Recent content by chucksil

For those who trade Hang Seng Futures, and find the volatility to be too much to handle, there is a great alternative - H-Shares futures on the same exchange. Symbol in IB is HHI.HK Same $50 HKD per point, same convenient hours, enough volatility to be useful - and one last advantage over...

That's what I thought - it was the language that didn't make sense. Another reason to avoid the SPX is the ridiculous way in which they come up with the AM settlement value - the opening price for each of the 500 stocks, even though they may occur at different times - leaves it wide open for...

I guess what's confusing me is why do they even talk about an exercise? They should just say that all in the money options at expiration will settle for the difference between the settlement value and the strike price. They make it seem like an owner of an SPXPM option can exercise it some...

I know SPXPM options are European style, which can only be exercised on the last day, this Friday. I have a short position as part of a vertical spread. I just want to confirm my understanding, that I can still close out my position any time during the trading day on Friday. Which would mean...

The ES (e-mini S&P) dropped about 8 points in a few seconds at the close, then recovered. Is this due to the "rebalancing" that I hear the leveraged ETF's have to do every day?

Thank you for sharing your example, which sounds very similar to mine. There is an issue with how IB calculates margin on verticals. It should be simple - difference in the strike prices.

I will tell you again - I was never short!!! When opening a credit spread, I went long first. When closing a credit spread, I bought back the short option first. How many times do I need to tell you this? IB told me my margin got screwed up because the system paired up OCT shorts with NOV...

OldTrader - I too am still grappling for a reason. I also thought their margin analyzer would always seek out the best result. But they told me sometimes it does something screwy. As for the order of my trades, I would initiate a credit call spread each day on SPY. Either through a spread...

zdreg, please read my posts again - I have said several times I DID NOT try to close out a spread by selling the long calls first!!!!! Why do you keep saying that??? IB would not let me close out my spread because they had miscalculated my margin by assuming I had 20 short NOV calls uncovered...

OK - here are answers to all your questions: These were not weeklies, they were traditional 3rd Friday of the month options. I didn't try to close out the spread by selling the long call first - duh!! Not sure why my limited posting history is an issue. I am 48 years old, and have been...

Well, zdreg, you would lose that bet. Simply put, I was short 120 OCT SPY calls between 123 and 130, and long 120 OCT SPY calls between 124 and 131. I recently opened up some Nov credit spreads on SPY - short 60 NOV SPY calls, and long 60 NOV calls. The margin required is a very simple...

Reg-T