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robertST, How do you pick the stocks to sell puts on? Do you sell puts on the same stocks every week or do you focus on ones with high IV or something else? What are some stocks you are selling puts on right now?

Can you give an example of your current position? What DTE and strikes? I can see how your strategy would work, since I've taken the opposite side of the trade and have suffered during downturns. I believe your position is usually negative theta, so it's not free insurance. However, it's...

It is, but you have to be able to survive any potential drawdowns and margin calls between now and when the VIX is lower. It's the same reason you can't just take on a ton of leverage and buy S&P 500 index ETFs because you "know" it will be higher 10 years in the future. Even if you are...

The OP posted an example of how he made money selling puts during the crash. PriceJuggler's equity curve doesn't show a huge drawdown either. That's why I'm curious what his Sharpe ratio is. Now, if you were selling puts with a lot of leverage, you would have gotten destroyed during the crash.

Very good returns! What is your Sharpe ratio and beta? Would you mind posting the statistics in the IBKR portfolio analyst reports? Overall, put selling seems like one of the best strategies for retail traders.

Can you roll it out to later expiration with a lower price? That seems pretty easy to do when I look at the option chain. For example, you can buy back your option and sell the 5/15 450 strike price for a credit of around 3,000. If you want to roll to an OTM option, you will have to roll a lot...

Market makers are doing very well. They can hedge at the speed of light. Retail traders...not so much.

Currently, one can buy the Jun 2020 ES mini contract and sell the March 2020 ES mini contract and receive a credit of about $6. What is the risk in creating a credit calendar spread, with the March contracts shorted? Shouldn't these futures contracts converge as the expiration of the March...

Did you not have any positions open over the weekend?

How have people using this strategy fared in the last few days? I assume you'd have to roll your puts pretty far out to roll for a credit.

Does this "Expiration Risk" apply to European options as well? Support has been telling me it does.

Thank you. This is what happened. Are IBKR's portfolio margin requirements similar to those of other brokers? For instance, do most of them have a 9% minimum, an average of roughly 15%, and a requirement of 25% for higher risk ETFs like junk bonds?

I got that warning. It's why I switched some of my portfolio from junk bonds to emerging market bonds (I preferred the junk bonds). The emerging market bonds had a 15% margin requirement up until Friday, when they suddenly had a 25% margin requirement. Meanwhile, the junk bond ETFs now have a 5%...

PM

Either something changed or my memory is off. My recollection is that I had to put up the same percentage margin whether I bought 100 shares or 10,000 shares of fixed income ETFs. Now, it seems that the margin requirements start at 5% and go up as I increase my position size. This is true even...

A few months ago, IBKR raised margin requirements on high yield bond ETFs, from 15% to 25%. Now, however, it looks like they have a margin requirement of only 5%. Meanwhile, my emerging market bond ETF went from having a margin requirement of 15% to having a margin requirement of 25%. All of...

Just sell an SPX box spread and get a 1.5% interest rate at any broker. There is no need to ever use a margin loan.

I am thinking of switching from IBKR. I pay about 2.5% of my total portfolio in option fees to them every year. TDA would bring that down to about 1%. IBKR doesn't seem to offer anything right now, except lower margin rates, which I'm not planning to use. One thing I wonder about is the...