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Slapshot, Rather than thinking of theta with respect to delta, its probably better to stick to thinking of theta with respect to the underlying and strike. As riskarb pointed out, all of the greeks with the exception of delta are at their highest when ATM. So for theta, this means that...

Ludmil, IMHO no one strategy is better than any other. It depends on what your market sentiment is and what you think is going to happen in terms of both volatility and direction. There are infinite number of ways to play both iron condors and butterflies so it's not really possible for me to...

It can be more profitable if you pick the right strikes for the range if you are able to predict that far into the future. However, you will not normally be able to put on the double diagonal for a credit unless you are adept at legging in or there is a large enough vol differential in the term...

It will move roughly half the speed as the underlying asset if it is ATM. This is what delta is a measure of - how much your PUT will gain/lose value with respect to the underlying. ATM options have a delta of roughly .50. As the option goes more ITM the delta will tend towards 1. You can...

So that's $135 reward on $865 risk. What is your stop loss going to be on this? I don't think it's as high probability as it looks...but I'm sure you are familiar with GOOGs vol. I did a similar PUT spread last month after the downgrade circa 28/11 and it worked out nicely. Hope you have the...

Those greeks must be for all positions you have on SPY right? You have two PUT verticals and a PUT calendar, is that correct? Anything else? Just want to follow along. MoMoney.

I'm sure it will be a winner... Suspect your knowledge base is somewhat larger and deeper than mine but...I still play straddles [EDIT: you may mean strangles]...I guess ignorance really is bliss :) Yes, I can't wait for the next release (in Jan I believe). I'm almost more excited about...

Just a FYI, Some people that have analyzed option prices w.r.t. theta/time decay, maintain that weekends etc. are not a "free lunch" i.e. buying options on Friday P.M. in anticipation of getting some decay over the weekend by Monday A.M. does not in reality happen. The decay is priced in...

I've been looking at MARCH for straddles but with QQQQ or SPY so I can scalp gamma if I have to with underlying. Have been trying out XSP over the last few weeks but it seems as bad as SPX for fills, otherwise I would use that and scalp with ES....but this is probably all OT. Just curious...

No it was primarily about gamma risk but inevitably it ended up with people picking Tom's brains about what his favorite strategies are etc. [B] Key for Tom's approach is minimal position sizes so blowing up is not really an issue. [B] Good luck with that...should only take a...

Basically, he does ICs more in line with 2:1 or 3:1 risk/reward which is a far cry from the 20:1 or 30:1 FOTM credit spreads here. He doesn't leg in to the ICs in general and advocates around only 5% of account for each position...so smallish position sizes. The problem is finding instruments...

Good job. I see you've been concentrating on short put spreads. Any reason for doing so? MoMoney.

Your first post on this thread is date stamped with the 18th December. Did you buy when you made that post on the 18th? Or did you buy yesterday on the 20th? I'm sure you can see why people are getting confused. People have also become accustomed to having some general commentary and...

Such a cynic :D LOL. I'm dying to know how they've wronged you so badly. Can only be a woman involved to spawn such disdain....

No experience using it but they have said they will be including options on futures on the same platform soon (whatever that means)...so I will probably take a better look then. Other than that, from cursory examinations, OptionStation looks nearly as comprehensive as ToS' desktop software...

Skeweddude, thinkorswim do have a scanning tool named Spread Hacker(TM). You will be able to test it out via the 30 day trial of their desktop platform. If your 30 days expire you can usually extend ad infinitum... I personally find this tool very useful. A brief overview of the criteria...

Not quite auto-magically. With 100 lots you do have some bargaining power. Any broker can call down to the pit in the same way as ToS, it's just a question of how willing they are to do this and what kind of contacts your broker has there. See here for three ways to do it with ToS...

Good stuff. In IB's defence: ToS and OX specialise in options. IB do just about everything under the sun in just about every country under the sun. Master of none.

Err....yes, good question. Well, using standard ToS published rates, they charge the lesser of $2.50 OR $1.50 per contract + $9.95 "ticket charge" (my words) for the spread. The $9.95 is for the spread regardless of how many legs are involved. OX for example charge a minimum for EACH leg...

Yes, I'm aware that you can get ToS to call down to the crowd to negotiate larger orders via phone, Live Support or "Send to Trade Desk" option on the confirm/send dialog box if you're doing more than 50 lots etc. OR......you could just trade something other than SPX lol (don't shoot me Phil)...