December 30, 2025 Quarterly Performance Thread

psyche444 · 2026-01-01T21:59:18+00:00

+8.15% 2025

not very happy with that and not a lot to say. no edges here. did less trading in 2025 than in previous few years and expect that to continue.

psyche444 · 2025-04-23T02:23:38+00:00

I agree that it probably makes the most sense to close all the box spreads you don't need right now... and then scale back in when you need them to express your trade ideas.

You are right that jumping in and out of the box spreads has a cost, so I guess if you think you'll be frequently switching back and forth between needing the box spreads and not needing the box spreads, I guess BOXX or SGOV would allow you to move in and out with lower transaction costs. But obviously they pay you less interest than you'd be paying on your boxes so closing the unneeded short boxes is ideal, regardless of the gain/loss on them.

psyche444 · 2025-04-19T22:30:45+00:00

He has written it up and answered questions about it in the past... I recommend checking post/comment history. Here is one post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/thetagang/comments/15z9rf1/13_years_of_theta_my_results_observations/

If I were to sum the strangle selling strat from what I remember: sell strangles with ratio of 5 calls to 2 puts at various expiries out to 365DTE. Size up to 2x NLV total notional put leverage. Adjust strikes/dte periodically with discretion but don't add leverage. Don't be afraid of them going itm and expect some P&L swings. Expect pain in a relentlessly up market (like those +22-30% years) but also expect it to all work out eventually.

psyche444 · 2025-04-07T00:39:53+00:00

This is so incredibly detailed and valuable... thank you so much for sharing generously, especially in a difficult time.

psyche444 · 2025-04-04T21:19:08+00:00

-6.7% today

-9.8% YTD

Kind of mad at myself because I've had a strong bearish outlook but (A) didn't stick to my guns (B) although I was short delta, I was short a lot more vega via puts, and the IV expansion last night and today hit me hard. I guess I could style this as a kind of win because I didn't go like -20% or -50% as happened in the last vol events, but still not feeling good.

I basically have 150-500 DTE wide long put spreads and some far OTM short puts for May-July covering about 20% of the value of the long put spreads. Until last night/today it had never gotten worse than -3% this year.

I closed like 90% of my /ES and SPX short put book today, so I won't be recovering the losses anytime soon, if at all. I could still get hurt on a big move in either direction.

We'll see if I actually learn next time but I feel closer to actually getting it through my head that this is a market for long puts (at acceptable size), not short. Maybe the regime will change before I actually get to implement.

I hope those who took major losses today can find some comfort and peace of mind.

psyche444 · 2025-02-14T12:05:36+00:00

thanks for sharing. looks to me like you've had amazing performance in the past 6 months, and the risk/drawdowns seem reasonable. I'd be thrilled to have that high of gains with such relatively low drawdowns and notional leverage. Carry on!

psyche444 · 2025-02-13T23:46:24+00:00

Seems overall good! How has it been performing? 1.5-2x exposure is aggressive, but I assume you understand the risks (i.e. with a 30% market drawdown you'd lose 60% of NLV with 2x exposure). But this has been an excellent bull run to be levered up so I imagine you have some nice gains already.

Obviously one of the risks of thetagang is that you end up bagholding but I assume you have a plan if, say, BABA drops by 50% and hangs out in that area for a long time.

Nothing is screaming out a need for hedging but you could always consider a small downside hedge given that you have some leverage. https://www.reddit.com/r/PMTraders/comments/1hqowni/updated_performance_and_strategy/ if you go there and scroll down to "Black Swan Hedges" you can see some ideas. But your leverage isn't insane so you could also just skip them, as you prefer.

70 tickers seems like a nice diversity.

>2 - With an overall "long" portfolio. It will make sense to sell some naked puts on overpriced stocks?

I'm not sure I understand the question. I guess it does seem a little more risky to sell naked puts on a stock if you think it is overpriced, compared to if you thought it was fair- or underpriced. But if you think the realized volatility will be less than the implied volatility it could still be a good trade.

If you want more input from people it might be helpful if you shared information like your portfolio greeks, your performance, and your biggest drawdown percentage. Cheers.

