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Here's a common option arb. An option market maker executes a conversion or a reversal in order to arb the difference. The counter parties bear the risk. My logic is that like the market maker, the insurance company is selling something for more than it costs, in terms of payout on either...

Another consideration is the volatility of the underlying as well as the market. Iron condors are more suited for something closer to granny stocks :) than volatile issues or volatile times. Perhaps you learned that from your position? Of course the granny payoff is lower but there should be...

Now might be the time to start practicing, "Would you like paper or plastic?" :D

Insurance companies make money in a variety of ways. Here's one. A coupla months ago I started a chain about hedging an existing appreciated portfolio with index options. That led me to discover some different index annuities that provide a profit limit cap along with various amounts of...

Yes, the CBOE option strategies had a lower standard deviation the B&H SPY but that's a separate consideration from whether buying is more profitable than selling, or vice versa.

I think that you may have discovered something new and amazing !!!

I have no source info to prove anything so here's a potpourri of info that supports my opinion. Options are a zero sum game, actually a negative one when you factor in the B/A spread and frictional costs. Selling options offers a higher probability of making a limited reward and lower...

With covered calls and syn equivalent short puts, most of the time you eat like a bird and occasionally you sh*t like an elephant. Margin heavily and you have a high prob of blowing out your account. Your broker will miss you.

It's a wonderful strategy if the stock cooperates. If not (see 2000 and 2008) then you're SOL.

Traders don't defend, especially the rock stars here who never lose ;->) Spreads are limited risk/reward critters. The short answer is that you win some and you lose some and the rest are rained out. That's just the way it is. The reason for the position (before and after the drop) has a...

If an Iron Condor started to move against me AND I chose to defend it, I'd roll the untested side in, bringing in some additional premium. That would occur before the underlying breached the other short strike. In your example, if placed at the mid point ($76), when XLE dropped to say $72...

When the OptionsXpress quote chains went poof because of the take over, someone here turned my onto: http://www.optionistics.com/quotes/stock-option-chains I like it better than the CBOE because puts and calls are side by side, you can control the months and strikes and you can turn the Greeks...

Rightline.net and Briefing.com have earnings calendars that go out about a month. Most of the others that I have come across are daily. Morningstar is daily but if you highlight the page right, when you switch dates, the highlighting remains and you just have to do is click copy and paste. I...

Since he didn't mention stock ownership, what "spread-em" described is a synthetic long (SELL the $10 put to finance the BUY of the $30 call). What you described is collared long stock with the option transactions reversed (SELL call/ BUY put) which is synthetically equal to a bullish...

As JHarmon said, there are two companies involved. The original TIVO was taken over by ROVI in a merger on Sep 7, 2016 and the new company retained the name and symbol TIVO. Here are the terms of the deal and the option adjustments: http://www.cboedirect.com/publish/TTStockSM/16-655.pdf I...

I'm just a retail guy who has no clue what the future will bring other than me wanting to see it. I hope that all of you are right and that we have many days like Friday since price volatility and big reversals give me a Clint Eastwoodie: "Make my day!".

I booked the gains in my long IWM puts that were hedging the aforementioned annuity. Had to move on to the SPY because the IWM B/A spreads were Holland Tunnel wide and that prohibited rolling. Too much of a haircut. Haven't added any synthetic positions to mimic the annuity - IV still too...

Welcome back to the world of "Why did I do that ???" :->) I did some diagonals on XOM yesterday, trying to capture some fat one day until expiration premium. I did just that and I'll be buying the shares tonight :-( At least I have the long leg for next week to roll down and lower cost...

I have been utilizing options (retail trader) for over 30 years. In 2008-2009 I traded a lot of correlated financial stocks successfully as pairs and in size. I have also dabbled with using the options of higher beta stocks to hedge correlated lower priced issues in the same sector. In all of...

I'd like to thank those who contributed constructive replies to this chain. I'm a happy clam right now because two weeks ago I cashed out of the aforementioned variable annuity which nearly doubled in the past 9 years. I got the top. I took 1/2 the proceeds and put it into a 10% "buffered"...