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Coach (and others), Have you put on your DEC positions? I'm looking at 1150/1160 For roughly $1. Any thoughts?

Coach, How about using, say, 20% of your DEC credit and buying some SPX 1250/1260 (or something like that) bull call spreads?

Sorry, didn't notice it was a 5-point handle.

I'm back from a two week break and have done some thinking and wanted to get some feedback. Coach Phil, you are providing an excellent free service here and I am very grateful to you. The following are genuine, honest thoughts and not meant to undermine Phil's efforts. I love credit spreads...

Coach, For the 300 SPX DEC 1135/1140 Put Spreads @ $0.30, did you mean Credit = $9,000 Risk = $300,000 Return = 3%

rdemyan -- outstanding! Thank you for the effort.

For OCT, I showed a 4.5% profit. On the surface this looks good.... but on the Wednesday morning of expiration week I was up at a 19% profit. So obviously, there were some lessons learned. Limited access to a computer this week, I'll post these later...

rdemyan, this was a tough expiration week. Give me another week or so. I have put this task on my to-do list. It requires a couple of hours of uninterrupted time to peruse...

rdemyan, You can get the 2SD numbers from the TOS platform. Or you can use this calculation (remember, time and volatility are really two ways of looking at a similar phenomenon) 1SD, 1 week out, with a 20% increase in IV due to something not-so-great happening = 1180 * 0.16 * 1.2 *...

Yes, I noticed there is no credit for NOV in the 1270 area. Another options may be t choose a lower strike with a much smaller position.... or just wait. Also, you'll pay double the margin if you choose spreads in two different months.

This is nothing to do with daytrading. I am not a daytrader. My point is that if an index can jump 25 points in one day, and an iron condor is 100 points wide, do you see an issue there? Remember, you want your condor/spread to be around 1.5 to 2 SDs OTM...

Smiling, very well put. I don't want to put on a credit spread today with ATR(10)=14 and then a week later have the ATR(10)=25. I'd be toast. I guess the big unknown is if vol is actually increasing or are we seeing a momentary pop (i.e. VIX will soon be back at 12)?

10-day Average True Range for SPX went from 9 (around one month) ago to 14 (as of today)! This means if one puts on a spread of say 1130/1140, it would take as little as 3 days to hit the 1140 strike from the current level of 1178. Think it's time to go fishing. :eek:

Phil, I'd like to make a suggestion. As everyone starts to tally the numbers for OCT, it would be good if each person gave a couple of "lessons learned" pointers as well. l learned at least a couple...

"Buy a otm longer term option and sell a closer to atm near-term option (for instance, buying a Nov 120 put and selling an Oct 119 put)." -- this is a diagonal. If you do the call side too it becomes a double diagonal (or calenderized iron condor). But I thought dbl diags were negative vega???

Smiling, good point. The rising vol has got me thinking. I'm going to add a couple of calendars going forward, in addition to my credit spreads, just to get the benefit of the calendar's better behaviour during rising vol...

PHIL, I agree, &*&#%& October, what the $*%^ was all these expiration games about? We're both short 1165. Think SET will dive below that?

Phil, Ask TOS again for ONLY options on ES (rather than the whole universe of futures options). I believe they are considering it since they already have ES futures -- IMHO serious possibility they might add ES options. I have found that it is MUCH easier to trade with just one account and...

MoMoney, Thanks for the link -- I have Summa's book. Please call TOS and ask for ES options. You'll be one of several who have (incl. me) and they just might do it.

Similing, you wrote: "Plus no risk of catastrophe, as in the case of "credit spreads." Is this because the risk/reward ratio is better? Please explain, thanks.