So yea I was going to tell the story about trading GME. I've been trading for a living more or less for the last 3 years. And now I run a twitch stream where a bunch of traders and programmers hang out. I do most of my trading live on stream.

It is much more fun this way than trading by myself in a room. Anyways on Monday one of my regular viewers came in the chat telling me about !!!GME GME!!! and I went to look and it was trading around $60 and I was like whoa I think wsb is getting a little carried away here..

But I had just closed out my ABNB and was ready for another high vol setup and I said, "I'll do a straddle before it flies off the option chain," but sure enough while I was getting my order ready the stock flew to $72 bucks and suddenly that 60 call was $2200 instead of $1200.

So I said, "I'm only going to buy the 60 put because this thing def going back to 30 bucks by tomorrow." But on Monday there were new strikes available and the stock soared to $90 in the premarket. I could tell something was going on because my $60 put wasn't losing any value.

I still didn't want to buy a call because the strike and price (implied vol) was so high. I bought a 70 put and 100 shares of stock around $73, knowing that the stock could fly even higher. And I sold a 100 call for what I thought was an insane premium of $2400.

On Tuesday with the stock solidly above 100 I put on another short call and another long call, trying to catch the top with a slightly bigger position. I sold my stock for a synthetic position. I spent all day managing my long and short calls as the stock moved higher.

At the end of Tuesday GME was at 150 and was short 2 calls dated on Friday with strikes of 135 and 150, and some long calls with dates further out that were now well in the money. I took the gains on those and bought 100 shares around 150. Goal was to collect maybe 5k of premium.

On Wednesday morning as I looked at my screen the 100 shares of GME and were up over 20k as the stock went all the way to above 350. The other monthly call was up 15k. I've never seen a gain like that on 100 shares of anything. I knew it was some sort of market structure anomaly.

In other words if I wanted that money to stay with me I had to sell right then. But I couldn't sell outright because these were actually hedges for 135 and 150 calls that I was short. All I could do was roll into some other position of calls.

I do this all the time, rolling my calls up, but I had sticker shock at the premium on the calls I was buying. Imagine paying 20k for the right to buy 100 shares of GME at $320! I had to take on 3 of these in order to keep my short calls covered. But I did it to take the 35k rn.

Now my palms were really sweating as I began to think about my future. If the stock fell back to $150 I would in great shape, but if it went all the way back below $50 I would be showing a 5 figure loss as a result of GME.

But as I started looking at calls for this week and next week, I realize at the money Fri 320 calls are $13000, not $3000 like the ones I did at 150 and I want to do one more. So I do one more 320 call spread from Jan 29 to November.

Now I have $19,000 to make this week vs $60,000 to worry about until november, as opposed to a 6k/40k ratio and I feel better about the situation. I want GME to stay strong but not too strong. If it dips at some point I will roll my short calls out at a loss, but a huge credit.

Up til this point I was feeling pretty good about this whole trade even though it had gotten too deep. I was sitting there with my hands on the keyboard waiting for GME to dive so I could roll out to next week and secure enough premium to cover my inevitable losses.

At some point GME begins falling to around $200 and I know this is my time to close these short calls and establish new ones. THIS TRADE is going to save my a$$ if GME returns to $20. I key up my order and push SUBMIT...

Only to find that I've been restricted from opening new positions in GME. I can buy to close my Jan 29 calls at a loss, but I cannot sell to open new Feb 5 calls.

Now look, I'm not new to trading, or even new to trading during a "volatility event" which is what this is. For example, I traded SPY from top to bottom during the fall of 2018, and I did it again in 2020. I remember the fall of 2008 and the flash crash of 2011.

I have seen shit go down before, and that's why I am so diligent about staying hedged in these situations. But I will tell you, since I've started trading I've rolled thousands of contracts and I've never been restricted from trading in that particular way.

It was quite a shock to have the rules changed all of a sudden, especially since I don't even trade with Robinhood. I trade with IBKR which normally works perfectly whenever Robinhood is broken. (My viewers tell me)

I have definitely never been as angry on stream as I was on Wednesday as I watched the stock plummet all the way to $150 and my 3 Nov 320 Calls shrank from 60k to 20k in value.

But at the same time AOC and Ted Cruz and all these folks were speaking out about it, I feel a little heartened to know that fair and free access to capitalism is something that we all, apparently still agree on. I'm feeling kind of happy mad as the stock recovers.

Then towards the end of the day GME is in the low 300s again and rising and I am beginning to worry that my november 320 calls are not going to be enough protection for my now very deep in the money short calls expiring Jan 29. I've never seen 800% iv and I just don't know.

People are advancing wild conspiracy theories in the chat and I'm trying to keep a lid on it. But one viewer is certain it's going to $500 or $1000 overnight and I'm not sure he's wrong. I bought 25 shares of GME around 340 just to make sure I wouldn't be short.

The stock is mooning again Thursday morning and, after seeing that my elephantine nov 320 calls do actually work and the thetas are actually falling out as per textbook theory, I sell my 25 shares around $420 for another nice gain.

A little while later the stock is around $200 and I am again worried about significant moves higher or lower, most of the time value is already gone from the in the money calls so I close them out, still sad that I couldn't roll forward to next week.

I closed the last piece out on friday and came out about 35k ahead on GME trades. My Crohn's disease is flaring now and I am trying to cool down, but I am not angry anymore because I get the clearinghouse issues, and you know I hate the conspiracy bullshit.

And now I've received an email stating that trading in $GME will again be unrestricted beginning tomorrow. See you at the open! #lfg #fixingcapitalism