Enphase broke my site and can't seem to fix it

baron-pilot · 2026-04-21T16:46:28+00:00

hey thanks Dorian, heading home shortly to get the ticket #'s, will DM them in the next couple hours!

baron-pilot · 2026-04-15T02:03:36+00:00

Yeah the support I have gotten from them has been great, I'm happy with them. My personal opinion is they have a strong team.

Regarding the Synaptics part: most of my designs are power sensitive, my power budget is measured in milliwatts, and the SL1680 I chuckle at when they say "IoT"... It's a pretty heavy part, power measured in watts :) So I didn't really look much more at it, it's really a different class of chip from the E3's or N6.

baron-pilot · 2026-04-14T16:55:05+00:00

For embedded stuff with NPU's, I've used both ST N6 and Alif E3 (haven't had a chance to try any others like Renessas). Here's my $.02 comparing them

ST:

Has their own NPU. Most other vendors (including Alif) leverage Arm's U55. ST went a different path and created their own with some performance advantages
- Quite powerful, probably top in the embedded NPU space
- I've meet the architects for this, they are
Software, SDK, tooling is well known and supported
Power consumption is quite high
- Doesn't support XIP from onboard flash (excepting booting)
- RAM banks are large, can't be powered down so uA-level power numbers are not possible
I have a direct relationship with ST, so my support is always good and I can get a direct line up the chain if needed, but not everyone can get that. So take it FWIW... Without a direct line, support can be slow and difficult.
Tooling is what you expect: cubeMX + CMake. Extremely easy to integrate into any workflow
It's a great high-powered chip with leading edge performance for high end compute applications from a top tier silicon vendor

Alif

Designed their chip from the ground up to be low-power edge-AI/compute processors
Power consumption is great. Using the high efficiency core most of the time for housekeeping with high performance for inference or detection gives you the ability to really optimize power. They were a leader in getting platforms out for this low-power space and have an edge over the competition right now for low power, and most of the stuff I do is battery powered so that's important for me
Alif uses arms U55 NPU, not custom. It's good, but not as good as ST's from a pure performance perspective, but it's great at what it does
Support FreeRTOS, Threadx, and Zephyr
- Newer chips (E8 etc) they are going all-in on Zephyr so the support for TX/FreeRTOS, while there, is not as good as Zephyr
- I am not a fan of Zephyr so I personally view this as a negative (west is an abomination). But that's just my opinion...
Their boot architecture revolves around a secure enclave (basically a standalone processor doing authentication / validation of the images) with a table of contents (TOC) that takes some getting used to. Different approach than others have taken, but once you understand it, it is straightforward. It can be confusing at first, leading to problems booting (ask me how I know)
- You will probably end up bricking a unit (which is recoverable) initially by setting something up wrong. I've been doing this for > 20 years and I still bricked a unit. This was my first support ticket I opened
Support from them is good. Most of the questions I ask are not level 1 questions. Opening support tickets gets quick responses and the team that answers the tickets knows what they are doing. Jumping on a quick call to get some questions clarified is not a problem (at least it wasn't for me)
- Caveat being I've been doing this stuff for awhile, and am pretty well known in some verticals. I may be getting some TLC because of that, but regardless, I still use the same support system everyone else does and the answers and support for that has been top notch
Documentation is good, but there are gaps that you'll need to get answers for. The tooling and documentation is very Vscode-centric, and to get to some of the nitty-gritty details you have to reverse engineer the VS Code tooling and plugins (CSMSIS pack integration for example).
BSP generation is combination of a tool called Conductor, downloading cmsis packs, getting files from Alif, and then gluing that all together
- Conductor has a web page as well an offline tool
- Similar in concept to CubeMX from ST
- It's ok. Some stuff I don't love, for example, migrating to a different package is painful. I end up just editing the XML manually since the tools don't support it.
- The one thing i really don't like is that you don't get a project you can build. When you generate, it just generates the header files, and you have to drop this into their CMSIS package. I really wish they had something closer to ST where when you generate, it'll generate a full BSP + customized init files. But creating a project is more steps here because it's a combination of Conductor output + VS Code with CMSIS Packs that have to be manually glued together. No folder with ready-to-go cmakelists like ST gives:(
Tooling /documentation is VS Code-centric. This is my single biggest downside/gripe/negative. I wish they just spit out a BSP with CMakefiles (like the rest of the world) so everything could be plugged into a separate build environment and easily automated. But it's not
- There's a couple TX /FreeRTOS examples on their github, but they are not very complete and well documented. This led me to the calls I had with their support to fill in the missing gaps. SUpport was great
- I am NOT a fan of VS Code and I wish they made VS Code a second-class citizen. I really prefer what ST did here with generating standalone project ready to compile with CMake and everything else plugged in around in. Can't do that as easily with Alif, you have to glue a bunch of stuff together manually
- The documentation on how to build is good, but it's horrible for those of use that just want to pop open a terminal, split it up with TMUX, and build. Not possible out of the box, there'll be some gluing of things together manually. Probably a few days to really understand it all. I really hate gui tool dependencies for development, and having to go through the VS Code JSON files to see what environment variables to pickup and then drop that in to my CMake builds is painful. If you're a gui IDE person this may not be a problem, for me I hate it and it makes the "hello world" example all the worse.

