CVC up 16% after hours on acquisition deal. This is like the 5th trade this year Tech Trader got that jumped 15% overnight, with the last one being MDCO.  Another great example of the idiosyncratic alpha Tech Trader captures that is more characteristic of fundamental/technical guys than quants. Should be nice padding for the big day tomorrow.

Hm.. the first strategy I ever wrote now wants to short SPY after selling around 213 a couple months ago. Kind of disturbing. It's made plenty of mistakes in the past though and is more of a slow moving guy, can hold for years, so it's just fun to watch more than anything.  Again, just very interesting to see all my older, abandoned 2012-era strategies coming back alive now after several years of silence.

Tech Trader's overall equity-only portfolio (not including the SPY options trade, only the equity) is already back within 2% of the year highs.  Exposures are also crushed to an extremely neutral 34% long by 26% short.  SPY meanwhile is still down about 7% from the highs and under $200.

And that's the end of Tech Trader's once-in-a-blue-moon 100% hitrate SPY signal.
6.5% on the equity from $187 to $199
200% on the initial weekly 191 calls from $1.5 to $4.5
700% on the roll to weekly 197 calls from $.3 to $2.12 (my bad for selling early, would have been $3 if I let Tech Trader do this, sorry Tech Trader)
57% on the 197.5 calls Tech Trader rebought this morning in disagreement to my selling from $1.47 to $2.32
160% on the month-out 191 calls that Tech Trader bought and held the whole time as a baseline return from $3.93 to 10.23.

I think I might have to step down here after costing Tech Trader 200% on potential gains lol.  There was actually a funny moment today where I literally couldn't sell because something in Tech Trader was blocking my order.  Now we know why.  I'm officially unneeded.

Man... those 191x calls I sold yesterday... Tech Trader saw it was missing and bought it back.  Only the initial base capital size, but they're already up 20%.  I'm no longer in charge anymore lol

Edit: The calls it bought were 197.5x to replace the 191x.  Just clarification.

Alright, out of my moonshot 197x weeklies at $2.12 (~700% from .3).  I'll let Tech Trader take the reins from here with the new reset weekly calls it bought this morning and the month-out calls it's still holding.

The 100% hitrate since 2008 of my once-in-a-blue-moon RSI2 SPY strategy remains intact! Bahaha!

So many people were doubting my price target as soon as I put that out, but now we're shooting straight up lol
This is the Power of Fate and Irony - letting the most ironic outcomes always be in your favor.  Got me so inspired that I wrote an article on it, but hey, it's going to be the basis of my newest project so it's about time.

In spirit of the irony post I just wrote, I'll sell my weeklies now to ensure the success of our trade by regretting this decision tomorrow, but I'll survive this regret with my other calls lol
191x weekly calls up +200%.  Still holding month out 191x up 85%.

BUT... I also have a fresh position in 197x calls at $.30 (now $1.01).  Fate won't see it coming if we rally crazy tomorrow.

Here's a review of where things are at.  Tech Trader did end up taking a hit (largely Monday) and is down 5% off the highs of 20%.  Markets are off about 12% from the highs, however, and SPY is actually negative for the year now.   The playbook currently is in ETFs and market timing.  Positions in individual names remain very neutral as a portfolio thanks to the large exposure cutting that Tech Trader did in July.  Tech Trader is getting longer on each sell off day but only in increments where it thinks might be the bottom, leaving a lot of dry powder to average down.  As the market bounces, Tech Trader will scale some out, and if we go lower, it will average down again.  It will do this until we get back into an uptrend of sorts where market timing signals will then recede and individual names start coming back into play.

Currently it is 112% long by 24% short, with 30% of that long exposure just now being added from Tuesday's close.  If you look at exposures below, you'll see that long is slowly increasing but in the sector charts, all the exposure is coming from ETFs (n/a) which is dwarfing any contribution from individual names right now.  



As usual, a YTD chart of SPY for comparison always highlights how stable Tech Trader's performance is compared to the market despite being largely net long most the year (let's not kid ourselves, SPY looks like a nightmare).

