The straddle bets strategy

15 October, 2012

Hey everyone! Gorilla here, and sorry I haven’t been around for a few days. Outside of the trading world I run a business that deals with the abatement and disposal of suicides and homicides. And unfortunately it has been a busy week. I have intentions of being much more active, but the downside to my business is it is an unpredictable one.

Anyway, on to trading! So this week I was unable to get in any real volume of trades, however, a large volume of trades is not always necessary when trying to achieve a satisfying amount of profit for the day, as you will see with these two trades I made, for the same expiry. For this particular scenario, I took a put on the eur/usd as you will see at the very open of the candle. I waited for confirmation that it was losing its upward momentum and got in as soon as I could for a put for the next 5 minute expiry available on Markets World. While watching the current candle perform beautifully I still had plenty of time left to get in if I saw a better entry for the same expiry (if I felt my first entry was insufficient and needed to be covered). However, what happened was exactly the opposite. The candle dropped so low close to the lockout period, in relation to the trend and other 5 minute candles, I knew that the price was soon to pull back for the next 5 minutes. I took advantage of this and placed a call at the very same candle I entered for a put on. My original put was placed at 1.29296 and my call was placed at 1.29265 giving me a pretty large three pip spread for price to close between in the next 5 minutes. Making a call and a put for the same candle is what is called a “Straddle” and if done correctly can be extremely profitable whilst still limiting losses greatly! Hope to see you all soon!