... to April 15th 1060/1080/1110/1135 iron condor. The short put side and short call sides were rolled separately: the put side for a .48 credit and the call side for a .59 credit. Notes: I widened the spreads on both sides here (rolling the short call up and the short put down) to increase the probability that I will be able to exit either one or both sides at...
After buying back the short put vertical side of this short duration iron condor yesterday at 50% max, I'm resurrecting the short put side here to hedge against the possibility of further upside in the Russell. The setup is rather tight, with a scant 20 strikes between my short options, but the model is telling me that the 1075/1085 short put vert has a 70%+...
Oy. That was quick. Out for 50% max profit. I'll look to add the short put side back in tomorrow ... .
After closing the short put wing yesterday for a small profit and rolling the short call wing up and out a week for an additional credit, I'm selling a 1025/1035 short put vertical in the same expiry as the rolled out call wing to complete an April 15th 1025/1035/1105/1120 iron condor. I'm still playing a little bit with the percentage of max profit to either...
Although today's upmove was fairly slight, the move -- coupled with a bit of volatility weakness -- was enough to get me out of the short put side of this setup for about a $50/contract profit. That isn't great, but the put side was a rolled spread that was a bit close to current price, so I seized the opportunity to close it out here. I then proceeded to roll...
With this little down move here, I closed out the short call side of my RUT/IUX iron condor -- the April 1st 1120/1130 short call wing. The short call wing of the iron condor was worth approximately $166 in credit/contract when put on as part of the iron condor, and I closed it out today for a $40 debit, yielding a profit of about $126/contract for that...
Back to short duration trades post-FOMC/post-Draghi ... . Metrics: Probability of Profit: 65% Max Profit: ~$260/contract Buying Power Effect: $729/contract, Defined Risk Notes: You will want to try to get a fill slightly above the mid with this instrument; I would shoot for .05 ($5) above the mid and see if you get a fill and then adjust the fill price if you...
This started out as one of those short-term engagement trades, which I ended up rolling ... . Out today for a small profit. Unfortunately, by a twist of fate, I still have the exact same setup in next week's expiration, which I'll deal with when I get there.
Another housekeeping trade. As with the QQQ roll, I'm rolling the March 24 1040/1050 short call vertical up to the 1070/1080 to "merge" it with another spread I've got at those strikes. Filled for a 1.66 debit. Sold the March 24 1050/1060 short put vertical for a 1.82 credit to finance the roll, as well as to balance the number of units I now have on the call...
Another housekeeping trade. Buying this short put vertical back for a .16 debit, as it's near worthless.
With 21 DTE left in a setup I originally put on as an iron condor, I'm closing this out at nearly max profit on this upmove. I'll deal with the "broken" short call spread that was part of near expiry if we get a sufficient enough down move (something we haven't seen in two weeks).
As with my previous, short-term RUT trade, I'm looking to keep buying power engaged while I wait for March index ETF trades to decay and/or work themselves out. Here's the metrics for the setup: March 4th 970/975/1045/1050 Iron Condor Probability of Profit: 66% Max Profit: ~$170/contract Buying Power Effect/Max Risk: ~$329 Notes: Due to the price of the...
Layering on to my existing Mar 24th IUX/RUT Iron Condor with this little number: March 24th RUT 945/955/1070/1080 Probability of Profit: 63% Max Profit: $330/contract Buying Power Effect: $670/contract Notes: I'd ordinarily go out to April, but I have a preexisting March 24th setup on and have a little bit more unused buying power and less theta on than I'd...
With a paucity of meaningful earnings plays to work this week and having exited all of my Feb index plays, I'm looking for something short-term to bide my time as my core March index setups work themselves out. I'm not yet ready to move into the April monthly (it's still a bit far out) for index setups, so a short duration, high probability setup is a good way to...
Volatility in the broader indices has been on the ebb all week. What does this mean for premium selling? Well, it means that the premium in index ETF's like SPY, IWM, QQQ, and DIA is less rich and therefore not as attractive for selling premium. Ordinarily, when this occurs, I turn my attention somewhat away from broad market index ETF plays or plays in...
With the highest implied volatility out of the four indices (S&P, Dow, Nasdaq, and Russell 2000), the Russell 2000, RUT or IUX (symbology will vary by platform, apparently), offers good premium selling as an alternative to playing its ETF counterpart, IWM. Given the value of the underlying and its accompanying options, having more "meat on the bone" allows you...
Two very strong resistance cues: (1) you have the former support turned resistance line (2) you do not have a lot of room for price to advance if it does poke through the resistance line Here is what I am looking for: (a) price to breach resistance line to the upside (b) price to pop aggressively above the upper daily bollinger band (c) harvesting of the late...