Prodigal signal returns again.  Let's see if it can finally hold into the close.

Update: No bottom signal per se but Tech Trader bought anyway at the very last minute at $187.41 due to the volume and severe price decline.  Fingers crossed; didn't take a bottom signal to bounce from October.  Very last minute (literally) buy though at the sudden plunge below $188 and only possible because Tech Trader is fully automated.

Lost the SPY bottom at close.  Those last minutes really matter.  The signal eludes me yet again.  Fingers crossed we get it tomorrow.

What's even more amazing is how all the intraday signals just sidestepped today's action and stayed quiet to let the big daily ones take over.  None of this is coded.  Freaking swarm intelligence at work here lol

Days like this are a beautiful example of how Tech Trader is NOT quant or conventional algo trading and definitely not mean reverting. All the other quants I know of started scaling in last week and got hit big time, unlike Tech Trader aiming for precision with technical analysis to figure out the exact bottoms (or at least pretty darn close).

Starting to get longer with some intraday volume exhaustion again, starting with XLU.  I expect we might see more names over the next couple trading days though.  This is Tech Trader's way of scaling in lol

Trendlines killing it again today up 2% on average across its names.  80% of them working in its favors and majority of them short signals.  Really regret not seeing the DIA short yesterday; need to not neglect my older strategies so much.

UNG flagging some intraday seller exhaustion... I'd much rather see buys on the main US indicies though; still waiting on the huge cluster of bottom signals on those and preferably on the daily chart (haven't had one on SPY for almost a year).

Very strong outperformance in Tech Trader again by the end of day.  SPY is down 3% at the end of the day.  Tech Trader is down only 1%, again while gradually covering shorts and adding ETF names (currently 82% long by 24% short).

Well this is a bit unsettling.  Trendlines might short SPY which is breaking its uptrend (depending on end of day).  Pretty scary given the high hitrate of Trendline breaks. Would be an interesting match up if RSI2 took the other side with a long signal.

Totally forgot to follow up on the SPY trendline break to the downside.  It definitely broke.  What would be most exciting now is if we can open down next week and then get the RSI2 bottom on SPY to flip long.

For those curious on what these trendline breaks look like over longer horizon, here's every break from 1998 onwards.

Saved 2 cents on XLU calls thanks to the option pricing mechanism lol

2015-08-21 08-02-48: TTFund_TDA_Options: Checking for fair value of XLU Sep 11 2015 46 Call...
2015-08-21 08-02-48: TTFund_TDA_Options: Spread too wide.  Basing price on midpoint $0.37 between 0.35x0.38
2015-08-21 08-02-48: TTFund_TDA_Options: Comparing extrinsic value $0.37 on XLU Sep 11 2015 46 Call with $0.28 on XLU Sep 11 2015 46 Put...
2015-08-21 08-02-48: TTFund_TDA_Options: Buying at cheaper price $0.36 for XLU Sep 11 2015 46 Call
2015-08-21 08-02-48: TTFund_TDA_Options: Fair value check complete: Best price at $0.36 in spread of 0.35x0.38

XLU bouncing already.  Calls that TT bought up 20% month out and 30% weekly.  The bounces from the capitulation point almost always happens, but it's hard to tell for how long and how high.

A lesser talked about strategy for Trendline Breaks is also killing it this week.  This is the one that a friend and I used to trade around manually because it doesn't have automated exits.  The paper portfolio just gets out on the first day of gain or after 1 stdev loss.  It's a good gauge for where things are at though, especially if it's >100% short and making 4% in a few days.

Updated the last post to include percentages on the column charts and a second chart showing how no single name lost more than .1% of the portfolio.

What's interesting to note is that Tech Trader isn't buying the dip today; no bottom or RSI signals on the major indices.  There was one yesterday and a leftover from last week, but not the usual 3-5 cluster or more with aggressive averaging down.  Again, exposures are at year lows of 65% long vs 28% short.