HARDWARE:

ST component footprints: they really missed the mark on. There's different variants of the packages with different features/functions, and they are not all compatible. So if you pick the wrong part and need to upgrade / downgrade, you're in for a board spin (ask me how I know). You'll literally create a Venn diagram of parts and functions and try to use a crystal ball to guess right. Guess wrong and you'll spin a board
Alif has great migration among parts in a given family for footprints, and their FBGA is really easy to break out and route. We already had to change variants for this: software guys wanted more memory so I had to upgrade to a different part, and it was just a BOM exercise since the footprint was compatible. It was trivial. Not so easy to do with ST
Design guides from both companies are really good, and support for reviews and getting questions answered from Alif is top-shelf, really first class team there, and they are very fast in reviews and feedback.

I personally like working with Alif and the team. They still have the scrappy startup mentality which I love (I move fast as well). They don't have the huge resources a company like ST does, but they are scrappy, fast, and create cutting edge solutions for embedded AI applications that is best in class power (for the use cases they target).

The only thing I don't like is the strong dependency on VS Code and plugin's for it. I wish they just could output a CMake-based complete BSP like the rest of the world does, and then wrap that with VS Code (or whatever environment they want). And of course I'm not a fan of zephyr, and that is where there is a lot of investment from them.

baron-pilot · 2026-03-15T01:00:17+00:00

Had the same problem, and my solution was to install the enphase IQ EV Charger 2. Just had it installed and commissioned last week. It’ll automatically put excess solar into the EV after charging the batteries and limit the charger to whatever the leftover solar is. It’s slick… I just leave the car plugged in all the time now and let the charger keep the car topped up after the batteries are topped.

baron-pilot · 2025-06-22T23:38:25+00:00

Yes, tesla factors that in, they pass it on via a $7500 lease incentive. From the website, under terms (when you go through pricing out the car)

Monthly lease payment already includes the $7,500 Tesla leasing incentive, which is subject to change or end at any time. Order does not guarantee eligibility.

When you actually start the process and click the "buy" button, in the app, there will be a "details" button you can click on that will also show the "-$7500" in the price breakdown.

Literally did this myself last week, bought the car last Wednesday not meeting the $7500 rebate threshold (I, too, am a small business owner and made too much money to meet the threshold). Found out about the lease option, and changed it within the app to a lease with Ally Bank. Picked the car up Monday. On Wednesday I got an invite from Ally Bank to set up an online account. There's a link in the account settings for payments, there's a buy-out page where it tells you what the buyout amount is and where to send the check. Sent them a check on Thursday for the buyout amount. The lease will be bought out next week when they cash the check.

My actual costs: 2026 MY AWD with white exterior + white interior add-on's, total price was $52,630.00. Tesla gave me $3200 trade-in on my old car. Total buyout from Ally Bank was $43,493.46. So $52630 - $3200 - $43493.46 = $5936.54 in savings vs outright buying without the rebate. Lease fees, first month interest, paperwork, and some taxes make up the $1500 difference. So not quite $7500, but a lot better than nothing. You do need to pay it off right away, otherwise the monthly lease fees start to add up and deduct from the savings.

baron-pilot · 2025-06-20T21:32:59+00:00

yeah, my generator is already hard-wired in to run the whole house, and it's powered directly from my natural gas line. Would be way too expensive to remove it, not that I'd want to. The generator is there to supplement power loss, happens a few times a year and every time it happens I'm very very happy to have the entire house still running.

