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May expiry. My May RUT IC just expired worthless which is a good thing. But RUT got uncomfortably close to my short call at 1000. In the future I'm going to close my ICs if profit hits some percent of the maximum, maybe 80% or 90%. It was foolish of me to expose myself unnecessarily like...

The European settled index options don't settle in the usual way people expect. It's probably best to close these option positions the day before expiry rather than risk an adverse move you can't do anything about.

Actually if IV collapsed significantly after earnings an outright purchase of a call/put might make the most sense.

OTM flies or calendars.

Ya know, this is kind of old-fashioned but if a company has a strong move due to earnings and it's actually a good company it will probably continue to go up after that. Putting on positions *after* earnings in such a company can be profitable. Again, being old-fashioned, try reading the...

It depends on what you mean by "fair". Options are priced based on implied volatility. This is the market's prediction of the underlying's volatility in the near future. The IV of the front month options usually increases right before earnings so if you're a buyer of these options you're...

I only use backtesting to find statistical edges so I only use fixed position sizing.

Well if the world ended and there was no electricity then gold is probably a better choice. Barring the apocalypse, gold has a local reach (you have to carry it around), BTC has a global reach (electronic transmission). If you get on an airplane with $100K in gold it would trigger all sorts...

Only for exchanging with fiat. If you're directly exchanging BTC for goods and services it doesn't matter. People living in the old Soviet states did this sort of face to face money exchange all the time. It was illegal but almost unenforceable since everyone did it.

Exchanging BTC and USD can still be done in face to face transactions. An example of a web site that facilitates this is https://localbitcoins.com. There are various informal online vendors that will buy BTC and send you a debit card in exchange. Obviously you can't pick a vendor at random...

Rolled the NDX 3075/3100 June call credit spread up to 3175/3200 for 4.5 I placed the limit order at the mid but got filled instantly. I feel I screwed myself somehow. Usually my mid orders sit for a long time before they fill or I move it.

I'm detecting a theme here. The NDX 3075 June short call exceeded 25 delta yesterday so I'll be looking to roll up today. This rolling up costs me money but it's not a disaster. That said, it's really not supposed to be happening this often either. This artificial propping up of the market...

In the end all the gubment can really do is cut off the exchange with USD and drive it underground.

Interesting. Apparently DHS has *just* filed a court order to stop Dwolla from allowing MtGox customers to cash out in USD.

If they've been using customer deposits to fund their own mining then I guess I'll feel honored to have been taken by such a huge scam. I still naively expect to receive my 5 Gh/s miner in the next couple of months. And if I don't, I'm only out $150 (all of which is from mined BTC).

BFL has actually had a production line up before back when they were selling and shipping FPGA miners. They do actually have a working ASIC design and have shipped a few working units out. Their main holdup at this point is productization. With the caveat that you don't really know who to...

Frankly I have my doubts which is why I only sank $150 into the deal. The projected mining difficulty when ASIC miners really hit the market might make my payback period 1 year or more. But no one will know until these ASIC miners really start shipping.

It's all about engineering trade-offs. You can solve any algorithm on a normal CPU. CPUs are very general-purpose by design, so you trade speed and power efficiency for maximum flexibility. A graphics card (GPU) is like having hundreds of more specialized CPUs in parallel. These parallel...

Dude, do you actually trade or just spread FUD?

Rolled up the RUT June call credit spread (the call side of the IC) from 1005/1015 to 1040/1050 for a debit of 1.9.