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Bought me a slug of July 20 calls. Stock looks like a double bottom right before earnings. Vol very inexpensive pre-earnings and nearly a 52 week low. Bad news already baked in, who knows, we can see a gap fill of 24.50 this week?

Why buy the calendar if you are expecting a vol crush?

smile. yes that was the whole picture. usually you would set up a "skew" trade if the smile was crooked so to speak. in regards to shorting straddles in order to scalp gamma, that is not for me. I usually try to offset the sale with a buy somewhere along the curve. it is nice to collect...

Never said easy. Probably, you would have to hold close to expiration. Then the fun would begin. Hopefully you would be able to withstand the gap thru your short strike.

In my dealings, skew was the difference in IV between strikes. For example. Buy IBM 90 line on a 35 vol Sell IBM 80 line on a 42 vol. If the atm usually trades near historical, then one would be able to capture this with some careful gamma scalps.

QQQQ are .05 wide and 1000 up.

Bought some '07 10 calls. Usually these one product types will attract some larger entity after they get clobbered. Happend to Lotus in the early 90's.

austin via NYC

I used to be a MM in my previous lifetime. Was in the biz from 90-97. If anyone has questions, PM me and I will answer the best I can. Good luck.

Vol traders make there decisions just like everyone else. They look at something, apply a value, and then buy when its cheap, and sell when its rich. If you asked 10 option desks what they thought what they used to analyze this, you probably would get a mix of historic vol, stats, and other...

Is it cash or stock consideration?

In the equity and fixed income underwritings, the answer is yes. If GS had a decent quarter of trading, that could cushion the fall. IMHO.:p

yep, i did the inverse. Say I was trading IBM at the time, calculated the average daily range, say 2 on a 100 stock. Bid 32 vol for the atm straddle. Got to keep it simple. Short gamma is always a bet against time in my mind. Short a $4 straddle, it would never decay. If I could leg in...

I was on the AMEX when they took him off in a stretcher. Pretty freaking scary if you ask me. But you had a couple of firms bidding for his post the next day. Business is business.

Whenever I am long gamma, I always calculate a daily point breakeven. On the short side I tend to keep my delta tight and try to buy options rather than trade stock.

I heard that a hedge fund trader was shorting this puppy without his bosses approval. When they finally realized the rather large position, he started putting upside pressure by covering it in the market. That could be one reason for today's action.

I guess if you can post spread orders with a broker, you may be able to leg it a little better. I will take a look.

Are the NQ's liquid? You quoted the IC based upon midpoint prices. My guess is these things trade twice a day and you will have to be either very fast or lucky to get anything done in the middle of the quote.

Watching the close. Stock down even as market goes higher. Obvious distribution in this pup. It will probably trade in tight range until the next shoe drops.

stock makes new low of 96.30. Time to take some profits by unwinding some of the 90/100 here at 3.80 or selling some 80/90 's to put on the fly.