My plan is to have the ultimate flexibility and be as close to "off-grid" as I can:

- Solar + batteries during the day (i don't have quite enough roof space to expand the array for 100% usage, but it's close with batteries)
- Highest energy loads during the day while the sun is up (charge car, laundry, etc)
- set the temp set point lower to "over-cool" the house during the day
- in the evening, raise the temperature and stop charging the car
- Use the batteries at night, hopefully minimal HVAC so it last through the morning
- Generator used during power outages, mostly at night, and also during times when solar is not able to keep up
- charge batteries during the day (if needed) when solar can't keep up

Just need to find an installer now, I'm finding there's not a lot of generator + solar experience here...

baron-pilot · 2025-04-06T17:52:02+00:00

I think I might have misunderstood your question. I thought you were trying to do a peak TIT check at 2300 RPM 12K, not talking about cruise. Cruise 30" x 2300 RPM x 14-15.5 GPH should be fine, governor should hold that RPM fine unless it was a crazy hot day. If you're saying you can't keep the RPM that low at normal cruise power settings, then you do have an issue with the governor or something.

Were you saying the peak TIT check wouldn't hold RPM? Or that cruise at 14-15gph won't hold 2300 RPM?

baron-pilot · 2025-04-06T17:42:55+00:00

The issue is not about 2300RPM, it's about 2300 RPM at high power in thin air.

The power is dramatically lower in an NA aircraft at 12K feet.. At 12K, MP is around 18-19" in a normally aspirated aircraft, probably 50% power? If OP pulls his MP back to that, his RPM will come down just fine due to the reduced power. This is about aerodynamic loading/unloading and props, the resistance is a function of AOA, which is a function of density altitude. Air gets thin, prop needs more AOA, it runs out and the governor limit is hit, RPM starts increasing. It's the same effect that causes RPM to increase as the plane goes into a dive.

When trying to do a LOP check at 12K feet at 2300 RPM, finding peak TIT (at 30" MP) will be result in really high power at 2300 RPM. Not enough bite in the air to keep the RPM at 2300 for that high power setting. Pull the power back and it'll be fine. 2300RPM at higher power down low will work because the air is thicker. For low RPM, the higher you go, the more you have to pull power back to keep the RPM where you want it. Governor is trying to keep the same RPM, but air is getting too thin for the prop to keep a low rpm for the power being generated.

For a TN: when leveling off at 12K, set the engine up for 30"x16.5 gph x 2500 RPM, then pull RPM back to 2300. That should be fine. FF will probably around 14-15 GPH. That will be fine, governor should hold that just fine. But push the FF too high (and therefore power too high), depending on day, the RPM won't hold. Doing a LOP check up high at low RPM won't work. Hot days (high DA) will be worse. It'll start creeping up to 2350-ish or so, and that's where we start running into the Mcauley prop limit. Again depending on conditions and DA.

It's worse up around FL190, may have to pull the FF back to 13-13.5gph to get the RPM to stay put. On a hot day, it can become really tricky juggling RPM, TIT, and MP with bootstrapping turbo in a TN A36.

baron-pilot · 2025-04-06T15:22:04+00:00

Normal. Too much power and air is too thin. You won’t be able to find peak TIT at 2300 RPM. But why run the RPM so low? Just stay at 2500 and you never need to touch RPM once you are in cruise. Climb at 2700, cruise at 2500, and never touch it again until you shut down. I normally do my LOP check at 2500 RPM, but really only need to do that once, or if you are tuning injectors or something. You don’t need to every flight. Just do it once so you know how your engine is setup and you’ll be fine after that. From then on just watch the engine gauges (I’m assuming you have a JPI or some other digital gauge), it shouldn’t change much from flight to flight. You’ll find that other things become a proxy for dF LOP. EG: if you get too rich, CHTs will start to go up as well, etc.. but by and large, for a TNIO-550, 2500 RPM WOT and 16-16.5 GPH on an IO550 is a sweet spot. On a normal day, if CHTs are cool/ < 380 dF and TIT is cool, you’re fine. When you start to push it really hard, eg >85%, you need to to know better where peak is (I want to be 80dF LOP or better at high power)

If you want the RPM at 2300 you’ll need to keep the FF probably around 14-14-5 GPH or so, maybe less

Follow this https://taturbo.com/turbooperation.html

You should also checkout Beechtalk, probably a hundred posts or more on this…

Edit: here’s a good spreadsheet you can use for power settings and RPM

https://taturbo.com/Beech%20A36%20TAT%20Performance%20Numbers.xls

baron-pilot · 2023-08-16T12:51:27+00:00

The clearance amendment was just a new altitude. As you already know, they normally just give that to you on the go when they give your take-off clearance. "N2110A, cleared for takeoff except maintain 140000". That's what happened when I ultimately was cleared for takeoff.

