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Couldn't the same thing be said about every CTA in the business? They get paid to make trading calls, with none of their personal money at risk. The failure rate for CTAs is quite high. But you don't see the same vitriol about CTAs as you do advisory services. Is it because advisory services...

LOL! Oh, the subtle irony.

Your vocabulary below tells me you are not approaching this the right way mentally. There are some trading methods and systems that require toughness. If you "wimp out" on a trade that turns into a big winner, you have just lost out on much of the potential of the system. The big winner...

rallymode stated previously, "I already said i am hitting a 90% win rate at 1:1 or 2:1 risk/reward." If he is getting that kind of %win/loss with trades that are CTM, then we are having an entirely different discussion. He is obviously very confident in his market analysis, entry and exit...

Don't take this the wrong way, but this is a patently bad idea. Bringing real dollars into a discussion of trading strategies usually goes very badly. Phil's success with the SPX Spread thread is very rare (and welcome). If people can't figure out what strategy they want to "follow", they...

I had both naked calls and credit spreads on ER2 (RUT futs). My only ES calls were in an OCT1375/NOV1400 diagonal. Unfortunately, the ES diag was a small position, since ES closed today at 1375 :) On ER2, I had Oct call shorts (some naked, some spread) at 760, 770 and 775. Most were...

When you say "2% of margin requirement", are you using the spread width as an estimate of the margin? I.e. if you are looking at a 50 pt SPX spread, you would want a minimum 1pt (2%) credit? How far OTM would you say your typical put and call are (referring to the short strikes)? I'm in...

How wide are you willing to go on the put side? To collect what size credit? Calls, I can see. Although calls have not worked out this month due to the current market action. But to get a credit on puts, you either have to get closer to the market (a 0.25 delta for instance), or you have...

Ditto. It must be Phil's lawyer training that lets him keep his cool :) I thought all internet discussion threads were legally required to devolve into a flame war. This has been an outstanding break from the usual fiery fare. The credit (heh) for that goes to Phil. I know a couple of...

The margin depends heavily on what other positions are currently open in the account. It looks like domestic had mostly short calls still open. So the margin required to enter the short puts was probably $0. IB has a demo trading feature. You might check into that. Then you could start...

Since Mark has mentioned the notorious beast, I thought I would provide some info on what the thing looks like. This data was compiled a few months ago by a member of this board. It is a tremendous product, extremely informative and I am ashamed to admit that I don't remember who created it...

It says so right on the disclosure document :) [b] I obviously can't answer that for him. But the evidence suggests he does have himself under control. The suprise May/June drop spanked alot of put sellers, including the illustrious Victor Neiderhoffer who was down 30% as you mentioned...

I remember reading an article about that guy. He's really a textbook case for the premium seller. Made good easy money for quite some time. Then got himself too close to the market, and when the market came after him, he got "deer in the headlights" and didn't close the trade when he should...

On the subject of butterfly conversions, I did one recently, so maybe the numbers from that will be educational for someone. The details below are from memory as my journal is at the office. 3 weeks or so ago, I bought a SEP EW1335C/OCT 1350C diagonal for (0.75) debit. ES climbed rapidly...

I strongly disagree with this. From day 1, Phil has traded large size. This entails large rewards and much larger risks in the case of credit spreads. He has not beat his chest and crowed about being a big swinging dick when he made money. He has not cried or whined when he lost money...

Wow. That was a very interesting article. Algorithmic trading is something sexy sounding that you can sell to investors. Bloated IT department churning out curve-fit trading systems doesn't look nearly as good on a prospectus. I guess they don't want to come right out and say that their...

Phil will post his numbers later, but in the meantime, here are the numbers for an EW diagonal I have going off the board today. 9/15 ES 1332 sold SEP EW1350C for 2.30, bot OCT ES1370C for 2.30, net debit $0. As the mkt moved up on 9/20, the spread hit its max loss, which was about...

For educational purposes, here is an update on an ES put diagonal I just closed. 8/14 ES 1281 VIX 13.5 I sold SEP 1200P and bot OCT 1230P for a net debit of (2.25). 9/12 ES 1319 VIX 12.36 I closed the diagonal for a credit of 1.75 for a loss on the trade of (0.50). I could have...

Baaaaa The funny part is, this sheep is actually getting immunized... I agree with Phil's earlier statement. He has given himself carpal tunnel typing up warnings about risk, account size, experience, etc, etc. If someone loses money by mindlessly trying to mimic coach's trades...

Its odd that someone called greeks wouldn't know what sigma means :) Sigma is the symbol (and word) used for standard deviation. Google a bit for a statistics primer if needed.