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Yes, you are correct, but your probability of success is much lower. You risk lower amount, but in most cases, you will lose, in some cases you will lose your whole investment. So your potential profit with buying options is higher, but the probability of success with selling options is much...

It might be oversimplified, but look at the big picture. At least 75% of all options expire worthless. You can find very few big smart money investors that buy options. They usually sell them to the small investor/speculator who wants to make a killing. Occasionally you can make a killing by...

Making those returns on single trades is definetely possible, but what is your risk? How much do you put into such trades? What is your probability of success? Are you ready to risk 50% of your portfolio on such trade? In my opinion, selling options has much higher long term chance of...

I don’t want to guess the market direction, so usually I trade iron condors (put and call spreads, for the same margin). If UL goes close to my short strike, I can usually close the opposite side for about 20% of the credit. Depending on the time left, I might close the losing side, roll or...

I hear this argument a lot. It depends how you look at it. In terms of dollar amount, it might be correct. In terms of return on margin, I’m not so sure. If you can make 8-10% a month on index credit spreads, it’s not very often that index goes up by 8-10% per month. And your margin of...

With this strategy, there is always a dilemma: Going too far OOM (450 in this case) doesn't give you practical protection - it's too far. Going too close - the cost is too high to buy x2 put than the number you sell.

But in this case my margin requirement increases 10 times and my risk increases 10 times as well. It's almost like selling naked, and it protects only against catastrophic fall.

I found out that SPY is too commissions consuming. Which broker are you using and how much are you paying commissions? Why you hedge SPY with QQQQ? I completely agree regarding valuable info. For example, there is a very interesting discussion "What's better 90% or 70% Probability Index Iron...

I'm not sure I follow you. You mean instead of for example sell 5 550 puts, buy 5 540 puts, you suggest buying 10 540 puts? I'm afraid the cost of 5 additional puts would be more than the credit I receive for the whole IC. Or you mean going further OTM?

You can certainly believe whatever you want. Just note that I didn’t actually mention any websites till someone else mentioned Condoroptions. I wish this was true and I owned all the nine or ten sites I mentioned in my posts. I would be actually a very rich man by now.. I understand that...

Sharpe ratio of 1.9 refers to the whole period since inception (2000). They had only one losing month in 5 years, not 7. Here are Wicked profits full monthly results (including commission) as reported by Pro-Trading-Profits: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2000 11.6%...

I cannot speak about thousands, but I can describe those that I personally tried for periods of one month to several months. 1. Wicked Profits: does one trade per month. No adjustments. If the underlying crosses the short strike, the trade is closed. Completely reproducible, very honest...

Go to CBOE page, Dan Sheridan webinars - http://oiwebcasts.cboe.com/portal/v_g.asp?G=10&events_page_num=1. There are few of them: Dan Sheridan's Adjustments & Trade Management Series: Adjusting Condors in a Volatile Market Dan Sheridan's Income Trading in a Highly Volatile Market Part I...

Are you trading them as a hedge or standalone trades? Could you please share some ideas how you trade them? Front month? OOM? Spreads?

Go few posts back, I gave all the names.

If you are talking about straight calls, you are probably correct. With VIX at 40, April futures might be around 30-35. On 2 contracts, you might be talking about 1k profit, maybe less. Is it enough to protect your portfolio? If your portfolio is only 10k, it’s 10% protection, but you also...

I was actually thinking about the same idea. I even took it further: instead of straight VIX call, how about diagonal? For example, you can buy 10 Apr. 35 call for at $2.0 and sell 10 Jan 40 calls for $0.4. Total cost: $1,600. If VIX goes to 40 at Jan expiration, you should make about $7-8k...

I’m currently facing same issue. I think that straight puts are too expensive, and if you go further OOM, you don't have enough protection. Lets’ say I sold 10 Jan 550/540 put spreads for total credit of $900. I also have the call spread, and the total credit is about $2,000. The...

I completely see your point. I’m not saying it’s easy. In my case, achieving 14% per month since May 2009 was probably pure luck. However, service like WickedProfits is the proof that it can be done successfully for a long period of time (almost 10 years in this case, with average annual...

Could you please clarify what do you mean? You think you might know how did it happen?