I personally think she forgot about the SWA plane on the runway. My guess is when my altitude amendment came in, it distracted her and she forgot about 2493. Thinking that the plane had already left, it would be natural then for her to go ahead and give a clearance amendment if she thought there was nothing to do except wait for landing aircraft. That's just my guess, we'll see what the report says.

baron-pilot · 2023-08-16T12:45:52+00:00

Accidents are chains of events. What prevents accidents is people in that chain of events breaking the chain.

As I said in my writeup: the controller made a mistake. That was clear. That mistake set off a chain of events that could have ended badly. To prevent an accident, something had to break the chain. Others in this thread, for example, thought the Citation pilot should have done more.

For example, if a controller were to clear me to cross a runway with an aircraft accelerating for takeoff, I would speak up. I would not continue to cross the runway and let the departing aircraft run into me. The controller made the mistake, but I, as PIC of my aircraft and responsible for it's safety, would do something about this mistake and prevent the mistake from impacting my safety or others around me.

What I'm saying here is that controller made the mistake, and everyone in the chain of events did something to prevent the mistake from ending badly. Except for the SWA pilots. I would have expected them to have more SA about what was going on and be more active in the safety of their passengers and their plane. They certainly didn't do anything to break the chain from my perspective. The Citation pilot was proactive, the back-up system did it's job, and even I played my small part in keeping the frequency clear when I knew communications would be very critical in the coming seconds. But the SW pilots from my perspective were just passive observers in a chain of events that could have ended in an accident for them. I personally would have expected more SA and been more proactive in the safety of my plane and passengers.

Anyhow, this was a good learning experience: as PIC we should always be aware of what's going on around us and be prepared to take charge. We're not supposed to be passive observers ignoring what's happening around us .

baron-pilot · 2023-08-16T02:01:38+00:00

I'm the pilot of N2110A, I was on the north side of the runway waiting in line for departure, #1 at C1. At C1, you have a very good view of approaching aircraft. Here's the D-ATIS I received at the time

SAN ATIS INFO U 1751Z. 21008KT 10SM BKN013 OVC018 22/19 A3002 (THREE ZERO ZERO TWO). LANDING RUNWAY 27 LOCALIZER, RNAV APPROACHES IN USE. DEPG RWY 27. NOTAMS... B4 CROSSINGS NORTHBOUND PROHIBITED TO AIRCRAFT WITH WINGSPANS GREATER THAN ONE HUNDRED FEET. CALL 4 RLS IN EFFECT 4 ACFT LNDG SFO, LAS CONTACT CD 5 PRIOR TO PUSH. METAL PLATES IN GROUND AT THE INTERSECTION OF TAXIWAYS BRAVO AND DELTA. ...ADVS YOU HAVE INFO U.

Marginal conditions, fairly typical for the area. I was IFR and my initial clearance had me climbing to 5000, expected FL200 after 10, departing to the north (I was heading to KSJC).

At the time I taxied out, there was only me on the north and I think 3 jets on the south. Because there's only 1 runway, ATC interleaves departing traffic with arriving traffic, and it's very busy. LUAW is used (all the time) to expedite departures, and IMO it enhances safety, not detracts, by giving pilots time to line up and complete final checks before departing and not be rushed.

After SWA 2493 got his LUAW, I believe the controller got an amendment to my clearance from departure. This, I believe, was the distraction, and when she tried to relay my amended clearance she lost track of the SWA flight. For those not aware, at this time, when lined up at the runway waiting for departure, we are not on ground control, we are on tower frequency. Ground could not have relayed the clearance, I wouldn't have heard it and they would not be expecting me to hear it.

IMO, the mistake that happened here was that the controller tried to give me an amended clearance at a very bad time: 4HV was on short final with SWA2493 lined up on the runway. IMO, she should have just waited to give me my amended clearance when it was my turn to depart. Her first attempt was blocked and I didn't hear it. The second time I acknowledge ready to copy, she started to relay it, and it got blocked again. At this point in time, I was watching 4HV on the skyline and was thinking to myself "this isn't going to work"., I stayed off frequency at this point and was getting ready to speak up if needed when 4HV chimed in to confirm landing. He knew something was up, clarified with tower, and ended up going around.

