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Hmmm... what was the name of the children's book where the tiger takes his own tail in his mouth and runs in circles around and around the tree? (scratching head)

Now that's about as deep as your previous suggestion that the problem is due to trying to sell a call spread using options that are american style and that using euro style options is the answer. LOLOL. Go read what Reg T is about.

While many people can tell you the answer, it's usually a meaningful light bulb moment when you see it for yourself. Here's a little exercise that might help. For simplification, let's pretend that stock XYZ has no dividend and there's no borrow or carry cost. XYZ is 45. The Aug 45...

LOL. Traders trade, Mark.

BS? LOL. The Federal Reserve Board sets forth margin rules under Reg T. The short answer (5 pages later) is that you can't do spreads in a cash account. Deal with it.

I hope you caught some of the volatility in the M and P shares this past week. A word of caution. There's a tender offer to "exchange the convertible and non-convertible preferred and trust preferred securities for newly issued shares of its common stock." I haven't figured out what, if...

Given the OP's original idea, for me, selling the stock and buying calls would be preferable since it would free up margin. The only way I'd go with the puts would be if the net cost of the synthetic would be cheaper than the outright calls. I only glanced at two series of 16 strikes but if...

Book the profit (sell the shares). LOCK it in. If he wants to bet on a higher offer, buy some calls. He can low bid for them and might get a good fill... tho any option buying at this point is most likely going to be a waste of money.

Rather than adjust to a more passive spread just to avoid a loss, I would have taken the profit on the 8 calls and bot the 9 calls if bullish, the puts if bearish. Booking profits is always a good thing to do.

Get castrated! (wink)

That would be too easy because it would solve the problem. It's more interesting to the muse about unrelated issues. :)

The short answer is that the only thing that you can do with options in a cash account is buy them long or sell covered calls. Anything else requires a margin account.

It's not a short covered call trade. It's selling two bearish call spreads. It has a margin requirement and therefore it can't be don't in a cash account. You P&L numbers are 40/160 not 40/400

Those are Citigroup preferred issues. For names and quotes, you can do a group search under "Citigroup" or you can look em up individually. There isn't a uniform syntax for symbols. CBS Marketwatch uses no space (CPRE). Quantum online uses a hyphen (C-PRE). Some, like E*Trade use periods...

Are you like one of those people who only jumps off the bridge when 10 out of 10 suggest it??? :)

My black and white two cents is that it is absurd to ask/take investment advice from strangers on the internet. The other two cents is that I would look at it as Richard sharing his opinion of the position and sharing what he would do in such circumstances. I would hope that any reader...

Odds are that the Aug options have no bid and that the legs of the Nov strangle have an ask of 5 cts each. Assuming that you could sell the Aug strikes for zero (ROFL), why mess with a 10 ct double calendar when you can have the strangle for 10 cts? - assuming that the paper trading quotes are...

There are so many things wrong with your post and very little of it has to do with it being a losing trade. 1) Never be "desperate to continue with my streak" 2) Even if there was no news pending, you can still be overpowered by unexpected news on a very strong or weak day 3)...

They explain that sh*t in option books now? Cool! :cool:

At current levels, the market only needs to drop 60% of what it dropped last year in order to exceed that drop. And isn't 60% easier to do than 100% ??? :)