Recent content by quazimofo

Yes, this sort of trade can be legged into in a single day, but yes, it can take 1-2 more days. In fact, sometimes, when the spot price drops lower than it should, I'll buy the longs just in case I can get the shorts later -- even if I don't the longs will appreciate quickly when the spot...

Also, the real trick here, is to leg-into the position using current changes in spot and volatility as opportunities to buy or sell the calls so that there is as little of a net-debit as possible. Obviously, you want to buy your longs on low IV and sell the shorts on high IV. On a good day...

Long $160 Short $170 Short $180 Long $190 Did you look at the image that was attached to the message you quoted?

Someone may have been in front of you in the queue to buy at that price, leaving you waiting for the next to come available.

For anyone else wanting to know how to do this (its not in the video), when you go to configure columns while in the OptionTrader, you may need to press "Show Disabled" first. Then, you should be able to select your greeks and add them to the shown columns.

OK, I've been giving this a try. It quickly becomes obvious what the main issue with this approach is - the margin requirements can be significantly higher - meaning that, in the end, your performance is lower in terms of RoC. I'll keep working on it though, maybe there's a different angle I...

Thanks for the link... too bad you spoiled the gesture with your not so nice comment though.

Hi all, I'm tired of going back and forth between tools. Does anyone know how to get the delta of an option from Interactive Brokers? Thanks!

No, but there are actions one can take to salvage a position towards one's own goals vs. someone elses. To the OP, if you intend to keep your underlying stock, then the easiest thing to do is repurchase your written calls. Then, to reduce your losses on that, immediately sell more calls at a...

Freshpotato, Did you get what you needed from Lar? For the IV using the Black-Scholes method, you're going to need: The quoted option price. The date/time of the quoted price. The price of the underlying at the same moment as the option quote. The "risk-free" rate of return at the...

Completely agree. The only thing for me is that in order to maximize the R/R, I need to focus on the strike selection and not let the Double Diagonal play affect their selection. Once that is done, this play is icing on the proverbial cake!

Good thinking... if you place your IC positions that far in advance. I look to place mine about 30-45 days before expiry, so in some cases, this will indeed leave an (albeit small) opportunity in the earlier month. But hey, why not!

Here's a very close to free OOTM Call Condor on AAPL for MAY'08. This one cost less than $100 per basket and could return as much as $950. In this case, I'm fairly confident that the UL *will* cross the peak ($175), I just hope it does so just before the expiry.

With the recent peaks in IVs, Iron Condors are nice and fat. Outside of this, I have a hobby of trying to get free ootm call condors by careful strike selection and timing (and a bit of luck). If you stick to standard strike intervals, your broker/platform /might/ not impose any margin...