u/Soggy_Builder_84

Console sales and regular games have been seeing massive year over year declines with sales hitting record lows in recent months. The real reason is unknown although price is a huge factor, not only that but the PR got worse when Sony announced no more physical games.

It seems like Console gaming has hit a wall and the excitement just isn’t there anymore. Maybe now is the time to re ignite the VR marketing and hype machine and see if they can regain momentum. Maybe lower the price to $399 and go on a marketing rampage.

I’ve tried long, short, spreads, nakeds and everything on betweeen. I did find a strategy that is the tiniest bit profitable, I’m talking super small. Like trading the same strategy with one contract every single day would net you maybe $50.00 per month on average (no I’m not joking). So sure, I suppose if you had a million dollar account and utilized 1-2% of that per day on this strategy, I suppose you would make an ok amount.

But for the average Joe with under $100,000 in your account? Throw it all in SPY and check it in 25 plus years. What truly blew me away was just how efficient everything is, to the point where every strategy just ended up being a wash in the end and no one had a true consistent edge, I don’t know who or what controls this but my god they are one well oiled machine in ensuring that no one can get a consistent edge over time

So, thoughts? I have to admit, I think Dave is a great play caller and I’m always nervous when there is any disruption on routine and continuity as the slightest change can alter sooo much. I kind of wish we just kept building off last year and let Dave continue calling plays since he’s really good at it, also, does Idzik have his own playbook that the players will now have to re learn everything?

I trade exclusively 0dte spreads and condors and I’ve noticed huge market behavior changes this month- Way less predictable, way less hard trend days, way more whipsaws and indecisive moves, more false breakouts and downtrends. Really uglier and more inconsistent price action across the board. Anyone else?

I placed stops on each of the verticals to book a profit on each, I watched the market stop out everything and anything I had opened on BOTH sides, and though I only did 1 contract on each of them, it literally felt like I was controlling the market with how the market moved every time I placed ones. I did one every hour at the top of the hour. This market and in particular 0DTE are RIGGED

So I trade mostly spreads and condors 0dte and so far doing live trading I’m seeing way higher win rate and better results than the back test would show. Has anyone used TOS on demand and is it accurate?

Over the last year I built my entire identity trading, so many strategies seemed soooo promising, made money for a few months, then lost it and made it back again and while I haven’t blown my account or funds, I feel the market has taken something soooo much more important from me than money. It’s taken my well being, my piece of mind, my ability to relax, hours upon hundreds of hours of screen time, studying, trying to find the tiniest of edge and if just doesn’t exist.

I made some absolutely HORRIBLE financial decisions because I felt after two months of steady gains that I “figured it out” and I now own not one, but two cars I can’t afford and I will have to do voluntary repo on because I can no longer make money in the market.

Thankfully I still have my full time job, and the wife works. I started with $160,000, and I still have $95,000 left. Trading has been hands down, by far the biggest and most time and money wasting endeavor of my 42 years on this planet and it’s not even close.

I would have rather taken the money I lost and burned it, at least it would have kept me warm for 10 mins which even that is a net benefit over what trading has given me.

And no I’m not talking about fed days or big news days. Some days I’ll open a 0dte iron condor and get my 50% profit within an hour, but other days despite paying similar premium for the same width, the decay just isn’t happening and stays stuck only for a big move later to wipe me out?

It’s almost like the market God or “someone” knows something that I don’t and hence greatly slows down the theta decay some days and before you know it, that big move does happen and I’m wiped. Why is this?

I’ve tried everything under the sun, I’ve back tested everything under the sun and I’ve concluded that it’s just not possible to find a workable, repeatable system trading 0dte day in and day out and make a consistent income month in and month out with.

I don’t know how, but it’s almost like there are market “gods” that know of every single imaginable system on the face of the planet and they neutralize any edge that might materialize.

I’ve had soooo many strategies work for two months at a time, then poof, stop working and they seemed sooooo iron clad.

It can’t be done

I’m not talking about the gamblers that yolo half their account got n something they have a “gut feeling” on and end up losing it all, that’s a gambling mindset not a business mindset (I was once there too.).

I’m talking about the traders that trade their proven systems day in and day out, yes even then losses hurt and it sucks but losses are absolutely necessary.

Think about trading an investment property you want to fix up and re sell.

Let’s say you take out a mortgage on the property, well in order to fix up the house to re sell it for a profit, you have to expend capital. You have take money that you have in hand, hire a contractor, buy the supplies and spend it, that money is lost, it’s gone.

Same thing if you start a new business, you have to go out and put a down payment on a building, hire employees. All of that takes money that you have to expend in order to build your profit machine.

Losses are the same exact thing. It’s all about trading your edge over and over and over again letting the profits take over the losses.

Hell, casinos have losses everyday on slot machines, but law of large numbers, they always profit. If no one literally never won on slot machines, then the gamblers would never play and the casinos would go bankrupt.

Just some thoughts

I’m not going to give a detailed run down of the movie as I’m sure most of you already know it, in short- bank heist movie.

Main character Neil McCauley, lead bank heist man. He’s extremely calculated, extremely disciplined, not greedy, dressed and carries himself like a legit, low key business man, brings no attention to himself.

