Recent content by aa35360

Ironic comment given that anyone who was long WOTM puts for the last week on >90% of index products in the world just made huge money. Not that I would trade long wotm options only, but they clearly have a benefit in protecting a portfolio and possibly profiting when volatility is spiking...

If you're outlook is flat to bearish, why would you want your position to be synthetic short itm puts (assuming you're selling 1 call for each 100 shares of stock)? That's a bullish position. As for rolling the call, do so whenever you feel the synthetic march short put is so cheap you...

Interesting day. It seems that most traders were expecting some sort of pullback in the equity markets. People have been talking about how they expect the market to "take a breather" for a while. I've lost count of the number of people who've said that the market hasn't pulled back by more...

Mav, Given IV skew on indexes, do you find it difficult to buy put backspreads for a reasonable price? ST

The TOS guys who favor closer to the money wingspreads do so not because of an ability to predict market direction, but because the larger credit allows one to tolerate more pain as the underlying bounces around. Personally I sweat paper losses more than real ones after closing a position...

Best reason this strategy might work is because everyone here seems to hate it. "Copper the public's ideas and play at all times"- Robert Bacon ST

Given that everyone in the world expects Apple to introduce the iphone tomorrow, I can't imagine too much of a pop in the underlying tomorrow. Then again, if the iphone is presented at MacWorld, I'll probably be the first in line to buy it.

Cults can be quite profitable. Even if a small percent of followers catch on and leave, there are still enough followers and new suckers always coming along to keep the machine running. It's actually quite a good business model with lots of proven historical success. Just look at organized...

I still don't see why any retail brokerage would want the majority of their customers to have portfolio margining. Even brokers that know how derivatives work will be in for some collosal headaches from all their 1 lot traders suddenly jacking up their size. ST

Some closed end funds, like GCH, can give you varying exposure to mainland China and Hong Kong, and can be shorted as well. ST