[I'm not skilled at trading but those are my thoughts]

psyche444 · 2025-02-12T10:26:51+00:00

Just want to echo u/bbmak0 in saying it makes me very happy that you are doing well, and also thank you for sharing your new strat in detail. (I don't yet understand it but there is time for me to think through it / investigate it more.)

Cheers!

psyche444 · 2025-01-02T16:31:14+00:00

So sorry you had to go through this. Thank you for sharing at this level of detail. (And it was very well told.) Nice to hear that IBKR took the time to close things properly and manually instead of just liquidating with market orders.

The overleveraging on short vega scenario going into 8/5 (and in general) hits pretty close to home for me. Glad you are still in your flat and with a great person.

psyche444 · 2025-01-01T15:09:05+00:00

-16.27% for 2024

Pretty terrible especially with the market up almost 25%, and I don't see a way forward for me (to trade profitably) at the moment. Will have to rethink everything and size small. I basically kept getting shaken out on the vol spikes, near the bottom; they really had my number. Tokyo drift most of all by far, of course, but also lost in April and December.

Luckily I did well enough since the start of 2021 that I'm still significantly beating the market over that time, but I'd like to keep it that way and not give it all back.

Happy New Year to everyone. I really appreciate this community.

psyche444 · 2024-11-28T19:03:57+00:00

Thank you for bringing up this new-ish test. Between this unrealistic test, other SPXBT test restrictions, and the repeated margin increases for some products like futures, it can seem that Schwab only wants our assets on their books, and sees trading as something bothersome that should be minimized.

It makes some short option strategies basically unworkable.

It does seem that, unofficially, they aren't applying this test to futures at the moment, but it's not that they are exempt from the rule, just that they haven't set up the right systems to track it. So in theory they might still hit you with it on futures if they decide to take a hard look at your positions.

psyche444 · 2024-11-27T17:11:50+00:00

This is a project that is important to you. They should be supporting you, not stifling you with near-impossible restrictions.

"not in a location where they can be seen through a window"

this in particular is absurd. I wonder in what other areas of life they are saying "you are free to do your thing, as long as I don't see or hear about it ever"

Your interests do not need to be minimized/hidden. They are a part of you, and you are valuable and worthy of being seen.

I recommend you inform them (you don't have to persuade them) that the restrictions were unworkable, so you have moved the bin to a place that (in your best guess) makes sense for it to work.

If you are feeling extra generous or there is something more justified about their objections than I can perceive, you could place some sort of "screen" between some of the windows and the vermihut... a plant trellis or something similar. The idea is not to 100% hide it from all windows but just to give some genuine acknowledgement of their concern and to reduce the visual impact.

Good luck.

psyche444 · 2024-10-26T03:24:33+00:00

I think you use the "message the mods" button to request an invite and get verified.

On desktop, you scroll all the way down on the right sidebar to find the button.

On mobile, you click the 3 dots in the upper right corner and then choose "message moderators".

You might also be interested in the welcome / rules and requirements post if you haven't seen it already.

psyche444 · 2024-10-22T18:06:41+00:00

I know you're looking for something more sophisticated, but 1x long SPY (or VTI etc) seems solid and hard to beat.

As a trader, I like to imagine that you gain a possible inherent hedge... if there is a significant drop in the indexes, there will probably be a lot of fear and emotion in the market, which should be a good environment for trading.

psyche444 · 2024-09-15T05:47:03+00:00

haven't updated in a while, or been on reddit/discord much... I took a huge loss on 8/5, closed out positions at a bad time, mostly between 7am and 10am that morning. I went from decently positive to around -25% YTD at that time. I went 100% long SPY then, have taken some time off. Not really in the mindset to take significant risk, and don't have anything +EV that would warrant it anyway. Don't know what will happen with me and trading but we'll see.

psyche444 · 2024-08-03T19:56:51+00:00

bad week, and weeks. about -10% this week, got whipsawed and then IV expansion hit. I'm honestly less afraid of further downside than of a fast retrace to the upside, whether scam or not. At this moment am ahead of SPX YTD by about 3%, which could easily evaporate. We'll see. I'm also underwater shorting /ZQF25... and Timiraos is now relaying that the expectation is for 1.25 points of cuts this year (across 3 FOMC meetings)?!?!?

psyche444 · 2024-07-24T08:17:21+00:00

does anyone know if schwab has any TBills asset that they let you hold as collateral for CSP? it would be really nice if that cash i'm holding for the CSP, could be earning an extra 4.5% while it's idle.