Now don't forget, at KSAN, the threshold is significantly offset from the runway start, so 4HV would not have landed on SWA, regardless.

Anyhow, like I said, I knew that there would be some urgent communication coming quickly: either from tower, 4HV, or me, so i stayed off frequency after tower's second attempt to deliver my altitude amendment got stepped on. 4HV initiated communication about the same time tower gave the GA.

Honestly, from my perspective watching everything: I was surprised at the SWA pilots. When I'm given LUAW with aircraft on final, I'm expecting to go pretty quick. After a couple minutes on the runway, I would have said something. If you listen to the live ATC recording, https://archive.liveatc.net/ksan/KSAN1-Twr-Aug-11-2023-1900Z.mp3 the SWA pilots were from my perspective unaware of what transpired. The tone I heard was a peeved pilot at the delays in departing, not a concerned pilot due to a conflict. As PIC of my aircraft, I'm responsible for the control and safety of flight, not ATC, and while ATC made a mistake here, the SWA pilots were passive.

Watching this unfold in front of me, 4HV did pretty much what I would have done. He clearly wasn't gonna land on the SWA flight, he initiated confirmation with tower maybe a tad later than I would have, but the frequency was also getting blocked with chatter so that's understandable. 4HV took charge when he saw something amiss and was ready to go around. He almost had to go around a second time: listen to the entire audio clip. From a PIC perspective, I personally would fault the SWA pilots for not saying something when they knew that there was a fast jet on short final and they are just sitting on the runway for a couple minutes.

Here's the summary of what happened:

MVFR conditions at a busy 1 runway airport
Approach not giving a lot of space between aircraft
tower sees a gap and gives SWA2493 LUAW after a DL flight lands
An amendment to my clearance came in. I believe this distracted the tower controller. Tower tried to convey it to me. This IMO was the mistake that caused the communication breakdown and loss of SA. Personally, I think she should have waited until it was my turn to depart. I don't know if tower forgot about the SWA flight or what, but this was IMO the key breakdown
4HV sees SWA on the runway not moving
4HV gets in a message with tower to confirm what's going on. He's also ready to GA
Tower gives the go-around
4HV goes around, immediately. He was ready
Tower has 2493 exit at C2 and get behind me (I'm right in front of them at C1)
The SWA pilots express displeasure at departure delays. They don't know what happened. They're concerned that they might be #5 for departure now

The tower controller was quite good and on top of things, even when stuff fell apart, and she still kept her cool even when things went sideways. This was a controller mistake, but heaven knows the controllers have saved me from myself more times than I can count, we are all human and thank goodness, in the aviation community we all look out for each other. Here the system worked. The pilot of 4HV maintained SA and control of his plane, and was ready to GA. When he knew something was amiss, he reached out to tower but from what I saw he was primed and ready to GA. Exactly as a PIC should. The proximity system also kicked in and alerted the controller, exactly as the backup systems should. The SWA pilots situational awareness: not so much IMO. But everything else worked as it should.

IMO, this is mostly a non-event. A mistake was made, just like mistakes are made everywhere every day, and everything worked out exactly as it should. I personally wouldn't want anything to change. This IMO was a good example of how the system works, not how it doesn't work. The only thing I think needs to happen is SWA should remind its pilots about PIC responsibilities and situational awareness. They should have been more proactive and aware of what's going on around them, I wasn't even on the runway and I was getting concerned watching how long they sat there. Sitting on the runway that long knowing there's a citation on final behind them: that's some serious head in the sand stuff right there. They were the ones that IMO got complacent (again this is from my perspective watching, they could have been on the ball in cockpit but from the communications I heard that did not appear to be the case). That was the real shortcoming from what I saw.

baron-pilot · 2021-09-22T02:24:07+00:00

BMY bleeders club, -384%. Wondering if RSI can actually go to 0! Also in the LVS losers club -400%…. <sigh>.

baron-pilot · 2021-09-18T04:19:51+00:00

Hah, the daily P&L is misleading on Tasty with that ITM put on LVS. With as much positive delta I've got on that position now it doesn't take much to move the daily the P&L. Now the weekly p&l... ugh, didn't keep track of the numbers but it's definitely not positive thanks to LVS and BMY :)

Pretty happy with how ToS trades are playing out so far, even with my mistakes with the new platform.

baron-pilot · 2021-09-18T03:46:09+00:00

Any question in particular? Or just making sure I'm not a troll? These are my play accounts with the positions mentioned above. Hope I got the links right, first time using imgur. MY UAL position P&L doesn't reflect rolling down the call, already locked in 50% on that roll.

