RUT Condor 2-24

What a difference a day makes!  The market captured back virtually all of yesterday's losses, but what is even more interesting is what happed to volatility.  The RVX and VIX both plummeted today, well beyond the low of yesterday.  For short Vega positions, like vertical spreads and iron condors, this is great news.  Our Condor position for the month is doing great.  In fact, I made a decision to "bend" one of my rules today.  Well... sort of.  It's not really a rule as much as a "guideline".  First, let's take a look at the position:

The specific rule I am talking about is around taking profits.  As you can see, things are nicely centered.  We are in great shape with low Deltas on our short strikes.  The problem is that we have just reached the 10% mark in profit.  You might remember that I normally take the trade off with 10% and take the rest of the month off.  In this case we have an unusual situation.  I have already banked about 5% of the profits (the green and red boxes), so I am now managing a new position.  The NEW position is only up about 5%... so should I take it off for a total of 10%, or attempt to reach 10% on the new trade?  This is where some discretion comes in. 

In this case, here is my decision:  I will NOT go below the 5% profit that I have already taken.  So if my new position gets to zero it will have to come off and we'll call it quits for the month with our 5%.  On the other hand, we have lots of time to see if that will happen or not.  Given how nicely centered the current position is, I feel very comfortable allowing some more time... especially knowing that my worst case scenario is 5%.

Good Trading...