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I totally agree with erol. I use TOS, and you can negotiate your commissions down if you do decent volume. Their order software supports 4 legged spreads with complete flexibility. You can do named (condors, butterflies, backspreads, etc. ) or you can do custom orders with a mix of expiry...

Especially if he was drinking the coffee late at night, too!

Here's my suggestion. If you sold the 12.5's for about a dollar and they're now worth 0.05, what are the 10's worth? Possibly you can now buy a 10 call for 20-30 cents. If you can, you've locked in your profits ( 0.70 gain now is a certainty since the 12.5's are not naked anymore) AND you can...

Don't worry, I won't be trading them. I'll stick with SPX and other indexes. I like plenty of volume, a decent open interest and reasonable spread distances... in this case either 10 or 25 wide would be far more appealing.

My apologies. You actually were quite clear. I simply misread your post. As I see it, you are clearly making money on this position. If you really want to do something about the 880 only, which could limit your profits, I'd suggest the following: Possibly roll the 880 down to an 850 or...

Your position looks like a fairly unbalanced, and very tight iron condor. This is a recipe for a bit of trouble especially when you have a September position since it is quite likely that you will run through at least one of your short strikes making noticeable paper losses at the very least...

BRK options ATM strike value (July) will be between 180-260 dollars by my rough estimate. According to the Bloomberg article the strikes are 100 apart. Pretty wide spreads, I'd say.

I am, and MTE agrees, although he put it much more succintly! In my post, I stated that if you write (that means you are short) a call and it is in the money, you will have to pay. If you are long (you own the call), you will receive this money in cash.

Actually, I had to chuckle when I saw the question and who was interacting with the OP. Let's see: atticus, Mark, dmo, and spindr0. Hmmm... You won't go very far wrong with THAT combination. Throw in Dan Sheridan's free CBOE seminars, optioncoach and a couple others with outstanding blogs and...

Just want to clarify Mark (Option911)'s post. If you write a SPX 900 call and it expires in the money, what you pay depends on the value of the index at the morning print (it is called the SET) on the Friday morning of expiry. The option ceases trading on the Thursday afternoon, and you...

Optionseeker, since I follow all the option threads, I happened to notice your discussion with Atticus about double butterflies. If you are quite risk averse (and that is a good thing --I am fairly risk averse, too), you may want to do a double broken wing butterfly formation. This is about the...

Optionseeker, Right! I usually start out this way, and then wiggle and waggle with the market, but only if it makes a reasonable move. You do not want to be trading with every 5 or 10 point move on the SPX. The slippage will kill you. With the insurance spreads, you won't need to adjust...

Optionseeker, I would like to clarify your understanding a bit. For protection, I buy debit spreads closer to the money as opposed to further away. Despite the fact that FOTM spreads are cheaper and you can easily buy more of them, I have become convinced that the closer to the money (CTM)...

MTE, you are right. I should have explained it a bit more carefully. I should have said credit spreads in the second month and debit spreads in the front month. I rarely if ever buy or sell singles. Otherwise, you will indeed have a margin problem on your hands and I like to have a...

Optionseeker, I'm pretty sure Spindr0 has his tongue deeply buried in his cheek on that last comment about Moe and Curly. The fact is that if you completey neutralize all aspects of your option--delta, gamma, theta,and vega (I'm assuming rho is negligible most of the time), then you will also...

Spindr0 makes an excellent point about the adjustments. With an IC, you almost never make an adjustment that doesn't involve taking a profit on one side or the other, which is unlike many other positions which simply worsen with market movements against you. With the IC, it can't worsen on...

Welcome to IC trading! As a general rule, if price changes are modest you can expect gains, particularly on the side the price moves away from. It is not unusual for there to be declines on both sides if the price changes are modest. It will probably come as news to many that you may have a...

Unfortunately, there are a lot of websites out there that promote a set it and forget it mentality when it comes to iron condors. What that means in the end is that you set your positions and you can forget about having your margin money (sooner or later)! For some people, they simply adjust...

I'd echo Mark's comments, for sure, and you should note that he is only putting 10 contracts*10 points wide *100 shares/contract or $10,000 at actual risk in this situation. The other 90% is available for defensive purposes, other trades, stocks or whatever. His approach is closer to the money...

2-3% on total capital. I NEVER risk all the capital, so that means I need to aim for higher returns on margin. However, when it comes to account growth, the total growth on capital is what really counts. If I make 30% for a year, I'll know it went well. More than that can happen when...