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huh.... never thought of it that way. if it ain't broke (for 95% of people) don't fix it.

lol, aside from a stupid commercial? I'm not sure... AFAIK it didn't change, but I'm most probably wrong. I guess I'm worried that TD will take away tools for inactive and smaller accounts (like me). TD Waterhouse's commissions are atrocious. We have questrade which has cheap...

TOS is more expensive... but i'm playing with small lots (<5 contracts) and small amount of funds, and i'm not active. plus, i'm still learning, and TOS tools are invaluable to me. Helps me understand things a lot more. i just wish I could hold canadian funds, and I wish they did...

+1 on TOS tho you can't do Canadian equities and funds are held in US dollars

....hmmm i read this and thought, "why would they say that?"... and then i looked at your name....

I would think you'd need to know something about volatility....

understood! except now I've got a bearish bias when i do believe my stocks will rise, except I want to protect against the things I have no control over. But this synthetic put back spread is great "when" there's another crash... and if I can set this up in time (given I own the...

yeah, i'm trying to figure out how I can insure without giving up my upside, or substantially giving up my upside. i see that rolling collars would be costly, and thus not feasible. i like the index protection... that makes sense. I guess I could use TOS and beta-weight my portfolio...

Yeah... I realize I can't get something for nothing... My apologies for the bombardment of questions, but is this crazy? I've been playing around with TOS paper money, and I'm thinking, use the credit from a bull put spread, to pay for an OTM put (so basically a put back spread, I think)...

thank you both again. spin: yeah that's what I couldn't get my head around, if the call goes ITM, buying back and rolling would cost me. I figured someone must have though of rolling... I don't think I'm comfortable with one of the calls being naked, nor do I think any of my accounts...

I was wondering if anyone uses these... and if so, is there a strategy where you can "roll the collar" so that you move "the legs" as the prices increase (without incurring substantial costs)? Would this require an automated trading strategy? I'm trying to find it online and I can only...

thanks again Mark and spin, that really helpful advice. That's very true... something I have to work on.

That's a delicate balance I have to learn. Since it's hard to sit there and watch the price go down, but I believe (when I've been long the call) that it'll come back, and it has. But had I reacted I would have put myself in a more complicated position... its hard to find that balance of...

thanks spindr0 I guess I never thought of "managing" it if the underlying tanks. I suppose I could turn it into a bear call spread depending on how much it tanks. thanks again!

thanks for the replies. Mark: The underlying (Canadian Oil Sands on TSX - COS.UN) was moving sideways, But yes, either up or sideways...

while we're on the subject... anyone see anything wrong with this strategy? (aside from getting hit on the spread) I've had small successes with ITM options (delta ~ 0.65 - 0.75) with 3-4 months left. I go for 20% - 30% return on premium, then get out. Underlying has to move...

the rabbit hole grows deep the more you read up on it. You'll find that options aren't really used in the way they were "designed". Most positions are closed before expiration, options are rarely exercised, since they're priced in such a way that it doesn't make financial sense to...

thanks heech... the plot thickens...:eek:

you can write a program/script to automatically trade for you? That is awesome. How do you do that?