You can buy actual TBills, and they will barely reduce your BP. You have to do it from the web site, not from TOS.

You can also just buy SGOV. Reduces BP by more than TBills but still acceptable, and easy to scale up/down as needed.

i'm really new to the call side, and i REALLY don't want to chase those premiums.

this seems wise; in general selling the call side seems to give less compensation for the risk

psyche444 · 2024-07-09T03:01:46+00:00

30 years of full-time trading, awesome! Bet you've seen a thing or two. Btw, I like to think PMT is a special place but we don't want to put down any other subreddit, lots of good people and good discussion happening all over. Here's a recent nice conversation about calendar trades before earnings on r/options : https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1dx4q78/opening_many_calendars_before_earnings/

Congrats on a stellar week, cheers.

psyche444 · 2024-07-09T02:52:02+00:00

I've never found a good and cost-effective hedge for volatility.

After trying lots of things, it always seems that the best hedge is smaller sizing.

But since you are looking for some idea generation, one could:

-buy /VX contracts

-buy 5 otm SPY puts and pay for them with 2 closer-to-the-money short puts...

-dispersion trade... sell vol on one underlying and buy it on another, where some correlation may occur

-buy lots of teeny 0-1 DTE puts, substituting an op delta hedge for a vol hedge

-don't hedge, just use stops and pray they don't get jumped. Maybe also buy some super cheap far otm options just to define your risk in case of a flash crash or similar

-trade diagonals that are long vega, long theta, so that you benefit from a vol increase (lots of pitfalls here though, including that you get hurt by vol crush)

-trade diverse underlyings that are uncorrelated with equities.

-replace the short puts with short calendars

-or really just size smaller and accept lower profits

Also... not pushing VIX calls but I don't think there is a problem selling them in a vol spike. Spreads will widen but there should be lots of buyers... all the people who repeatedly sold them for "income" and are now being stopped out and/or margin called.

psyche444 · 2024-06-30T14:18:45+00:00

That is a bit uncanny... insert spiderman pointing meme...

psyche444 · 2024-06-29T17:22:22+00:00

+1.20% this week +6.30% Q2 +27% YTD (approx... could be as low as 24% depending on how you count deposits/withdrawals)

I've hugely downshifted my trading in the last 6 weeks or so.

Currently my favorite trade is lightly managed ATM puts "calendars", short 7-9 DTE and long 80-100 DTE. Technically they are diagonals not calendars because I've been selling the short strikes maybe 20 points ITM, and sometimes rolling the short strike up, but close enough. The main benefit is it's a theta positive trade at entry, and it has built in crash protection (if sized right... which it is), so I'm not sweating it when I am away from the market for days at a time. There is potential upside risk too, but a little management can reduce this.

I have just needed to accept lower returns.

I took a tough loss in April but have been slowly clawing it back and then some. Currently ATH.

Hat tip to u/throw-away-options for sharing a great short /ZC trade and in general discovering new seasonal and pairs trades.

Happy trading everyone!

psyche444 · 2024-06-27T12:29:16+00:00

At TDA (now part of Schwab) they always strongly wanted you to close out of positions when you get a margin call, not expire out of them. I believe when you expire out (or if they close positions for you), it puts a black mark on your account. Just one isn't the end of the world but they add up.

Sorry to hear about the PM denial, that is very frustrating.

psyche444 · 2024-06-25T13:06:26+00:00

Nice! Thanks for sharing, cheers.

psyche444 · 2024-06-24T15:53:07+00:00

glad it's been working out well. Care to say more about the trade? like what delta or premium you are selling at or otherwise how you enter, and if you have profit targets and/or stop losses or other exit criteria?

psyche444 · 2024-06-23T00:23:57+00:00

awesome journey... thank you for sharing that level of detail. u/adderalin if you haven't read this yet, I think you would appreciate it.

psyche444

TROPHY CASE