its not the size…
Shut up Igor. I let the size of my potential loss determine the size that I trade.
here is an interesting trade of mine from last friday… notice the time stamp
“not a bad 21 seconds”
holy crap! Were you working with a stop? That bad boy moves over $30 a tick! That could have been just as bad or worse in the wrong direction.
trading bonds on the jobs report…*moxie*
ZB is intense but UB is the real high stakes table
^ Bonus points for using IBKR.
This again. Bragging about your trade after the fact. What’s the borrow costs on VXX for you? I see it being quite steep.
Your ES calls doing well eh? lol. 1 week left.
Did you think this thru before clicking post? Did you just ask about the borrow costs on a day-trade that made a 17% gain?
People are really odd, let’s wait till VIX hits crazy lows AND THEN let’s short it…
Hedge funds and other big traders tracked by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have pushed net short positions on CBOE Volatility Index futures to 115,000 contracts, the most since 2013, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
No - I was asking about the borrow costs on your only time-stamped VXX trade in Aug 2015, that immediately got worse and didn’t pan out until 7-8 months later (which you failed to mention).
Hope your ES short works out 
I’m sure it will, you never lose.
(sidenote - I also believe the market is overvalued)
Yeah, borrow costs are something I modeled before I got into the volatility game (and so the one I had to hold for 6-months was strategically a long inverse vol using XIV, so no borrowing costs). Why? Because if you are going to dig in with a huge position, you don’t want losses to exceed 100%, and you want to be able to wait it out.
Looking at yesterday’s IBKR report, now up 16.27% YTD. Lots of vol plays, and selling of puts/calls.
anyone else been selling volatility?
edit: http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/08/22/how-yield-chasers-could-be-pushing-down-volatility/
I am always short volatility. Check my volatility and crash proof strategy here http://smartinvestments.webnode.cz/equity-investments/ Well just to make sure nothing is Boolet proof.
Boolet is my fav bourbon
What now purealpha? Gonna tell us your trades real time or after the fact?
What am I talking about, I’m sure you went whole hog on the margin into UVXY before the day started.
^ I don’t short vol on some little nothing like today, VIX is only what 16? Naw, at 20-25 I would start building a vol short, EXCEPT I only do that when I think “it’s probably nothing” (Grexit). Global recession isn’t “nothing”.
So did these idiots get crushed or what?
VIX = 20, who has the guts to short, with the world on the edge of recession??
Me. Just a small short though, since I hold protective puts I have immunity…I’ll probably close it out tomorrow after the fed doesn’t raise rates.
Out @ 1.4% gain, boring…everyone knew they wouldn’t hike anyhow.
VIX 25 by election day?
Jezus, too many PA posts on this thread, who is this guy!? 
Revisiting vol shorting strategies for Trump era. This is late bull market, with an erratic guy as president, BUT he has massive stimulus plans to push the bull into a second life…so who knows what will happen, but good chance it involves volatility!
I’ve been modeling selling calls on VXX in order to establish a short. Example: currently VIX13, you sell monthly calls to get paid to take a short at around VIX20, but also buy calls at a VIX30 type level as a backstop (cheap since VIX is currently low). You just keep doing this every month until VIX finally closes over 20, then you get assigned your short and let it decay away. As it decays (historic rate -5% per month) you need to refresh the short, which you do by selling more monthly calls. Repeat into perpetuity getting paid once for taking no position, and twice for taking a position.
Safety first – in this f@#%d up environment however, I am spending some of the profits to buy deep OTM calls as protection. Placed such that the account could never get a margin call. We’ve never experienced a world war with these new vol ETN products, gotta be safe.