ll continue to post updates as the month progresses. Good luck, and grab my feed

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