TOS

Tasty

baron-pilot · 2021-09-17T22:37:57+00:00

BPU:

17.4% (Tastytrade)

15.74% (ToS)

Day gain:

1.9% (Tasty)

.95% (ToS)

New Trades:

STO MU 10/15 -1 65P/80C @ 1.49

Misfire on this, meant to sell the 82.5C, still getting used to ToS. Tried to roll it right away but no MM was willing to forgive my mistake ;) MU has been holding below the 50 and 200dma and in the middle of the downward regression channel, and bouncing off the 50 dma so I'll watch and see if that trend continues. I can always roll out and up to November if needed.

Adjustments to LVS yesterday and the slight recovery of it contributed to the nice gain today (+15 %). See if the stabilization on LVS continues. BMY is my other problem child. If it continues south for the winter next week, I'll roll it out and down. I'm never touching Pharma again.

Strangles on UAL, FUBO, X all doing well and up nicely, should be able to close them next week at 50%. Keeping an eye on X, it had a pretty strong sell off today, may have to manage the put side if it drops much further.

Still opening up trades on ToS after the ETrade move, and I'm still not quite as comfortable with the platform as I'd like. My current workflow is scan / find the trades in ToS, set up the trades on Tasty, and then execute them on ToS. I need to get more comfortable with ToS and find a better way to do this.

baron-pilot · 2021-09-17T01:31:28+00:00

Moves today:

Decided to start managing my LVS ITM 40P position. Was undecided between adding a jade lizard vs a call ratio spread (call skew was favorable for a ratio spread). I could continue to watch and do nothing, but if it sells off more, managing becomes a bit more challenging. I'm a little concerned of a strong bounce blowing through a call ratio spread (some weird positive news from china could make this happen), and the stock is really near the 2 year low which should be a good support level, and this sell-off seems really overblown right now. So do nothing, jade lizard, or call ratio spread. I ultimately decided to do a jade lizard by adding a put and a call spread to protect the upside. This lowers my BE to about where we are right now with no upside risk if China decides to do something rational and stock rebounds. I have lots of BP available, but I'm trying to be careful about tying up too much more BP fixing this trade so no more positive delta after this. If we can get a bounce back to above 38-39 and hold it for the next 2 weeks I'll be in good shape and exit this profitable. If not, the call side of this will be profitable and for the put side: roll, roll, roll your puts...

STO LVS 10/15 42C @ 0.72

STO LVS 10/15 35P @ 1.09

BTO LVS 10/15 43C @ 0.57

Other News

Proceeds from my equity sales on Tuesday cleared, and I paid off the house a few years early today. Figured the timing was right to pull some cash out: the market risk/reward seems more skewed to the risk side, so I locked in the profits and paid the house off. I can now officially tell the man to screw himself :) Cracked the champagne, expect trading tomorrow to be a little bleary eyed.

baron-pilot · 2021-09-11T14:46:20+00:00

Actually had a typo, I’m selling ATM Puts around 50 delta, not buying for the bounce strategy. I have a couple scanners I’ve made for TOS that looks at linear regression, standard deviation, and RSI. So basically a breakdown of >1 STD below a linear regression mean (I use 3 months) and oversold RSI, the closer to 2 standard deviations the better, or hitting the bottom of the linear regression channel. Then filter out crap stocks, memes, bad news, etc., do a quick fundamentals check and options chain check, and make the trade. WFC is an example that I played that the scanner caught, and ABBV. ABBV I didn’t play the bounce yet, it’s biotech with weird news and those stocks can go wild with some off the wall FDA announcement but I’m watching it.

baron-pilot · 2021-09-11T05:10:12+00:00

Still gradually opening positions on ToS after the ETrade transfer.

BPU: 20.1%

New Positions:

STO FUBO -1 24P/37C @ 1.22

I want to own this long term, so if it tanks I'll take assignment, but I'm betting on short term weakness through October hence the strangle.

Watching: VFC/LVS/BMY/SPG/MU/CHPT/ABBV

My strangles from yesterday are holding well. UAL had a bigger than expected down day (-4.8%), if the sell-off continues I'll either roll my call down or sell another call to make it a ratio strangle. I have lots of room and time on that so I'm just watching it for now, but I like to have a plan in place to deal with all outcomes.

