Trade updates

Here is the AAPL trade I talked about earlier:

It is underwater a bit at the moment as the whole market pulled back. I will let it ride for a little bit but the concerning thing to me at this stage is that I put the trade on with the prognosis that AAPL would move higher but it hasn't done that. ie Whenever you put on a trade and the underlying isn't doing what you thought it would then the alarm bells should start ringing in your head and you should be planning your exit or an adjustment. At this stage, it feels as though the market wants to fill the gap so we'll see what eventuates. Again I don't think AAPL  is likely to fall off a cliff and I'm very confident that at lower prices buyers will be stepping up to the plate (perhaps there is a trade opportunity if that eventuates??) - Note that I had to show a simulated trade above as the TOS platform still shows carry over on the risk graph from my weekly trade even though I've exited it.

The other trade I put on last night was a SPY weekly trade as I alluded to you in an earlier post. This trade was made based on the fact that I thought the market would stall a bit from here (or limited upside). As per the other trades the weapon of choice was a 1/3/2 call butterfly as this gives me short deltas but also a nice profit zone to the upside if I'm wrong and we do get a little pop. Here is how it looks:

As you can see I'm up a modest  $44 in the trade on $346 of risk as the market pulled back in the afternoon. My breakeven is well within the 1std deviation expected move band so at this stage I don't really have to do much on this trade. The thing I don't really like about this trade is that it's commission intensive. Commissions cost me $18 (and that's because I get a very good discount) whilst the credit received overall was $54. That's a paltry sum compared to the risk you have to take. Yes I could have traded the OEX but it's highly doubtful I would have received much more and it's also harder to get filled as the options trade in nickels and not pennies.
At the moment the trade only looks good because I was right on direction which begs the question: If my direction picking skills are that good are there other trades that could better exploit that edge? Probably but not without taking more risk (ie lower probability). Also I'm not sure if I'm asking this question with the benefit of hindsight here (hindsight bias again - I probably am).