Closed (IRA): SPY October 21st 356 Short Put... for a 1.66 debit.
Comments: Opened this for 3.65 as part of a four-leg ladder. (See Post Below). Closing just the October rung of that here at >50% max. 1.99/$199 profit.
This also has the added effect of reducing my long delta a bit, so in that sense it's a subtractive delta adjustment trade at the same time. If you're big on keeping your portfolio net delta "happy," you want to first look at doing adjustments subtractively (i.e., taking off offending delta), only doing additive adjustments (i.e., putting on a new setup to delta balance) if subtractive adjustments haven't quite done the trick.
Shortput
Closing (Margin): /ES October 21st 2550 Short Put... for a .95 debit.
Comments: Filled this for a 3.05 credit. (See Post Below). Out here for (3.05 - .95)/2 = 1.05/$105 profit. Taking off a little risk in advance of FOMC/Triple Witching. I'll naturally re-up if we get weakness plus an uptick in implied volatility.
Closing (Margin): /ES September 30th 3080 Short Put... for a 1.35 debit.
Comments: Filled this for 3.10 (See Post Below). Closing it out here for a little bit more than 50% max. (3.10 - 1.35)/2 = .875 ($87.50) profit. Reducing risk with FOMC in 13 days (where I'll look to add on weakness/uptick in implied volatility).
Opening (Margin): /ES November 18th 2400 Short Put... for a 3.10 credit (arrow indicated).
Comments: Would prefer to do this on weakness plus an uptick in implied volatility, but I'm not getting any younger here. 1.55 max on buying power effect of 13.90, targeting the <75% of current price strike paying around 3.00/1.50 (due to 50x multiplier); 11.2% ROC at max as a function of buying power effect; 5.6% ROC at 50% max.
At its core, a bet that that we don't see 2400 by opex.
I've gone ahead and shown all my open /ES positions here, since part of the calculus in making the decision to take a rung off at less than max is its risk relative to other strikes I have on. For example, the nearest to at-the-money strike is currently the September 30th 3210, so I've got my eye on potentially taking that rung of before everything else since it's closer to at-the-money.
Opening (Margin): /ES November 18th 2300 Short Put... for a 3.30 credit.
Comments: Laddering out a bit here in longer duration on weakness, targeting the <75% of current price strike paying around 3.00. 1.65 max on buying power effect of 14.15; 11.7% ROC at max, 52.7% annualized; 5.9% ROC at 50% max, 26.4% annualized.
Opening (Margin): /ES October 21st 2850 Short Put... for a 3.05 credit.
Comments: Targeting the <75% of current price strike paying around 3.00 in credit. 1.525 ($152.50) max on buying power effect of 14.37; 10.6% ROC at max as a function of buying power effect; 5.3% at 50% max. A little longer-dated than I'd like to go, and the 30-day IV isn't as stellar as I'd like, but you can't have your pudding if you don't eat your meat.
Opening (Margin): /ES September 30th 3080 Short Put... for a 3.10 credit.
Comments: Already have a September 30th on at the 3210, but adding a rung here on this weakness, targeting the <75% of current price strike paying around 3.00. 1.55 max on buying power effect of 16.76, 9.2% ROC as a function of buying power effect; 4.6% at 50% max.
Opened (IRA): October 21st 369 Short Put... for a 3.75 credit.
Comments: (Late Post). Back from a long(ish) weekend, I managed to sneak this in around the close with my phone app. Part of a longer-dated strategy targeting the <16 delta strike paying around 1% of the strike price in credit to emulate dollar cost averaging into the broad market. I now have October 369's, November 340's, December 325's, January 315's, and March 280's in my SPY "ladder."
Opening (IRA): QQQ October 21st 278 Short Put... for a 2.91 credit.
Comments: My weekly broad market short put, targeting the shortest duration <16 delta strike paying around 1% of the strike price in credit in the exchange-traded fund with the highest 30-day IV (which has been the Q's for a bunch of weeks running here).
Opened (IRA): IWM October 21st 170 Short Put... for a 1.78 credit.
Comments: Targeting the <16 strike in the shortest duration paying around 1% of the strike price in credit. This is more of "I need small cap long delta" than "this is a really great place to put on small cap long delta" trade, so probably not the best entry point to do this, although we're getting a little bit of weakness here today.
Opening (Margin): /ES September 30th 3210 Short Put... for a 3.10 credit.
Comments: Targeting the strike that is ~75% of current price and is paying around 3.00 in credit. Will look to add should we get further weakness, higher IV (which isn't so great here at 20.3%).
1.55 max (due to the 50 x multiplier in /ES) on buying power effect of 16.34; 9.5% ROC as a function of buying power at max; 4.7% at 50% max.