There is one scene where they are doing a small heist of jewelry, Val Kilmer’s character (he’s the one that breaks into the safe, gets past locks etc) is drilling through a safe while Neil is on the lookout for law enforcement. Well Al Pacino (lead detective trying to bust Neil and his crew) are in a storage bin feet away from the heist doing a stakeout, as Val Kilmer is super close to breaking the safe and getting the goods (aka, so close to his trading profit for us traders) the scene goes back to Neil, on the lookout.

One of the cops in the storage bin, just ever so lightly rests his back against the metal wall and it’s makes the slightest sound, Neil hears it…. It was such a TINY sound but he hears it.

Neil, immediately uses his instinct, goes to Val who is still drilling the safe and tells him they have to Bail! (Our version of being disciplined and using our stop loss.). Val then says “I’m so close, now?!?” (Our version of, “I know I’m down on this trade but I’m so close, I can feel it.). But Neil, being the disciplined trader (bank heist guy) that he is, says “YES, move, now!” He doesn’t move his stop loss, he doesn’t compromise, ANY hint of danger, he’s gone.

Later in the movie, Neil and his crew decide to get greedy, they break their own rules and decide to go full cowboy and do another bank heist, they ditch the calculated, methodical strategy and go for a guns blazing, all or nothing, ski masks on type of heist and go for “the big score” in one fell swoop like a bunch of amateur bank robbers. (Sound familiar?, aka, when we break our rules and do YOLO trades trying to strike gold at once).

Well if any of you saw the movie, you know how that goes. It gets messy and messy fast, Al Pacino and his crew are locked in, they get to the scene, and it culminates in Neil and his crew getting shot all to pieces, injuries, a total blood bath, pure chaos and also the best bank heist, shoot out scene in cinematic history. Much like how it goes when we break our own trading rules, decide to go “all in” and “strike it big” 9 times out of 10
it ends in the same kind of bloodbath reflected in our PNL.

And finally, the “final demise.” Neil survives the shootout, he got the girl, he got the money, he is literally free and clear with his girl in the passenger seat on their way to Mexico, he won.. Except he didn’t, as they are driving to Mexico, Neil gets this thought, he wants to squash this beef with Waynegro (an old adversary). in other words, a revenge trade. He wants to go back and kill him, get his revenge despite having won, so he does just that. He turns the car around, tells his girl “I forgot somethin, don’t worry, it won’t be long.”

Only it doesn’t work out that way, by the time he gets to the hotel and kills Waynegro, Al Pacino and his squad are there, Neil sees them and starts running, and running, Pacino sees him, goes after him, they have a intense shootout at an airport, then finally a bullet lands, it hits Neil, he dies.. That one revenge trade cost him everything.

TLDR; think of trading as a bank robber. Which bank robbers do you think have more success over time? The ones that only want small amounts over a long period of time, they look for weakness in the bank’s security, they then exploit that weakness for small gains over and over again, slowly and steadily. OR the cowboys, the ones that go in guns blazing, yelling, being forceful, triggering alarms and going for that “big score”. Something to think about

At work the other day, we had a zoom meeting, and one of the managers, she was talking casually and took a sip of coffee and casually just said “this coffee really yellows my teeth, and I have fake teeth too, so I need to take better care of them!”

and this was in front of like 30 people, no hesitation, so casual and non chalant and people just laughed or didn’t even care or acknowledge it. It just struck me is all lol

I trade exclusively SPX 0dte, I think I have a legit working and mathematically sound strategy, (I know I know, que the eye rolls and snarky remarks, I get it.) I’m not on here trying to sell anybody anything or to give out my “tips” to some holy grail strategy.

My simple question is, when would scaling become an issue? Meaning what would be considered “too big” to the point where I would start running into issues of getting filled in large orders? Or placing such large orders I start moving the market?

Say I trade spreads and condors for example. Would I be able to scale say 100 contracts with ease? 500?, would 1000 contracts start causing issues?

If you do standard 20 delta ICs and taking off profit at 25% or 50%, you win for a while but with such a small profit the RR is terrible. Is there a solution?

How people are making money doing this is beyond me. The market unrelentingly just moves and moves and moves. Doing a short credit spread or condor is basically saying “I’m betting the market won’t move.”

The stock market is equal to a 5 year old kid with ADHD hopped up on Red Bull. Take that kid to a three hour movie and place a bet that he will sit still during the entire time, let me know how that works for you.

When the SPX was trading at 5800 a year or two ago, the daily expected move was around 30-32, well now that its trading at 7400, the daily expected move is still around 30-32.

A 30 point move is a lot bigger % move when the SPX is at 5800 versus 7400. For example, a 30 pt move on a 5800 SPX is 0.50%, a 30 point move on a 7500 SPX is 0.40%. And yes, that’s enormous when 0dte have VERY little room for error.

It’s just odd to me that expected daily move doesn’t account for this.

Been trading 0dte SPX for the last year and everyone says “never trade the open” but when you wait, the premiums are trash later in the day and you have to get much narrower. True, volatility is a little higher in the morning but so are premiums and the width you can get, typically if you can survive the first 30-45 mins, you are in the clear.

I’ve gotten killed in the past waiting later to open 0dte later in the day because of how low premiums are.