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I like my life a little more complex than the average bear, so while I agree with letting mistakes benefit you by never forgetting them, I also like to make sure that they don't stop me from doing what I need to do. Awareness works MILES better than fear, and careful consideration much better...

Liquidity. Plus, 10% of a SPY fly doesn't add up to much unless you go for 10 contracts or better... at which point, you might as well do SPX. No. The mid is the midpoint between the bid and the ask; the nat is the last accepted bid/offer. Theoretically, hitting the nat should get you filled...

As I recall, I did about a dozen fly trades between the two. Still low frequency, AFAIC, and I could definitely benefit from exposure to a few hundred of them; my problem is that there are SO many fascinating avenues to trading that I keep getting pulled away. E.g., it just seems like getting...

Sure did - SPX takes an unpleasantly sizeable chunk out of your hide, which sucks if you're just playing around (and no, you can't do this in sim - the fills are totally unrealistic.) I recall a fly in SPY acting very similar for the same entry criteria... unfortunately, I don't remember how it...

I was trading these 3 or 4 months back along with a few friends, and we all had the same experience. We'd enter an ATM IF with $50 wings in SPXW.X a few minutes after the cash open, then put in a limit order for 8-10%. Usually took less than an hour, and since we were trying to figure out how it...

I'm not the most experienced fly trader here, so take it for what it's worth - but IME, getting good fills on flys is tough; you're not going to get filled at mid unless price/vol swing in your favor. When I was doing 0-day IFs on SPXW.X, my close order normally wouldn't fill until the price...

ITYM "repository". And I'm pretty sure OOO knew what he was writing. :)

Hey, you're still here! Good to see it. :) The kind of thing I'm thinking of is what newbies get introduced to by the likes of TastyTrades, OptionAlpha, etc.: 16D body strikes in low-volatility underlyings 45-60 days out, $1-$2 wings, close them at 3 weeks out. Booooring... but risk-defined and...

ICs are slow-moving, which avoids panicking people new to trading. They also appear to offer a steady, "safe" return - but (as you note) this comes with a cost: the returns on 16D/side ICs are pretty much never going to surpass simply buying and holding an index. Gotta admit, though: it's a...

Damn. You beat me to it while I was typing!

I'm always here for you, my child. Well, except for the posted lunch hours. And shopping. And there's the D&D game every other night, and Lucifer has this paladin who's just begging for some Old Testament-style divine retribution... Whole. Don't mind the crunch - the calcium is good for you...

Bro, I had nothing to compare it against. Hell, back then, I didn't even know if I could make a steady return - I was just ramming my head against a brick wall just to see where the chips fell; accumulating tiny bits of knowledge and just starting to build out the whole picture. Now... it's a...

I can't even tell you how encouraging that is. :) Thank you! I'm pouring my heart into it. I suspect I'm going to have to stare at a lot more options chains to get there. But I will. Yeah, I pretty much took that as implying a relatively flat skew/minimal price movement (depending on which...

Wow, that's probably the first black-and-white thing I've seen WRT flys. :) Everything else is about percentages and possibilities. Makes sense, though - thanks! Is there a situation in which an IF would be preferable to a single-side fly? I realize they're synthetically equivalent, but it...

Hey, @ironchef - I've done a number of fly trades, and made out OK, but I can't say that I have a good handle on them; my experience with them is mostly that you want to enter on a high IV, but then you want it to drop/price to stay around where it was at entry. Also, getting in and out at...

I'm confused. Is this jealousy? Did you want him for yourself? (I'm joking. Don't go hiring any goons to whack me, 'K? :) )

Nope; volatility. Technically, it's the "fudge term" in Black-Scholes that makes everything else come out right, including gamma, delta, and so on; practically, it's the amount of movement that the market is implying (via the price of that option) for that option's price. In fact, if you think...

Oh, OK - got it now. I was just confused by "1-strike" phrasing. I agree that it has more profit potential, but can't picture a situation in which a long call would have less risk than a spread; TTBOMK, less risk is what you get in return for limiting your profit potential in a spread. If you...

I assume you're talking about a $1-wide spread, right? If so, why specifically buy calls rather than sell puts? The two are synth-equivalent.

I think the term you're looking for is 'extrinsic'. In fact, you've added a bit to the loss by paying the spread again - but rolling can still make sense in some situations. At least if you don't delude yourself about it being some sort of a "fix" (which it's not.) E.g., if I'm short a put in...