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Nice couple of days we've had this week. I'm currently long a mix of ES, NQ, and TF. I decided to hold on to my contracts after being close to the breaking point last week, so this is welcome news. The only problem is I turned them into covered calls on Monday which I priced at around 3%...

Whatever it was it seems to be fleeting, a couple of small bounces can't stop the train moving in the other direction.

There's a spike, was there news? Edit: I was a second away from capitulation on my longs, hopefully this is a reversal and not a fake out.

I have a question about rollover day. Do December options (exp Dec 16) expire before or after the rollover is taken into account? The March 12 contracts are priced 6 points less than the December 2011s, so that would make a pretty huge difference in price. If it were after I would think...

I had some 1215 calls on ES. We closed at 1213.5 so they were OOM. I think the deadline for exercising is 5:30PM EST but I'm not sure. I was half watching SPY until then. At the 4:15 close for ES it was at 121.90 and now it's at 122.11. I don't know the exact conversion because of the...

Follow up from me? I got assigned on most of my calls and bought in on the short at a loss. I lost like $800 on the stock and then sold all my options for about a $300 gain. This includes disposing of my remaining boxes so I wouldn't get assigned again. I wish I would have held them all...

Ok, I think I see. So if I get assigned tomorrow I'll have to buy GRPN to cover and I'll basically be out my whole net credit and left with long 23 calls, short 23 puts, and long 15 puts. I can sell sell back my calls for 2.15 or so and turn it into a bull put spread which probably isn't too...

I still don't think it's that bad. It's a risk free 10% profit if held to expiration, in one month. I'll have to wait to see what happens tomorrow. I'm not convinced the market makers are out to arbitrage 3 cents by buying calls below parity, at least not for new options, maybe when we're...

If I'm that guy you can rest assured I have no idea what I'm doing. I just sell puts because it seems less risky than straight up holding the futures for long periods, especially since I'm leveraged. It can't be too bad, and I've held these for around a month. I rolled some over to December...

Heh, figures we'd get a big down day before the puts I sold expire on Friday. They were looking so good too. I hope we recover in time, need to see 1260 again for max profit.

If the stock drops to 23 lets say, then if I get assigned at any point from then on it doesn't matter, because if I were forced to buy in it would be at a profit. I sold 15 calls for 9 when the stock was at 24. So no matter what I'll get a total $24 when my calls are assigned, so if the stock...

I sold 35 boxes at around .75 each, that's 2625 in profit minus around 100 in commission. I only gave up 3 cents on the calls. I can't imagine market makers are going through the trouble of adding liquidity on calls so they can reap a massive 3 cent discount on a long position of a stock they...

I decided to gamble on the "risk free" option bet. Did a 23/15 box spread for December, and a couple of other combos when I saw those with a high net credit, 35 times overall. The one I did the most of was 8.75 net credit and I lose $8 no matter what the price ends at so long as they are...

I've found that at some strikes a box spread on groupon is positive. In theory this should be a risk free profit, but it requires selling a call at what is slightly lower than intrinsic value, like 5 cents under. Will market makers break up my arbitrage by just assigning the calls instantly...

Maybe, but you would have to get assigned or liquidated in the middle of a short squeeze to be hurt. I can't really see either being that dangerous, especially if you have a long call at a much higher strike. You could buy a 35 call for pennies to cover the chance of an epic short squeeze.

So what happens if you short a call and for some reason get assigned early when the stock can't be borrowed? Can't they just buy you in at whatever the going rate is and you don't really lose anything?

Calls are less than half the premium of puts right now. You can sell a July $24 put for 8.20 and buy a July $24 call for 3.20. That's a net credit of 20% of the stock value and you get all the upside you would get if you owned the stock. That's messed up. If you also short a July $15 call...

I don't have any answers, I just have my perceptions based on my limited background. A background that started under the presumption of you can't beat the market so don't try. It's a perception I would like to change, but I need evidence to do it. I agree, and I don't want to outright...

Let me just start by saying I don't think I have any unique insights on this issue, so I'm not trying to antagonize anyone or accuse them of not being successful. I know this topic has probably been beat nearly to death, but I haven't really found much to go on yet. The question is, if you can...

I'm guessing the taxes are worse for stocks since they don't get the 60/40 split, but it's probably an insignificant factor for a casual investor playing around with a contract or two. If there's more to the taxes than the 60/40 issue I'd like to know about it since this is the first year I've...