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Worth a shot to try! 1396

Howard is right. You don't need to trade real money for awhile and the software is good at TOS. I trade through themn a regular basis. Good luck learning to trade.

Actually, getting fast fills may be a matter of matching orders unless they are at the natural bid or ask. If you deal with a broker like thinkorswim or IB, you can be matched internally by the broker. In that case, round numbers are a bit more likely to be filled. Smaller numbers are also...

Of course there is. 1) thinkorswim brokerage has great analytical software. Open a paper money account and then access their videos on how to use it. It is fairly capable to say the least. It's free! 2) Optionetics also has some software called platinum. This costs $$$. 3) Peter...

You are getting good advice. On top of everything, they have written, you will find there are onerous margin requirements because of the risk you are taking with writing naked calls. If you want to do a ratio spread like position, try a broken wing butterfly/ unbalanced butterfly ( or a...

Nice work MTE! Wonderfully clear screen capture of the TOS analysis including the position as well. Of course, the position of your graph relative to the zero profit ratio is better, but that is a function of more favourable prices in your scenario. It is clear that you have the right...

Howard, As I understand it, the reason atticus keeps chasing you from thread to thread is that he thinks that you are being dishonest. Frankly, I have to agree with him! How your report your returns makes a big difference and the only truly honest way is to report losses and gains using the...

JJacks, weewilly has just told you exactly how to implement my suggestion about balancing the butterfly again and freeing the margin (taking away all risk of loss), and shown you how to take home cash by providing the current prices to do the rebalancing. Looks good to me.

JJacks Good questions, and they show you are really considering risks properly. My first thought is that you probably should close. After all, if you don't change your position, you will have to wait until the third week of August to collect the entire $108.00. You also run a small risk...

There is no such thing as a free ride... The long options had to be paid for at some point. When you set up an Iron Condor, you get paid for the short options, but you still have to use some of that premium money to buy the long options. Then, if at some point you are able to repurchase...

Good news. The margin requirements on long options is zero. If something amazing happens, and the options go in the money, that could be interesting and there would be some significant exercise issues related to that. Most brokers will assume that you want to exercise unless you tell them...

Forex, here's the problem. Yes, you can close out the iron condor completely at maximum loss, and the thing is done. You will still have some funds in the account because you are required to be able to completely cover this loss. But, if you try to close ONLY one side (the one with a...

You are pretty close in your guess. Taking one side of the iron condor off leaves you with a credit spread that has the same amount of margin as the original iron condor-- therefore buying back one side does not reduce your margin requirements related to your position. If you have to pay up...

True, spin. I've often noticed in the options trading business that there are two groups of options traders-- one primarily trades the commodities side and the other group primarily trades the stocks and indexes side. As you already know, the index futures for S&P (the ES folks) have...

Natenburg does not say 1 share for 1 option as the OP states! He talks about 100 shares for each option (ie a board lot). It is of course 100 shares for each option. On that, we will be agreed. Now for the rest of YOUR reading Visaria et al!! You completely ignored the rest of my...

I'm afraid you boys are wrong. Here's why: an ATM (at-the-money) option does represent 100 shares of the underlying typically, but it will not have a delta of 1. Usually, the delta will be right around 0.50 just like Natenburg states (by the way, his works are considered the industry...

Mark, Very good point on the 0.40 call spread value. I usually start thinking about buying them back somewhere around that point, and definitely around the 0.25 point. I think a lot of people don't realize that blindly opening spreads a fixed distance away from the index doesn't really...

Sorry, I can't comment on the XSP. I've never traded it. I also trade the NDX, and the fills are somewhat better than the SPX. I like the fact that both indexes are traded in 5 point intervals on a big index. This gives marvelous flexibility to adjust as desired. I also prefer the...

This is a typical issue with the SPX. I have traded thousands of these options and I have a couple of recommendations re your trade. 1) Since the SPX is currently still traded on the floor and only at the CBOE, you are partly at the mercy of the market maker. Such narrow spreads will be...

Ammo--good point. That is why I said you need to price compare and see if it is worthwhile. Now for my question: can you fill 500 spreads on SPY easily for 0.01 off the mid?? If you can, you could take off SPX risk (more or less- see my previous post) with an SPY trade if necessary. For...