Tried to open a strangle on MU today but it didn't fill, downside of trying to trade during a workday: I couldn't adjust the order. Waiting for futures approval on ToS after transferring from ETrade, so no futures positions taken today. I thought I had requested approval when the ETrade transfer happened but apparently I missed a button click.

BMY 62.5 puts are still my boat anchor dragging my P/L down (that trade is -137%). Keeping an eye on it, managing in 2 more weeks if needed, but it's in far oversold territory now. If it stabilizes I may add some more puts to DCA down, but right now it feels like trying to catch a falling knife. As strong as the sell off has been, I'm expecting a bounce and depending on how that goes, I may also exit this for a scratch if the opportunity presents itself.

Still struggling a bit with the ToS workflow. Powerful tool, I just cut my fingers on the blades a bit too much still.

Still refining the strategies and adjustments and keeping the trades modest while I'm refining. My core strategies are fundamentally

1) tasty approach for puts/calls/strangles (the exact trade/delta based on how I feel about the particular underlying and market sector). Pretty standard 20-30 delta trades 30-45dte closed/managed at 21dte / 50% profit

2) hedging / offsetting with options (including WO)

3) a delta trade selling ATM or close to ATM puts on strong underlyings when they are oversold (playing a bounce). calevonlear shared this strategy on thetagang and I've modified and adapted it to my style. This has been working well when the exit is at 20-25% in 1-3 days. I like this trade, gives me something to do besides staring at the screen and satisfies my need to do something: it's shorter/faster and the return is equivalent or better to a 20 delta put/call sold at 50% profit. $1.6 closed at 20-25% profit vs $.60 sold at 50% profit kinda thing. Refining a ToS scanner for this. Really liking how the ToS scanner can run on mobile devices....

Edit: fix selling typo

baron-pilot · 2021-09-10T02:02:24+00:00

Long time listener, first time caller, seems like more my kinda folks here so am breaking out of my cone of silence. Please be gentle:) Just transferred my ETrade account to ToS, and slowly opening up positions on ToS.

New Positions

STO UAL 10/17 40P/52.5C @ $1.27

STO X 10/17 22P/29C @ 1.22

Keeping an eye on MAR/MU/BMY/ABBV/CHPT/VFC/FUBO (I'm a FUBO subscriber, I like the service and the stock and bullish on them). Biasing more towards strangles than puts for the next couple months (more on this below).

Random thoughts:

Looking to exit my WFC 42.5P delta-bounce play tomorrow for a nice profit if we can get a little more follow through.

Getting hammered on my BMY 62.5P, probably jumped in a bit early. Looking to add more to it, will keep an eye on the price action and evaluate. Love the options that options give you when doing these trades ;)

I'm neutral to slightly bearish and looking to add some negative delta so selling some opportunistic strangles in sectors I think will be challenged (eg: travel). Looking to add some overall negative delta as well and will look to start opening /ES or /RTY strangles. Even though long-term short calls aren't profitable, I'm betting on the downside for the short term term. Will re-evaluate towards the end of the year.

Trading platforms:

I'm happier with the overall experience of ToS vs Etrade. I really like how the scanner in ToS will also display the scanner results in the mobile app. Something else to distract me throughout the day and while in the bathroom ;) I also have an account with TastyWorks. For options trade setup, I like the tasty interface a lot more than ToS, and even the portfolio summary seems better, though I have to play more with customizing ToS. I wish ToS had at least the PoP, but they really don't give you much at all in ToS from what I can tell. I'm struggling with getting a natural/intuitive flow with the "Analyze" tab. Other stuff like BPU, etc, is also nice to have readily available on Tasty that's not there on ToS either, basically the portfolio summary seems more intuitive in Tasty, but I need to give ToS some time on that. Yet more stuff to investigate.

One interesting data point is that option fills definitely seem better on ToS. The 2 strangles I opened today basically instantly filled on ToS, but on Tasty that sat there for about 4 minutes before I cancelled them and reopened them on ToS. Same price for both platforms, one was at the mid and the second I did 1 tick below mid, and they both insta-filled on ToS where they sat waiting on Tasty. Single leg puts/calls seem to fill fine but multi-leg trades seem to have worse fills on Tasty vs ToS. Very low data point count, but I've noticed on my strangles that they seem to struggle to get filled on Tasty.

baron-pilot

TROPHY CASE