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I don't see that you've achieved a higher probability of success. To extend what Mark said, all you've done is shift the bias of the butterfly to less risk to the downside, more gain if unchanged and more risk to the upside. IOW, the credit from the vertical raises the left side of the...

The SEC is requesting comments on whether to rename them 201K plans or Certified Retirement Asset Plans :)

AFAIK, if the mention of the book is OK with the management, it's OK by me. What I find interesting is: 1) I've never read a noob's post who panned the book after reading it 2) The bulk of the peeps who slam the mention of his book tend not to be helpful to those who request...

it makes sense to make money. If stops help you do that then it's a good thing.

Your story makes no sense. Exercised calls results in short stock not long stock. And even if it was a typo and you ended up long the shares, even restricted accounts are allowed to make closing equity transactions which incidentlly, reduce margin. You don't need the margin dept's permission...

On the surface, that seems reasonable. But if you look deeper, there are complications. The moment you turn the pair into a CC/CP, you mutate into disparate net deltas per side. IOW, the supposed good side's delta will be less than 1.0 but the other side will remain near 1.0 In more...

>> If I provided some numbers (2 simple positions), could you put up a pretty picture of each? << 9/18/09 Oct expiration $70 stk $3.05 Oct 70p $6.25 Oct 75p 1st position: long 140 shs, long 3 Oct 70p 2nd position: long 140 shs, long 2 Oct 75p Thx

I doubt that a dividend a month or more from now is going have much of an effect on current stock demand. It will have no effect on the pirce of the current month's options.

I'm no expert - just sharing the building block steps that I've taken :) When I first tried gamma scalping, I went with the straddle. Now I go with stock and 1 option leg . Apart from the aforementioned B/A issue, there's also the complication of 3 legs versus 2. Simpler is always better...

I think the stock is better because the B/A spread is a killer on the options. Also, you can fine tune the position's delta with odd lots of stock.

You're welcome. In addition to exploring the long option hedging, I'd tke a look at the concept of finding several attractive candidates in the same group (under and over vlued). Suppose you execute the aforementioned pair of long ABC at 50 and short XYZ at 60. Let's assume that a...

Would you be so kind and grade the various replies? :)

Will it work okay? How do you think this concept would have performed last year? I'd suggest this DCA technique only for the long term buy and hold investor who's in it for the long haul. looking to accumulate a position and willing to ride "in" the bear markets. Definitely not for traders...

OK, I volunteer. I'll under bid for buying and over offer (?) for selling. You take the other side and we'll see how we do :)

I think it's a bad idea unless you consistently identify pairs that never move on out big time and stay within inside the strike you're writing. Pairs trading is geared toward a pair that has sector correlation but not a direct price correlation. IOW, if the sector/market goes up, both...

I'm not pushing IB. They have their good points and their bad points (as all firms do). But I do like some of their recent programming upgrades. For example, they now have a feature which allows you to indicate your maximum trade size (shares and contracts) and if you place an order exceeding...

>> Yea I messed up, that's what happens when you are tired and distracted. << I find that my best mess ups here occur during slow trading days when I'm monitoring positions and posting :) >> This is closer no December options for IBM but November will do. Yep this is helped by a rise...

I don't know what the rules are but I have placed that questionable order a few times (for stock) when the B/A straddles a round dollar amount and I mistakenly didn't correct the price. For example, B/A is 15.95 x 16.05 and I'm buying. I want to be 1st in line but I don't want to pay...

So a double dagonal backspread is equivalent to an iron condor? LOLOL. I wonder how the East German judge would score that? :)

>> My limit sell on March 20 calls last night was at $11.00. These calls closed today at $9.30. Delta was about 1. So change appears to have been all direction and no volatility?? << It's all direction. If delta was 1 yesterday and is 1 today then there was no extrinsic and volatility had...