Search results

Those SPX weekly options are treated the same as the monthly ones. They settle on the AM price. They are no longer trading today. Check the SET - It is 1065.25. Be very careful about letting your positions go into settlement. AZD

A mere $20 investment @.01/share on July 29, 2009 has you driving away in a new car today. :D AZD

Ditto. Congratulations Mark and keep up the good work. AZD

With the 1:20 reverse split shrinking the float and the huge volatility, you might not want to take too large of a position on those bear call spreads. It can blast through into the 70s with no problem, even though fundamentals might not support such a move. Good luck. AZD

A $176,000 aggregate options trade. Stunning courage. Congrats. AZD

How many contracts?

Hi Mark, Very good points. I asked for the cost basis to get a better overview of the situation. You are correct though - many people (I too am sometimes guilty!) tend to use their cost basis as a foundation for their decisions. They might have only a 5% loss, but in their attempt to...

There is always the option of turning it into a spread. Maybe you could sell the 985s. But the problem is, the 975 contracts are less than 3 right now, so your loss is almost 70%. If you look at this position from a new perspective - Would you be willing to initiate it at this price and hang...

What is your cost basis? Which would make you feel worse? 1) Riding it out and losing almost everything. 2) Cutting your losses and watching your "lottery ticket" soar. It seems at least now, you have "ammo" to live another day. AZD

I must be looking at the screen too long, LOL. You are correct. European style. They cannot be excercised early. The main point I was trying to make concerned the settlement procedures. European style / American style AM / PM settlement SPX quarterlies are European style AND PM...

Oooops. I meant to say that the quarterlies are NOT European style, but American style expiration. Not all SPX options are European. The quarterlies are NOT calculated on the open, but the end of day price. Sorry for any confusion. AZD

The quarterlies on the SPX have a European style expiration. You don't have to be concerned about the occasional madness of opening settlement. Also, as others have observed, they can be illiquid at times. It's best to establish your initial position at a good price because, when closing your...

Spin, Scalping DNDN - You are brave, especially if there is any chance of a repeat of yesterday. You don't see any options plays on this one? AZD

I was thinking for a while that a butterfly might be a good idea on DNDN. Yesterday, I was upset that I didn't do it, then glad I didn't do it, then upset I didn't do it . . . wait, I don't think DNDN fits the criteria, LOL It seems that DNDN might be too much of a gamble for most strategies...

Spin, I too wrote routines on the Commodore 64, LOL. Not finance related though. I was too poor to afford the 1541 external disk drive, so my storage media was a dataset recorder. Yes, plain audio cassettes to store programs and data. I think I still have it, LOL. AZD

I believe that stands for Short Dated Option. AZD

Xif, Fib beat me to the answer. :) I would suggest taking a good look at some of the 2x and 3x funds, and performing a correlation against the SPX or Russell 2000 (maybe even SPY or IWM), or whatever instrument they are associated with - - - you might be surprised how the correlation is...

The others have given sound advice. Just a quick warning: DO NOT leverage into SSO. It cannot be viewed as a long-term instrument. Due to the derivatives, slippage, and other factors, it will likely not correlate as closely to the SPY as you think. All the best. AZD

Hey Everyone: I stepped away for a moment - thanks for the replies. Let me address them one by one 1) Hello Arizona, Most likely reason is that the markets are less volatile than they were last autumn - when spreads were beyond absurd. Mark Hi Mark, how are your condors...

Hello Folks: I've noticed over the recent weeks that the spreads on the SPX options have narrowed considerably. For example. an option that in the past might be going for 22.5 x 24.1 (mid=23.3) is now going for 22.9 x 23.7. In other words, what used to be a 1.60 spread is now a .80...